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"I've been very obsessive about writing science fiction for far too many years. Anyone with an ounce of sense would have given up years ago."
- Charles Stross
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| Retaliatory Tapeworm (Counter-Worm) | ||
| Using computers to deliberately damage another person's reputation and well-being. |
While impersonating a minister, computer genius Nickie Haflinger happened to offend a certain Shad Fluckner, an employee of Anti-Trauma, Inc. When Haflinger woke up in the morning to find his power out, he took steps to discover the source of the problem.
| A sweet recorded voice told him his phone credit was in abeyance pending judgment in the lawsuit that was apt to end with all his assets being garnisheed...
Lawsuit? What lawsuit?... Then the answer dawned on him, and he almost laughed. Fluckner had resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the store and turned loose in the continental net a self-perpetuating tapeworm, probably headed by a denuciation group "borrowed" from a major corporation, which would shunt itself from one nexus to another every time his credit-code was punched into a keyboard. It could take days to kill a worm like that, and sometimes weeks. He sent a retaliatory worm chasing Fluckner's. That should take care of the immediate problem in three to thirty minutes, depending on whether or not he beat the inevitable Monday morning circuit overload... According to recent report, there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net now, the machines had been instructed to give them low priority unless they related to a medical emergency. |
| Technovelgy from The Shockwave Rider,
by John Brunner. Published by Harper and Row in 1975 Additional resources -
|
For more information, see the article on the term tapeworm, which Brunner is widely regarded as having originated.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Shockwave Rider
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and Technology by John Brunner
Tech news articles related to The Shockwave Rider
Tech news articles related to works by John Brunner
Retaliatory Tapeworm (Counter-Worm)-related
news articles:
- 'Webtribution' Fact And Fiction
- Software Agents Fight Unseen On The Web
- Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests
| Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet |
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
| Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests |
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'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...'
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...'
'Jason had been guiding the caravan of cars as usual...'
"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
