CORNWELL@IUBACS.BITNET (Rubbles? no, WRUBEL) (02/07/90)
Okay enough rehashing the past for awhile. let's talk about the present and some conceivable variant of the future! The present: the nets are alive with queries about how to communicate by e-mail with the Soviet Union, for obvious reasons, such as e-mail being far superior to many other costlier forms of exchange. Emailing the Soviet Union is at best a PAIN and at worst needlessly difficult. Seems the "powers that be" (WHO?) decided that Moscow State University could not join BITNET because of the fear that those "evil commies" would somehow, via BITNET (HOW?--does this assertion consitute advertisement of some hitherto unimagined security breach?), gain access to supercomputers to radically improve their bomb technology. Someone ELSE gets to flame about the security benefits of "more reliable" or "better" bombs. My questions: any tom-fool legitimately affiliated with some institutions can get Bitnet accounts; at other places Soviet guests cannot get accounts explicitly because they are Soviets. Can anyone think of a rationale for this discrepancy? Does anyone beside me think that policies like this mean that only the most hard-core military or intelligence operatives have access to reasonable e-mail while peaceful academic exchange gets swallowed up in meaningless "security?" Now the future and the matter of global hot air: even though MGU can't join Bitnet for fear that they will gain access to supercomputers, the western firm Control Data Corporation is now applying for a waiver of COCOM restrictions in order to sell the SOviet Union a supercomputer to (hold onto your hats) IMPROVE THE SAFETY OF THE CHERNOBYL-TYPE NUCLEAR REACTORS!!!!! Heaven knows, improved safety is needed, especially if the Sovs are going to overcome MASSIVE public objections to their nuclear program and , as a sideline, MAYBE cut down their use of fossil fuels and contribution to global warming. However, enquiring minds want to know, just how much queasiness does this idea induce among people on the net???? Dorene "Hell no we won't glow?!?" Cornwell