piet@mcvax.UUCP (Piet Beertema) (02/06/84)
Taken from net.general: >.....until the Russian government abandons its policy of >severely restricting the flow of information and people into, >out of and through the Soviet Union. OK, I have a proposal: - right now the USA will stop their policy of not delivering computers to the SU; - they will offer say 50 VAXen for installation on their universities and highschools; - an equal number of autodiallers will come with those machines (perhaps the European electronics industry may drop in here); - Bell Labs will provide them with Unix(tm), including uucp AND news; - as for other European countries, mcvax will act as the gateway between the SU net and the USA net. After all, isn't it by virtue of computers that this whole network exists? And drop you silly arguments that they will use them only for military puposes. Or are you so naive to believe that they can't make weapons/ missile control systems of their own? -- Piet Beertema CWI (Center for Math. & Comp. Science), Amsterdam ...{decvax,philabs}!mcvax!piet
robert@erix.UUCP (Robert Virding) (02/07/84)
> After all, isn't it by virtue of computers that this whole network exists? > And drop your silly arguments that they will use them only for military > puposes. Or are you so naive to believe that they can't make weapons/ > missile control systems of their own? The point is that they HAVE difficulty in making modern (as modern as the west) weapon/missile control systems of their own. Why else would they be trying to smuggle in western computer technology? And what has giving them some vaxen to do with the fact that they have, in principle, a closed border? Will it open it? The issue here is not just allowing people OUT but also allowing people IN. I can travel freely around the whole of western europe barely having to use a passport, but if I go east things immediately become more difficult with visas, fixed travel plans, etc. How will giving them computers fix this? Robert Virding.
renner@uiucdcs.UUCP (renner ) (02/08/84)
#R:mcvax:-567800:uiucdcs:29200086:000:1651 uiucdcs!renner Feb 7 20:13:00 1984 /***** uiucdcs:net.politics / mcvax!piet / 4:12 am Feb 7, 1984 */ > OK, I have a proposal: > - right now the USA will stop their policy of not delivering computers to > the SU; > - they will offer say 50 VAXen for installation on their universities and > highschools; > - an equal number of autodiallers will come with those machines (perhaps > the European electronics industry may drop in here); > - Bell Labs will provide them with Unix(tm), including uucp AND news; > - as for other European countries, mcvax will act as the gateway between > the SU net and the USA net. Effects of this proposed plan: - The 50 computers are distributed to projects that suit the Soviet leadership. Most of these will be military in nature. Perhaps two or three will go to "genuine" research projects. - The autodialers and modems are stored in a warehouse somewhere. Or perhaps they will be used to provide computer access for trusted leaders. (Their transmissions will be monitored anyway.) Most certainly they will not be used to connect a large, decentralized computer network. There is NO chance that there will be an uncensored connection to the free-world nets. > And drop you silly arguments that they will use them only for military > puposes. Or are you so naive to believe that they can't make weapons/ > missile control systems of their own? Perhaps they can. But in fact US technology figures prominently in what they have produced. It was US technology that made the inertial guidance systems for their new MIRVed ICBMs possible. So who's being naive? Scott Renner {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (02/10/84)
================
OK, I have a proposal:
- right now the USA will stop their policy of not delivering computers to
the SU;
- they will offer say 50 VAXen for installation on their universities and
highschools;
- an equal number of autodiallers will come with those machines (perhaps
the European electronics industry may drop in here);
- Bell Labs will provide them with Unix(tm), including uucp AND news;
- as for other European countries, mcvax will act as the gateway between
the SU net and the USA net.
After all, isn't it by virtue of computers that this whole network exists?
And drop you silly arguments that they will use them only for military
puposes. Or are you so naive to believe that they can't make weapons/
missile control systems of their own?
--
Piet Beertema
================
They clearly CAN make their own computers, but apparently they didn't
start making them very enthusiastically or particularly well until
the US started prohibiting computer export to the East Bloc. According
to an article in Physics Today by someone who regularly went on a
Russian exchange program, they used to use mainly DEC equipment, but
after the embargo started, the Russian equipment quickly became much better
and much more in quantity. What the embargo has done is to encourage
the Russian (not East German) computer industry to come up to date.
Is this the result that was intended?
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmtakt@mcnc.UUCP (Amit Thakur) (02/17/84)
or, we could ship them some PDP's instead of VAXen. surely their technology is advanced enough that they would not be getting any new technology? one problem though: all calls to and from the soviet union must go through an operator. an automatic system was installed for the 1980 olympics, but has since been disconnected because of objections by the kgb that there was insufficient manpower to monitor international calls. i suppose a (soviet) operator would censor incoming (and outgoing) traffic. maybe we could donate a few digital switches (4ESS,5ESS) and some optical disk drives so they could store previous articles. of course, phone line quality would have to increase quite a bit such that bit error rate was not too high. an AI program to translate between russian and english (and vice versa) would be nice also. i imagine that most of the articles submitted by russians to netnews would be from 'anonymous' or 'games' or somebody like that. maybe the 4ESS and 5ESS are too advanced. i'm sure they're just as good for military communications as they are for POTS (plain old telephone service). i think the best way to decrease tensions with the russkies is to encourage trade between the countries. sell them as many consumer goods as they can buy. build plants that produce washers and dryers and refrigerators and hair dryers and so on. then they will need generators to produce all that electricity. we could start small by producing (in the soviet union, so that hard currency problems are reduced) chewing gum and bubble gum. move on to nerf balls and frisbees. what russian child would not want a frisbee? how could they possibly believe that americans are evil if they produce such nifty things? they maybe they'll get a sneaky feeling in the back of the mind that capitalism and uncle sam are not so bad after all. maybe this feeling will grow over a few generations, so that after a couple of centuries (if both countries are not atomic dust by then) maybe things will be better. am i too optimistic? am i reinventing the wheel? akt at ...decvax!mcnc!akt
wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler) (02/17/84)
956@mcnc.UUCP> Bring the russians to their knees. Send them UNIX and a 4B. They will soon be begging for mercy.