Internet with a surviving Soviet Union

And yet, if the Soviet Union still existed WE probably wouldn't have the Internet like we have it now. If we're still living under the threat of MAD, it's highly unlikely the commercial use of the Internet would still be authorized in 1991. We still might wind up with Facebook, but no Amazon, no EBay...and Napster etc beats out iTunes. Without that revenue, we never get the bandwidth we have now either (so no MMOs or streaming movies).
 
Cyberwarfare would be far more interesting in this TL. The West would try and infiltrate the Soviet internet, while the Soviets would probably try and attack the world financial system.
 
If we're still living under the threat of MAD, it's highly unlikely the commercial use of the Internet would still be authorized in 1991.

The .com domain goes back to the '80's, if that's what you're talking about. This company is the oldest registered. So, this pre-dates the WWW.

The powers that be only register domain names, they don't control what's on the servers. Once a commercial organization has a domain name, there's nothing that would prevent it from taking orders via e-mail, and over the web once that's created.

----

If we assume that in the Soviet Internet, servers would be controlled by the government, this would probably be built into the architecture.

The architecture for the Soviet alternative to TCP would be designed with a much clearer separation between server and client. Only soviet controlled servers would be allowed to install the server portion of the protocol drivers.

The client software would be unable to open up ports for listening with the legally installed drivers on the machines. This means that peer-to-peer networks would be impossible, as would be home and small office networks. Things like FTP and chat software would be less robust. There are also numerous applications, especially on unix-like machines, that open up internet ports to communicate between processes on the same machine -- these would be impossible as well.

Basically means that Western operating systems, unless they develop differently, will not be legal in the Soviet Union. Which means that the Soviets will have to design their own, or pay lots of money to Western software companies.

This, of course, doesn't mean there won't be a large hacker culture which will work with black market Western operating systems.
 
This, of course, doesn't mean there won't be a large hacker culture which will work with black market Western operating systems.


Hackers require computers, privacy, and time.

We're talking about a nation which kept copy machines locked up, which limited the number of telephones available, which limited the number of connections those telephones could make, and which strictly controlled many other things too many people here unconsciously assume will be freely available.

There will be Soviet computers in the workplace because there were Soviet computers in the workplace. There will be Soviet versions of LANs and Arpanet for various economic and command purposes because there were Soviet versions of LANs and Arpanet for various economic and command purposes.

There won't be tens of thousands of яблоко-II computers sitting in apartment flats running buggy copies of Gorkysoft for hackers to play with.
 
This, of course, doesn't mean there won't be a large hacker culture which will work with black market Western operating systems.


Damn right!

I mean, really, who invented Tetris? right?


I'd predict a league of home-built hardware fanatics, and by ttl 2011, they're smuggling in the equivalent of 4G-equipped Kindles
 
There won't be tens of thousands of яблоко-II computers sitting in apartment flats running buggy copies of Gorkysoft for hackers to play with.

You know it's relatively easy to build your own computer, right?

I'm not talking about going on newegg and buying a CPU, RAM, etc. and assembling them. I'm talking about getting integrated chips and building a computer from scratch.

A friend of mine has built a full computer, entirely for free, with chips he made with a rented fab unit running an OS he wrote, all in a simple metal case he machined. Keep in mind, he was a college sophomore at the time. A very talented sophomore, yes, but no better off than an educated Soviet hacker might be.

We could replace rented fab units with a black market system. With a couple of decades The amount of power the computers would have is pretty much nil. But, to be honest, power and speed isn't all that necessary for simple hacking.

The real concern is going to be internet connections. Assuming all routing hardware is controlled by the government (it will be), it'll become nearly impossible for hackers to get in contact with the west or any important servers as long as the USSR has a halfway competent security team (which they almost certainly will). The thing about hacking is tricks only work once. As soon as a security engineer has reverse engineered a hack, it's almost always a matter of a few hours, if not minutes, to patch the flaw.

And you're assuming that computers remain completely restricted. Remember, they were allowed after glasnost. You're not just assuming a surviving Soviet Union, you're assuming a surviving Soviet Union that never had a glasnost, which changes the game a little. It's one thing if we had agreed that liberalization was the downfall of the Soviet Union and the only way the nation would've survived was a lack of it, but not everyone has agreed on that. At the very least, you should mention any assumptions. ;)
 

NothingNow

Banned
Basically means that Western operating systems, unless they develop differently, will not be legal in the Soviet Union. Which means that the Soviets will have to design their own, or pay lots of money to Western software companies.
They'd probably go in-house, and use Something like BSD UNIX, Acorn MOS or something like a Proto Hurd as the base for a new operating system, with all the insane security of BSD UNIX or HURD, but with plenty of backdoors for authorized systems. Maybe the system would refuse to run without getting clearance from an off-site mainframe, and on a weird Architecture designed to thwart Hackers? Like running a System 7 or IBM i derivative on a modern Power PC system.


