Referring to Craig's rather interesting comparison between Vernor Vinge's "True Names" and the movie "Matrix", i wish to add :

In the movie Matrix people were living in a virtual world(computer program or the Matrix) which they thought was real and faced a life threat more in the virtual world which would have eventually effected their real world life while in Vernor Vinge's True Names
Pollack lived in the real world and used his pseudo identity 'Mr. Slippery' in the virtual world. He (and others like him like Mailman)faced threat more in the real world than in the virtual where they merrily hid behind a pseudo identity until they were discovered.

A great comparison Craig!!!

I have to say Craig's analysis has been insightfull.The book itself has a lot of parallels with the cult movie Matrix I couldn't help transcribing the characters in the novel to the ones in the movie , The Federal agents =Agents Mailman = Merovingian I couldn't help equating Slippery and Ery to Neo and Trinity but I guess I would carrying the comparison too far.All said and done its an excellent Sci-fi book considering the fact it came out even before IBM came out with its PC and BBSes (precursors of Internet) were yet to take hold.Although Vernor Vinge doesn't scale up to HG Wells or Arthur C Clarke (Sci-fi writers of yore) the book has its moments of futuristic euphoria.

Titiksha has come up with a very good point about the difference between the American culture and the Indian culture. Truely people out here are free - spirited and more of extrovert kinds. I realized this when i aksed one of my class mates 'how the exam went' after the final. I was expecting the answer to be 'pretty good', 'not bad' or something of that sort. But to my surprise, he gave me a whole explanation of how there were problems between his parents and the court problems and thats why he couldnt study for the finals. This was very unusual to me as we never talk out so openly to strangers back in India. But I really like the honest and sincere attitude of the people of USA.

Jason's concern about the personal information falling into the hands of people outside USA is genuine. This is a very important matter and it is the company's responsibility to protect our information since the 'offshored call centres' are a 'part' of the companies out here whom we trust completely where our personal information is concerned. Eg of outsourcing or offshore projects, what I have read and understood is that the management of the company who decides to offshore their project visit the company beforehand and are aware of the facilities they will provide. They also sign a contract with the outsourcing company that their data will be secure and not used anywhere else, which is a legal contract. Every country has its legal policies which restrict the misuse of anyone's personal information and so in whichever part of the world this company may be, it will have to follow the rules and regulations of using any data decided in the legal contract which will contain the same severity as in United States.

Krishnadev, I don't think that equating Mr. Slippery and Ery to Neo and Trinity is going to far at all - it's a good call! Their interactions, along with them being in a 'Matrix-esque' world, is what initially made me recognize the parallels between 'True Names' and 'Matrix'. The similarities are so numerous, that I wouldn't be surprised if the Wachowski brothers read 'True Names' before writing their popular trilogy.