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From: dlawyer@balboa.eng.uci.edu (David Lawyer)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,talk.politics.soviet
Subject: The Russians are coming (to the usenet)
Keywords: Russians, ICC
Message-ID: <1405@orion.cf.uci.edu>
Date: 3 Feb 89 09:09:55 GMT
References: see subjects USSR .... and ICC ... in comp.misc
Sender: news@orion.cf.uci.edu
Reply-To: dlawyer@balboa.eng.uci.edu (David Lawyer)
Organization: University of California at Irvine.  Electrical Engineering
Lines: 24

I'm told that the (Soviet) ICC (International Computer Club) is
currently making arrangements to obtain a news feed.  So you may expect
Russians (and other nationalities from the USSR) to be online in the
near future.  There are non-Soviet members of the ICC as well as Soviet
members including both individuals and organizations.  Organizations
include Soviet banks, engineering colleges, etc.

It has been alleged that it is against the law in the USSR for an
ordinary citizen to own a computer printer.  I am very sceptical as to
the truth of this statement and perhaps when the Russians are on we can
find out about this.  If it is true, we should try to do something
about it.  I infer that many people on the net are not up to date on
recent events and changes in the USSR and hopefully having them on the
net will help.

Note that there have recently been high level visits between military
leaders of the USA and the USSR so in light of present conditions I
don't think that many military nodes on the net will object.

Just as there are a wide range of opinions, and misunderstandings in
the USA concerning the USSR, the same is true for the USSR concerning
the USA.  There are even some Russian who think the USA is better than
it actually is and conversely.  There is going to be a big language
problem since most Russians don't know English very well (if at all).