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  • [LINK] The Usenet coup: how the USSR discovered the internet in 1991

    From Computer Nerd Kev@21:1/5 to All on Sat May 20 15:02:59 2023
    The Usenet coup: how the USSR discovered the internet in 1991
    By Natalia Konradova, 16 August 2016
    - https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/usenet-coup/

    "The programmers' idea was to share software with one another and
    keep in touch at the same time. They couldn't have imagined that a
    few years later, thousands of people working at universities in the
    USA and across the world would connect to the Usenet, calling it
    "the soul of the Internet" and "the place where important things
    happen".

    For the next 15 years, the system was to remain a platform for
    serious international discussion, a tool for self-organisation and
    even a basis for building political utopias. "What was once
    impossible, is now possible... Usenet is conducted publicly, and is
    mostly uncensored. This means that everyone can both contribute and
    gain from everyone else's opinion", wrote Michael Houben, an early
    enthusiast and first historian of the internet community.

    These words appeared in an essay entitled "The computer as a
    democratizer", in which Hauben hailed the dawn of a new age of real
    democracy, based on local, grassroots communication and
    cooperation.

    The USSR joints the network... Just kidding!

    From its earliest days, Usenet was very effective in serving itself
    - capable of conducting interactive monitoring of its
    communications, creating its own 'Halls of Fame" and recording its
    activity in its own chronicles.

    An important entry in any imagined Usenet chronicle would relate to
    1 April 1984, the day it published a welcoming letter signed by the
    Soviet Union's then Communist Party chief Konstantin Chernenko. The
    letter announced that the USSR had signed up to Usenet and read,
    "Well, today, 840401, this is the Union of Soviet Socialist
    Republics joining the Usenet network at last and saying hallo to
    everyone. The reason we have joined this network is to have a forum
    for open discussion with the American and European people and make
    clear to them our resolute efforts towards maintaining peaceful
    coexistence between the peoples of the Soviet Union and those of
    the United States and Europe"." ...

    There are some more details about the "Relcom" network used at the
    time in this paper from 1992: http://som.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/articles/relcom.htm

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  • From Mike Spencer@21:1/5 to Computer Nerd Kev on Sat May 20 04:02:56 2023
    not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:

    The Usenet coup: how the USSR discovered the internet in 1991
    By Natalia Konradova, 16 August 2016
    - https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/usenet-coup/

    "The programmers' idea was to share software with one another and
    keep in touch at the same time. They couldn't have imagined that a
    few years later, thousands of people working at universities in the
    USA and across the world would connect to the Usenet, calling it
    "the soul of the Internet" and "the place where important things
    happen".

    For the next 15 years, the system was to remain a platform for
    serious international discussion, a tool for self-organisation and
    even a basis for building political utopias.

    [snip]

    An important entry in any imagined Usenet chronicle would relate to
    1 April 1984, ....

    That's the notorious post from KREMVAX. right?

    the day it published a welcoming letter signed by the
    Soviet Union's then Communist Party chief Konstantin Chernenko. The
    letter announced that the USSR had signed up to Usenet and read,
    "Well, today, 840401, this is the Union of Soviet Socialist
    Republics joining the Usenet network at last and saying hallo to
    everyone. The reason we have joined this network is to have a forum
    for open discussion with the American and European people and make
    clear to them our resolute efforts towards maintaining peaceful
    coexistence between the peoples of the Soviet Union and those of
    the United States and Europe"." ...

    There are some more details about the "Relcom" network used at the
    time in this paper from 1992: http://som.csudh.edu/fac/lpress/articles/relcom.htm

    --
    Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

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  • From Computer Nerd Kev@21:1/5 to Mike Spencer on Sat May 20 17:26:27 2023
    Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

    not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:

    The Usenet coup: how the USSR discovered the internet in 1991
    By Natalia Konradova, 16 August 2016
    - https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/usenet-coup/

    An important entry in any imagined Usenet chronicle would relate to
    1 April 1984, ....

    That's the notorious post from KREMVAX. right?

    Yes the paragraph below where I left off the extract goes on to
    say:

    "This April Fools' Day hoax, posted by Dutch internet pioneer Piet
    Beertema in the year of Orwell's Anti-utopia, used the fake ID
    "Kremvax" and was a huge success among users."

    Anyway the article is mainly about real posts from the Soviet Union
    during the 1991 coup attempt. I did a particly bad job of cutting
    out the start, leaving out the first paragraph, but I spent way too
    much time reading articles on the internet today and was a bit
    glazed over.

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