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From: eric@snark.UUCP ("Eric S. Raymond")
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: UUCP to RUSSIA
Message-ID: <8710290020.AA04078@snark.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 00:20:00 EST
Article-I.D.: snark.8710290020.AA04078
Posted: Thu Oct 29 00:20:00 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Nov-87 05:57:49 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 29

Barry Shein lost his temper (again) and flamed at the 'radical right' for
flooding info-futures with drivel in re UUCP to RUSSIA. He has a point.
Some of them are quite as thickheaded on the subject as their leftist
mirror images. The whole line of argument that fears 'technology theft'
and contamination of our vital bodily fluids via the Net is strictly
from knee-jerk, good for laughs but not much else. No, the Reds are
not going to come roaring in over our phone wires at 9600 baud...

As a libertarian, I think UUCP to the Soviet Union is a great idea. Let's
face it, people -- they ain't gonna get any critical technical information
from it, and some of their people might have their eyes opened. The KGB have
enough active disinformation channels in this country's mass media to make
net.propaganda pretty pointless, so I'm not bothered about the other direction
either. And I'm generally in favor of more open and more non-state-controlled
communications.

This doesn't keep me from being appalled at the muddy-mindedness of people
who think, for example, that the quaint Soviet habit of requiring all
typewriters to be registered with the KGB is the moral equivalent of auto
registration in the U.S., or that a UUCP links to Soviet universities will
magically vanish or even significantly affect the level of tension between
the planet's two hugest welfare/warfare states.

Let's get real. I'd *like* the net to be that important, but it isn't yet.
My two cents worth is: let's do it, but let's not expect the world from it.

      Eric S. Raymond
      UUCP:  {{seismo,ihnp4,rutgers}!cbmvax,sdcrdcf!burdvax,vu-vlsi}!snark!eric
      Post:  22 South Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355    Phone: (215)-296-5718