True Names

True Names is a science fiction novella by the American writer Vernor Vinge, first published in 1981. It is one of the earliest stories to work out a complete idea of cyberspace, which later became central to cyberpunk, and it brought Vinge to wider attention.

The hackers in it call themselves warlocks, and they are early adopters of a full-immersion virtual reality system known as the Other Plane. They break into systems around the world for profit or for curiosity, and the one rule they all keep is that true names stay secret even from one another, because a warlock whose identity is known can be forced to work for whoever has it, or killed outright in real life. The United States government, which the warlocks call the Great Enemy, is one of the parties trying to find out who they are.

The protagonist is a warlock known in the Other Plane as Mr. Slippery, and the story starts with his real name being discovered. The novella was a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula awards and was given the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 2007, and a 2001 collection of essays about it included pieces by Marvin Minsky, Richard Stallman and others.