This, of course, doesn't mean there won't be a large hacker culture which will work with black market Western operating systems.
They'd probably mostly be loyal NKVD flunkies and Apparatchiks, experimenting with foreign systems to catalog weaknesses and to determine ways to improve internal security, to thwart the avaricious capitalists and their wonderful capitalist computers.:rolleyes:

The Small time guys would be stuck with Phreaking, homebuilts and generally doing more hobbyist stuff than real hacking, mostly because they lack the clearance to do anymore.

Of course, if a Hacker is good enough, like in the west, he might want to be caught, and get a job doing it in the government. (Hopefully he'd be caught by the Cyber-NKVD recruiter, and not by Putin.)
 
You know it's relatively easy to build your own computer, right?


Seeing as I built my first two computers from Tandy kits, I think I do.

I also, unlike you and many others in this thread, realize just how many bits and pieces I had access to with trivial effort that Soviet citizens will not access to whatsoever.

We're talking about a country in which people had to remove their windshield wipers after they parked so they wouldn't be stolen and you think average folks are going to have access to chip fab units like your "friend" in college. :rolleyes:

And you're assuming that computers remain completely restricted.

I'm assuming personal computers remain restricted. The USSR had plenty of computers in the work place.

Remember, they were allowed after glasnost. You're not just assuming a surviving Soviet Union, you're assuming a surviving Soviet Union that never had a glasnost, which changes the game a little.

I'm assuming what the OP wrote: "... there is a period of harsh crackdowns followed by very limited economic reform. Note the phrase "very limited".

At the very least, you should mention any assumptions. ;)

Seeing as I'm following the OP's assumptions, I don't need to mention them at all.
 

I see your point about computers being difficult to come by in the USSR, so why don't I clarify that the limited economic reforms are enough to get computers to the general population. Obviously it won't be to the extent that the West was computerized, but it should be enough to get some sort of alt-internet.
 
They'd probably go in-house, and use Something like BSD UNIX, Acorn MOS or something like a Proto Hurd as the base for a new operating system, with all the insane security of BSD UNIX or HURD, but with plenty of backdoors for authorized systems. Maybe the system would refuse to run without getting clearance from an off-site mainframe, and on a weird Architecture designed to thwart Hackers? Like running a System 7 or IBM i derivative on a modern Power PC system.

Possibly, although more likely it's going to be reverse engineered versions of these, since at least the kernels were proprietary until the '90's.

Once open source starts building up, there's still the problem of how much of it can be ported without extensive rewrites around the networking libraries.

There's also the problem with how much of Western software is written in scripting languages like Perl. The powers that be are going to be very paranoid about keeping anything out of people's hands that might allow them to write unauthorized software. They will probably seriously consider not allowing any sort of script interpreter on your basic office user's computer, even if they were able to assign permissions that would prevent you from creating runnable scripts.

(This, of course, also makes software maintenance much more difficult).

The system clearance check on boot up (plus periodic re-checks) would make sense, and sounds very Soviet to me. Especially due to the problems it will cause when the network is down. "Couldn't buy anything at the market again, dear, the network was down and the computers wouldn't work."

The Small time guys would be stuck with Phreaking, homebuilts and generally doing more hobbyist stuff than real hacking, mostly because they lack the clearance to do anymore.

Although this portion of the hacker community is very small, consisting mostly of people who happen to have the right connections (bribable officials, Western contacts, black market contacts, etc.).

Besides the lack of parts available to the public, there is also the problem of learning to program.

The capability to compile software will not be available on the general office user's computer, along with numerous tools that would be necessary to reverse engineer software (see above regarding script interpreters). Not to mention, the only time you have access to the computer is when you are at work, not the (limited) privacy of your own home. This all makes hobbyist programming extremely difficult.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Possibly, although more likely it's going to be reverse engineered versions of these, since at least the kernels were proprietary until the '90's.

Once open source starts building up, there's still the problem of how much of it can be ported without extensive rewrites around the networking libraries.
Reverse Engineering and Slaping something Fiendishly secure and Complicated's probably their best bet for security, but they'd want an Odd/Unusual

There's also the problem with how much of Western software is written in scripting languages like Perl. The powers that be are going to be very paranoid about keeping anything out of people's hands that might allow them to write unauthorized software. They will probably seriously consider not allowing any sort of script interpreter on your basic office user's computer, even if they were able to assign permissions that would prevent you from creating runnable scripts.

