A. Townsend Marshall

Paperless A. Townsend Marshall

Millions of individuals depend on the internet for information, communication, commerce and the conduct of personal business. Corporations depend on the internet for business-to-business and global intra and inter-business functions. The internet has become foundational to our lives. There is hardly a month that goes by that we don't become aware of computer viruses, internet scams or business frauds and failures. How about WikiLeaks? Paperless, by A. Townsend Marshall, shows how eerily plausible it would be to compromise the internet and take undetected control of it. Maybe Assange read Paperless. The novel is fiction, but . . . A computer scientist and doctoral candidate, Rich Fuller, proposes as his thesis a study to uncover weaknesses and propose remedies to the evolving internet. He is rebuffed by his doctoral committee and drops out of academia. The disenfranchised computer scientist sets out to prove his thesis by developing sophisticated software that exploits the internet and any business or individual who transacts over it. Fuller uses his ideas to develop highly successful businesses and commercial computer applications. Al Matheson is a happily retired IT executive who also had met the challenges of suspect business practices over the years. He is lured by out of retirement by an old friend to 'lead just one last challenging project'. The project is to implement Rich Fuller's so called commercial systems in a leading-edge manufacturing company. Success is mandatory for this company's future. A team of consultants, led by Al Matheson, is beset with unexplainable anomalies when they try to implement Rich Fuller's commercial packages. Their pursuit for answers leads the team down a winding path of personal devastation and murder. Technological assault on the world's most critical systems ensues. Could it happen now or in the future? Paperless shows just how and with a chilling conclusion as to what may lay ahead. Maybe the Assanges of the world are laying the way and a harbinger of cyber terror yet to play out.