Re:Other old examples of net vision? (Score 2)

Shockwave Rider: A cyberpunk story from the days before "cyberpunk" was a concept was written by John Brunner. The book goes for about $5.99 or $7.00 in Canada, with an ISBN of 0345324315. Scifi.com has a review of this book you may find interesting.

Nickie Haflinger has a unique talent: He's a phone phreak, someone who can manipulate the global data network using an ordinary veephone. And in a world where everything but the odd "paid-avoidance zone" is tied to the net, he's a dangerous man. More than one man, actually, since his ability -- combined with a pilfered high-level government code -- allows him to change identities at will.

Great book. Another review is here, here.

A good deal of the time Science Fiction only gets part of the future right. John Brunner, at least in terms of the setting of the future, is very correct. His book foresaw the internet when most science fiction writers were still imagining big supercomputers acting as separate entities, programmed by tons of punch cards. However the pessimistic view he takes of the effect of this new future I find unbelievable. But then again, what do I know, this essay might have well caused someone to experience information overload :-)

To answer your question about tapeworms, in 1980 researchers at Xerox PARC dubbed the first self-replicating, self-propagating computer program a "worm", after the "tapeworms" Nickie used to erase his previous identities.

Hope this helps.