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"For the sciences, the way to change science's perception of things is to wait until all the old farts have died off."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Net Shutdown Worm | ||
| A tapeworm designed to shut down a nationwide network in the event of national emergency. |
In the novel, much use is made of the idea of a computer worm (or tapeworm); Brunner originated the term as well as the idea.
Interestingly, computer tapeworms are not just used for malicious purposes. For example, the government has populated the 'net with a very special tapeworm code developed at a place code-named Electric Skillet.
| This is indeed the father and mother of all tapeworms. It's of a type known as parthenogenetic. If you're acquainted with contemporary data-processing jargon, you'll have noticed how much use it makes of terminology derived from the study of living animals. And with reason. Not for nothing is a tapeworm called a tapeworm. It can be made to breed. Most can only do so if they are fertilized; that's to say, if they're interfered with from outside. For example, the worm that prevents the Fedcomps from monitoring calls to Hearing Aid, and the similar but larger one that was released at Weychopee—Electric Skillet—to shut down the net in the event of enemy occupation: those are designed to lay dormant until tampered with. That's true of all phage-type worms. |
| From The Shockwave Rider,
by John Brunner. Published by Harper and Row in 1975 Additional resources -
|
It's also interesting to note that the earliest use of real-life computer tapeworms was beneficial; it searched a small network looking for computers with idle time.
Read more about John Brunner's computer tapeworm.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Shockwave Rider
More Ideas
and Technology by John Brunner
Tech news articles related to The Shockwave Rider
Tech news articles related to works by John Brunner
Net Shutdown Worm-related
news articles:
- CIA's 'Silent Horizon' Internet War Games
- The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 Could Shut Down Your Internet
- Egypt Drops Dime, Pulls Plug On Internet
- Does China Have An Internet Kill Switch?
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Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
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'The planes flew continuously, twenty-four hours a day...'
'It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.'
'...a single perfectly level platform, which rose so high above the water that it was not splashed by the waves.'
'Is an extra-factual memory that convincing?' Quail asked.
Megastructures have repair robots, which have repair robots, ad infinitum.
‘She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew...’
Perfect for clot-busting in the human brain. No Raquel Welch and no lasers, though.
