4 Nov
2019
4 Nov
'19
10:10 p.m.
On 4 Nov 2019 15:27 -0500, from crossd(a)gmail.com (Dan Cross):
On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 1:58 PM Bakul Shah
<bakul(a)bitblocks.com> wrote:
In the 1984 movie _2010_, it seems using a tapeworm was more of a
standard, if unusual, procedure for solving a very different problem.
Copying from
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/2010:_The_Year_We_Make_Contact#Dialogue>
I am surprised no one mentioned *The Shockwave
Rider *by John Brunner,
published in 1975. Excerpt:
In the 1983 movie "Wargames", at the very end as the staff at NORAD
desperately try and disable the rogue artificial intelligence hell-bent on
starting World War III, at one point they make a suggestion to send a
"tapeworm" into the system", but it's judged too risky. Dr. Chandra: I've erased all of HAL's memory
from the moment the
trouble started.
Dr. Vasili Orlov: The 9000 series uses holographic memories, so
chronological erasures would not work.
Dr. Chandra: I made a tapeworm.
Dr. Walter Curnow: You made a what?
Dr. Chandra: It's a program that's fed into a system that will hunt
down and destroy any desired memories.
Dr. Floyd: Wait... do you know why HAL did what he did?
Dr. Chandra: Yes. It wasn't his fault.
I also suggest to migrate this part of the discussion to COFF as it
has very little to do with UNIX history per se.
--
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael(a)kjorling.se
“The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)