From: Peter Trei <trei@zipnet.net>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 07:03:59 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Life imitates art (InfoWar, Sunday Times article)
Message-ID: <199606261626.MAA19023@zip0.zipnet.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Winn Schwartau is much too modest.

Following up on the alleged info-ransom attacks on European financial
institutions, I've tracked down his entertaining fascinating resume
at:

http://www.homecom.com/people/schwartau-frame.html

This led me to the most amazing discovery: Winn predicted the
technologies used in the alleged attacks at least three years ago, in
the self-published science fiction novel "Terminal Compromise." The text
of this prescient work can be found on the web at:

http://www.inform.umd.edu:8080/Educational_Resources/ReadingRoom/Fiction/TerminalCompromise

I won't quote from it (there are dire warnings against doing so in the
intro), but here are some of the elements in which alleged real life is
so closely imitating Winn's art:

EMP bomb attacks against financial institutions	chapter 11     
"HERF" guns (described but un-named)		chapter 16
info-ransom demands against large corporations	chapter 17
... and many others.

If I had predicted the future so well and so far ahead, I'd be shouting
it from the rooftops, and use the strength of the reputation I'd
instantly establish to set up shop as a professional prognosticator (for
fat fees).

I wonder why Winn hasn't bothered to bring this to our attention - and
I hope that Peter Warren and the editors of the London Sunday Times
have heard about his astounding foresight.

Winn, my hat's off to you, and my $7 "shareware fee" will be in mail
as soon as I finish the book!

Peter Trei
ptrei@acm.org