[ih] Fiction->History

[Larry Sheldon]

Been a while since I have asked a completely off-the-wall question—if 
this is another one, let it quietly die uncommented-upon, since it is 
not about “Internet History”.  But I do find it interesting in that 
context because it appears, in a way, to be an example of fiction 
predicts (or drives?) fact.

In 1977 there was a book titled “The Adolescence of P-1” (Thomas Joseph 
Ryan) about a guy that wrote a program (“The System”) that Wikipedia 
calls a “virus” but I think of as a Morris-class “worm” that takes of 
all of the computers in the world (all 18 of them?).

At the time, I thought “this is too far-fetched” and “I know quite a lot 
of about one main-frame operating system (Exec 8) and that would not be 
possible” and assumed the other two or three main-frame operating 
systems would be similarly resistant.

But the “networking” (had the term been invented yet) then seemed 
reasonable.

But the big attack on believability was in the dependence of the plot on 
armies of system administrators that never cross-checked anything, that 
mindlessly approved bills for payment; that left doors unlocked and 
open—surely no computer center existed with such lax controls.

But the part about the book that intrigues me most is the crude 
primitive nature of the networking described along with the recognition 
that I was a part of systems that used those very communications methods 
and thought they (1.3 megabit dial-ups and stuff) were surely as good as 
it was going to get.

So.  Finally, we get to my question.  While I know that there is lots of 
television comedy material poking hard-earned ridicule at kids cracking 
computers, has anybody looked in a scholarly way at 
fiction-that-becomes-fact in the world of networked computers?

-- 
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal)