Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff From: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: I'm pro Russian Keywords: Soviet, UUCP network Message-ID: <7961@dasys1.UUCP> Date: 26 Nov 88 22:16:07 GMT References: <192@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk> <2326@cbnews.ATT.COM> Reply-To: tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) Organization: Independent Users Guild Lines: 66 In article <2326@cbnews.ATT.COM> lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM (Lawrence V. Cipriani) writes: >So who exactly is going to be reading USENET in the Soviet Union. Joe >Dissident? Or a member in good standing of the Communist Party? Who >do you think is allowed to have a ham radio in the Soviet Union? Only >someone who is ideologically correct, that's who. Who do you think reads USENET in the US - Dennis Banks of AIM and the political prisoners of the Lexington Women's Unit? No, it's computing community types by and large. Sorry, that's just the nature of the net. Bridging it to the USSR would not be for the purpose of bringing rec.sport.auto to the Gulag, it would be for exchanging insights on computing with folks just like us (modulo differing cultural parameters) over there. >Still, the exchange from a USENET feed to the SU would be an interesting >experiment. I'm sure they would like to participate in discussions with >immigrants (i.e. escapees) from the SU in talk.politics.soviet. Hah! As fragile as this link is likely to be, if you think some CS prof in Kiev is going to jeopardize his access by getting into political arguments with decadent Westerners you have another think coming. In fact, just to keep temptation at a minimum, I would hope that Ambassador Crunch would not gateway t.p.s or similar powderkeg groups. >Why make it easier for Soviets to have access to technical information >or assistance? The answer lies in which Soviets we're talking about. Look -- someone in the computing arm of the GRU who wants to know about the latest expert system from Stanford, or how to debug an 8250 UART, probably has all the technical resources he needs to find out. He doesn't need Usenet, and though I'm sure digests are available to Soviet intelligence (courtesy our European gateways if nothing else -- flip those mattresses back over, folks!), it doesn't strike me as likely they pay all that much attention except for amusement. (Secure areas of Arpanet are another matter, and I offer no opinion in that regard.) But now consider another kind of Soviet - a senior at a technical school in Leningrad, say, who has been hacking away at his own PC or his school's for several years, has some astonishing neat little programs he's passed around locally, and is dying to know about what the rest of the world is up to. When he has a question, he doesn't have the nice GRU Library to browse through. He only knows what he can figure out himself, plus whatever six month old popular press magazines have been brought into the country and handed around. To him, Usenet would be an unbelievable godsend. And to us, having him on the net would be an unparallelled source of edification and amusement. This is the Soviet we want to give access to technical information, not his well-endowed counterparts in the government who don't need it anyway. > How will a USENET connection enhance freedom in the SU? >I'm not being facecious, these questions deserve some attention. --->t That it enhance freedom per se in the USSR ought not to be a requirement for the bridge to be established; there are benefits to both sides even if freedom is left at present levels as a result. Nevertheless, if one particularly wishes to enhance Soviet freedom, I believe this will contribute in a small way. Information itself is freedom, and empowerment. We need only establish that access is indeed being extended to that tech school senior in my example above, and the boost to Soviet freedom will be assured. -- Tom Neff UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff "None of your toys CIS: 76556,2536 MCI: TNEFF will function..." GEnie: TOMNEFF BIX: t.neff (no kidding)