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From: fjg@ihuxj.UUCP (Frank Greco)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: RE: Russia on the Net
Message-ID: <462@ihuxj.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Apr-84 15:53:29 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxj.462
Posted: Tue Apr 10 15:53:29 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Apr-84 07:09:46 EST
References: <56@infopro.UUCP> <1814@ut-sally.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
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For all you netizens who can't appreciate a joke for its humor
and must debate its theme, consider the following:
    
The VAXEN report was perpetrated by KGB agents operating undercover
as admission officers at a well known Big Ten university.
The perpetrators were part of a larger espionage ring whose
primary mission, known to the US intelligence
community for some time, was to both monitor the caliber of
student entering American universities and colleges, and to
facilitate the infiltration of the American academic community 
by KGB agents posing as graduate students seeking admission
to the universities.
(The espionage ring was so entrenched as to have had financial
aid officers in place at some very prestigious institutions.)

The perpetrators had a secondary mission.
This secondary mission consisted of monitoring the broadcasts
of local radio and television stations, and keeping abreast of
the contents of newpapers, popular magazines, trade journals,
and other forms of public communication.
In other words, the agents were responsible for keeping
abreast with current events as seen through the average American's
eyes.
The agents were also responsible for interpreting this information
vis-a-vis personal relationships developed under cover.
The agents were to report their findings indirectly to Moscow
via Russian embassies in the United States on a regular basis.
  
The VAXEN hoax fell under the auspices of this second mission.
The perpetrators were ostensibly low key university users with
general network priviledges. Covertly, they were KGB agents on
a mission.
The perpetrators had been monitoring the network, a
form of public communication, for some time.
The perpetrators planted the VAXEN article to test the
gullibility of network users and to test the security of their covers
on the network.
The perpetrators enlisted the aid of a KGB agent posing as
a computer science Master's student to dummy up the network path name.
Unfortunately for the KGB, this agent was a double agent!