Paul Di Filippo's "Wikiworld": Description of some sessions of a multi-player computer game

There is only one significant point this otherwise jargon-filled & unremarkable juvenile story makes: it pays to be paranoid about imported machinery when your job is national security.

There are scenes where a country shuts down another's machines remotely & electronically by using manufacturer's backdoors. During a "trade war"; I wondered what a real war would be like!

Exactly the point sometimes discussed by security people in India - & often hijacked by anti-import lobby. If news reports in India are to be believed, this trapdoor-possibility is also an issue in China. And this appeared to be a significant issue with US government too, going by the reports about their discussions during the sale of IBM's PC business to Lenovo some years back. I suppose the issue must bother security people elsewhere too. And I can see why.

While the story doesn't really say what it is describing is a game rather than real future world, game interpretation is the only one where the story appears sane to me.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Fact sheet.

"Wikiworld", short story, review
First published: Lou Anders (Ed)'s "Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge", February 2007.
Rating: C