Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!Bakin@HI-MULTICS From: Bakin%HI-MULTICS@sri-unix.UUCP Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: "Press Enter []" by John Varley Message-ID: <379@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Thu, 29-Mar-84 22:45:00 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.379 Posted: Thu Mar 29 22:45:00 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 1-Apr-84 07:09:35 EST Lines: 38 From: Jerry Bakin The latest "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine" (May '84) has a short story by John Varley called "Press Enter[]" This is a very reasonable account of a software hacker (who gives himself the name Kluge) who over a 30 year period has erased himself from the world. Varley admits not anyone can do this, this hacker was in the business since the fifties, and installed most of the systems involved. (Setting up Trojan Horses, or acquiring knowledge of their weaknesses.) The story is not about Kluge however, it is about Kluge's neighbor and a Vietnamese woman from CALTECH. Kluge has committed suicide, and left everything to the neighbor. The suicide note is written as a computer program, and explains that the fifty gallon drum of drugs in the bedroom was for his personal use, not for retail. LAPD isn't impressed, and fearing murder and not suicide, retains the woman to make what she can out of his system. The dialogue is handled well, with the exception that the woman obviously had a bad encounter with the MIT hackers dictionary. Varley uses this as a device to impress the reader with how much the woman must know about computers, but that's alright, because the jargon is used in the proper places, and usually is a method the woman uses to snow the cops or FBI. Its a fairly well written story, not hard-sf, but plausible, and makes proper use of the adjective brain-damaged. My one concern is with the jargon: I haven't wandered around CALTECH much, do techies really use 95% of the hackers dictionary in every breadth? For that matter do the people at MIT? Jerry. P.S. The intro mentions that M__i_l_l_e_n_i_u_m will soon be a major motion picture. Does anyone know anything more about this? Will Robert Redford be the FAA investigator? Who will play Louise? BC?