(This, of course, also makes software maintenance much more difficult).
A nightmare really.


The system clearance check on boot up (plus periodic re-checks) would make sense, and sounds very Soviet to me. Especially due to the problems it will cause when the network is down. "Couldn't buy anything at the market again, dear, the network was down and the computers wouldn't work."
I think any computer in a Commercial application would do things like Payroll and keep track of Inventory, maybe using punchcards generated by a more robust and simpler system with a Barcode reader running at the checkout.

Although this portion of the hacker community is very small, consisting mostly of people who happen to have the right connections (bribable officials, Western contacts, black market contacts, etc.).
It'd probably be Absolutely Miniscule.

Besides the lack of parts available to the public, there is also the problem of learning to program.

The capability to compile software will not be available on the general office user's computer, along with numerous tools that would be necessary to reverse engineer software (see above regarding script interpreters). Not to mention, the only time you have access to the computer is when you are at work, not the (limited) privacy of your own home. This all makes hobbyist programming extremely difficult.
I'm thinking Programming would be something people learned as an MOS thing in the Military or got a degree in at college, and then went into working for the government or a heavily scrutinized firm, depending on the specialties involved. The Government and Firms might allow their employees to write code at home and then compile it during downtime at work, to test new R&D things, in a weird Mirror to the American Garage Hobbyist system.
I think writing excellent, stable code, or finding a security flaw might get the team an award like the Order of the Badge of Honour, or in really extreme cases, the Order of Lenin. But IT stuff on the Theory and Security end will be extremely Classified stuff.
 
Continuing on ignoring OP allowing personal computers, since the USSR allowing PCs is completely irrelevant to whether or not hackers will get them.

Seeing as I built my first two computers from Tandy kits, I think I do.

Not the same thing! Presumably you didn't design your own operating system or instruction set from scratch.

and you think average folks are going to have access to chip fab units like your "friend" in college. :rolleyes:

Hackers are hardly "average folks." This is a tiny subset of the population with a particular interest, and (usually) apathy about whether they're breaking the law or not. Basically, you only need one person or a small group to pool their resources together and smuggle in or somehow obtain a fab unit (bribing someone to give them a unit earmarked for disposal, for example). Such units existed all over the place in the historic Eastern Bloc. It'd be very difficult and probably expensive to obtain, but all you need is one. If you think no black market existed in the USSR, that just because the government doesn't want a typical citizen to have something automatically meant it was impossible (rather than difficult) to have that, think again! It doesn't need to be powerful, either. Hackers don't need a modern i7 or Phenom. Basically all of my hacking knowledge could be exercised on any early computer like an Apple II; a simple text editor (which any programmer could write themselves) and a compiler (I don't know if I could personally write one, but a small group of dedicated hackers could write one without too much trouble).

So, all you need is a few hackers to pool their resources together to get something marked for destruction or from the black market, and they could start a small scale operation building home brew computers. The whole point of me telling the story of my friend's (no idea why you put that word in quotes) homebrew computer created from the ground up is that this is not at all sophisticated equipment. One machine decades out of date is all you need to produce computers capable of hacking or writing simple programs. The difficult part is not in obtaining computers, that would be very easy. The difficult part would be obtaining some sort of internet connection that's not worthless.

I'm assuming personal computers remain restricted. The USSR had plenty of computers in the work place.

Sorry; that's what I meant, although a bit irrelevant given the altered USSR and lack of glasnost.

I'm assuming what the OP wrote: "... there is a period of harsh crackdowns followed by very limited economic reform. Note the phrase "very limited".

Fair enough, didn't see that.
 
A Soviet "internet" with public access? Good god, talk about utterly clueless...

Let me ask this: How many of you were adults when there still was a Soviet Union? For that matter, how many of you were even alive when there was still a Soviet Union?

The USSR kept XEROX AND MIMEOGRAPH MACHINES under lock and key in order to crack down on samzidat distribution and you people seriously think they're going allow people access to personal computers outside of the workplace? Let alone personal computers accessing an instantaneous Soviet-wide communications network?

A Soviet "internet"... You might as well ask what a Nazi Yom Kippur or CSA Kwanzaa would look like... :rolleyes:

Of course, then assuming the productivity gains brought by networking and so forth are real, the USSR will be even more of a basket case than OTL.

Something owuld have to give, I think.
 
Top