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From: zrm@eddie.MIT.EDU (Zigurd R. Mednieks)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: UUCP - USSR
Message-ID: <7213@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 20-Oct-87 11:01:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: eddie.7213
Posted: Tue Oct 20 11:01:47 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 21-Oct-87 20:36:02 EDT
References: <8710200932.AA00888@violet.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: zrm@eddie.MIT.EDU (Zigurd R. Mednieks)
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 23

The posters proposing a UUCP link with the Soviet Union are more than
a little naive about the state of computing and information
interchange in the Soviet Union. ALL means of mass dissemination of
information are tightly controlled. Xerox machines are a bigger threat
to security than any single state secret, and are accordingly
controlled. The same, I expect, would go for computer printers, floppy
disks and floppy media, etc.

The short of it is that you might be able to get a link to some
research institute set up (if you can get them to acknowledge the
existence of their ill-gotten VAX and Unix system!) but your impact on
the information available to anyone beyond the academicians they trust
to travel in the West will be nil. The net benefit will be to Soviet
intelligence gathering and analysis.

I would oppose such a link at this time. The proposals I have seen in
this newsgroup have all the marks of amateur diplomacy: an agreement
of any sort is preferable to no agreement even if it gives a dangerous
party an advantage. The goal of wider dissemination of information
should be met before such an intelligence boon is granted to the
Soviets.

-Zigurd