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"I forged a concept which is relatively simple and possibly unique in theology, and that is, the irrational is the primordial stratum of the universe."
- Philip K. Dick
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| Piggyback-Slurp Terminal | ||
| Interception of a live data stream using an interposed terminal. |
I can't think of an earlier description of this idea in science fiction.
| But now the potential drawbacks loomed large before Travis; his worst fears were confirmed. Once you put a line over two thousand miles from Houston to Greenbelt, you begged for a piggyback data slurp. Somewhere between Texas and Maryland someone had inserted a terminal linkup-probably in the carrier telephone lines-and had begun to slurp out data on a piggyback terminal. This was the form of industrial espionage they most feared.
A piggyback-slurp terminal tapped in between two legitimate terminals, monitoring the back and forth transmissions. After a time, the piggyback operator knew enough to begin making transmissions on line, slurping out data from both ends, pretending to be GSFC to Houston, and Houston to GSFC. The piggyback terminal could continue to function until one or both legitimate terminals realized that they were being slurped. Now the question was: how much data had been slurped out in the last seventy-two hours? |
| Technovelgy from Congo,
by Michael Crichton. Published by Vintage Books in 1980 Additional resources -
|
The first big-time computer security breach that I remember was probably the 1986–1987 KGB-related hacking incident known as the "Hanover Hackers".
Compare to the computer virus from The Scarred Man (1970) by Gregory Benford, the computer tapeworm from The Shockwave Rider (1975) by John Brunner and the network monitoring detection in The Dosadi Experiment (1977) by Frank Herbert.
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'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
