Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!ames!sgi!arisia!quintus!ok From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: I'm pro Russian Keywords: Soviet, UUCP network Message-ID: <758@quintus.UUCP> Date: 28 Nov 88 07:40:28 GMT References: <192@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk> <2326@cbnews.ATT.COM> <7961@dasys1.UUCP> <2338@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: news@quintus.UUCP Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc. Lines: 42 In article <2338@cbnews.ATT.COM> lvc@cbnews.ATT.COM (Lawrence V. Cipriani) writes: >I really do like helping people with technical problems. But how can >I be certain that the help I give will not be used against me someday? >In general one can't, and when it involves a nation that has missiles >pointed at me I'll not get involved thank you. When I was in the UK, I several times saw in the press the comment that the USA has missiles pointed at the UK. There are reasons why this is credible, though I reserve judgement. Did this stop people in the UK who believed it posting helpfully to Usenet? Nope. By this criterion, we should refuse all assistance to anyone working for our own governments (people raving about guns in misc.legal evidently believe it likely that the USA government will become oppressive and need to be resisted by force). >I'd like to make friends of people in the Soviet Union, but how do I know >who I can trust? The university student I help just may end up in the GRU >or KGB someday. No thanks. I'm reminded of a USAn author on programming methods who described having been at a conference where someone came up to him and gushed about how enormously helpful the author's books had been to him in his work. The author lapped this up for a while, and then said "by the way, what do you do?" "Oh, I work on ICBMs." The author told his readers that he had never been more depressed. The university student you help *here* may do just such work some day. Should we drop Usenet *here* for that reason? If you don't think that working on nuclear weapons is so bad, how about the people providing computer support for the South African police? Who to trust? The point has been well made that for low-grade technical information such as Usenet provides, the KGB, GRU, and the rest *already* have access if they want it. Consider comp.arch, for example. There is nothing discussed there which is not publicly available, in manuals, letters patent, &c. If you consider comp.unix.{questions,wizards}, there's nothing there that couldn't be answered by reading the sources, and I am absolutely certain that the Soviets have V7 sources, and would wager a large sum that they either have the V.3 sources or don't want them. And so it goes. What about the possibility of information flowing the other way? I think it would be useful to have some of the sci.* groups coming from the SU. And would the CIA obtain no benefit from knowing the names of individuals who are that interested in the West?