The most controversial provision of the New Warfare Act actual y requires L-PRACGs to leave security "trapdoors" in their members' OCHRE systems that are only accessible to the central government. The goal was to standardize weapons systems and prevent an escalating technology war. This provision drew (and continues to draw) public outcry and scorn, with libertarian activists cal ing it "legalized slavery to the Defense and Wel ness Council."

Few L-PRACGs to date actu al y comply with this law. Thus far, the Defense and Wel ness Council has not sought to enforce it-although this may be because the Council's weapons systems are stil effective enough to overcome most private programming defenses anyway.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

The author would like to thank the fol owing individuals for their editorial contributions to this book: Lou Anders, Bruce Bortz, Cindy Blank-Edelman, Jerome Edelman, Deanna Hoak, and Philip Mansour.

For their contributions in publicizing and promoting his work, the author would like to thank: John Joseph Adams, Paul Goat Al en, Lou Anders, Matthew Arnold, Eric Beck, Rob Bedford, Carrie Blakeway, Darrel and Marsha Blakeway, Cindy and David Blank-Edelman, the good folks at Borderlands Books, Bruce Bortz, Tobias Buckel , Paul Cornel , El en Datlow, the other bloggers at DeepGenre, Michael de Gennaro, Thomas Doyle, Jerome and Barbara Edelman, Deborah and Steve Edelman-Blank, Kate El iott, Marc and Kathy Estafanous, Nat Forgotson, Brent Garland, Denise Iger, Matthew Jarpe, Katharine Kerr, Mindy Klasky, Rick Kleffel, Mary Robinette Kowal, George Mann and the folks at Solaris Books, Philip and Erinn Mansour, Jill Maxick, Ian McDonald, Eugene Myers, Steven Oliverez, Cat Rambo, Paul Raven, Chris Roberson, Suzanne Rosin, Nick Sagan, Rob Sawyer, John Scalzi, the other authors at SFNovelists.com, Kevin Smokier, Tim Spalding and the folks at LibraryThing, Peter Watts, Andrew Wheeler, and Sean Wil iams.

A special thank you to everyone at Pyr, especial y Lou Anders, Peggy Deemer, and Jil Maxick.

Final thanks go to Victoria Blakeway Edelman, who in addition to helping out with al of the above, made the author take out Ferris from this book too.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

DAVID LOUIS E D E L M A N is a Web designer, programmer, and journalist. He lives with his wife, Victoria, near Washington, DC.

Over the past twelve years, Mr. Edelman has programmed Web sites for the US Army and the FBI, taught software to the US Congress and the World Bank, written articles for the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, and directed the marketing departments of biometric and e-commerce companies.

His first novel, Infoquake, was nominated for the John W. Campbel Memorial Award for Best Novel. Barnes & n.o.ble cal ed the book "the love child of Donald Trump and Vernor Vinge" and named it the Top SF Novel of 2006. Mr.

Edelman's short fiction has also been featured in the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume Two. He is a member of the popular DeepGenre and SFNovelists blogs.

Mr. Edelman was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1971 and grew up in Orange County, California. He received a BA in creative writing and journalism from Johns Hopkins University in 1993.

HOW TO CONTACT THE AUTHOR.

E-mail:

Web site: http://www.davidlouisedelman.com.

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/p/David_Louis.

_Edelman/507439981.