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Subject: SPECIAL REPORT/ELECTRONIC MAIL - Forces for social change
Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 10:20:19 EST
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SPECIAL REPORT/ELECTRONIC MAIL - Forces for social change

Tekla S. Perry, Senior Editor


The international web woven by electronic networks helps empower
people around the globe and democratize governments

Gorbachev is sick, perpetrators of the 1991 coup in the then-
Soviet Union told its populace via television, radio, and
newspaper. The international community supports the new regime,
they said.
     But within hours computers and facsimile machines from
Moscow to Vladivostok were humming with information from around
the world that quickly debunked that official story. And in the
Russian White House, Boris Yeltsin and his supporters, surrounded
by tanks that threatened to overrun them at any time, were
reassured by messages received on a Moscow computer that the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S. government,
and other nations were on their side.
     "Those gray men who perpetrated the coup had no conception
of what e-mail is," IEEE Spectrum was told by Gloria Duffy,
president of Global Outlook, an institute in Palo Alto, Calif.,
that provides research and public education on international
peace and security. "It was distressingly easy for them to take
hold of the broadcasting and print media outlets and squelch
information coming through them, but e-mail broke through the
wall of propaganda immediately."
     From Tiananmen Square to the Persian Gulf, from Paris to
Santa Monica, Calif., electronic mail coupled with fax technology
is influencing the outcome of political events.
     ELECTRONIC GLASNOST. E-mail routes into the Soviet Union
have existed for only a few years. The first was established in
1986, the San Francisco/Moscow Teleport--now Sovam Teleport USA
in San Francisco.
     In 1990, when the U.S.  government permitted links between
Internet, a government-subsidized research network, and Soviet
networks, Sovam Teleport was quick to establish one. (Electronic
mail users in the former Soviet Union had previously been able to
send e-mail to Internet by calling a computer in Finland, which
could make phone connections to the USSR with relative ease.
Soviet residents have also been able to reach networks like
CompuServe through Finland and other countries.)
     In the late 1980s, a private company in Moscow, Demos, set
up a network called Relcom, now in 70 Soviet cities. A widely
accessible commercial network, Relcom also communicates with
the Internet (Demos has since separated from Relcom).
     Just five months before the coup, in March 1991, yet another
network, this one nonprofit, was established in the then
Soviet Union. GlasNet, a joint venture between the Institute
for Global Communications, San Francisco, and the
International Foundation, Washington, D.C., is accessible from
most of the new Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It is
linked to a number of international politically progressive
networks, including the British-based GreenNet, the U.S.-based
PeaceNet and EcoNet, and the Brazil-based AlterNex.
     And throughout the former Soviet Union, in the last few
years, individuals have begun operating direct-dial electronic
bulletin boards from their homes. These bulletin boards also
exchange information in a loose network (where independent
operators send messages on an informal basis).
     New links to the international nets are appearing every
year. Approaching Russia from the east, the University of Alaska
in Fairbanks established in August a direct communication link
with the Russian Far East city of Magadan to provide telephone
and e-mail service to three institutes of the Russian Academy of
Sciences.
     So unbeknownst, apparently, to the conspirators when they
made their 1991 grab at control, an electronic spider web was
lying in wait to thwart them.
     Wrote Robert B. Reich in the New Republic in 1987: "Many of
the new technologies are themselves subversive. Computers??? and
telecommunications equipment not only incite unorthodox ideas,
they also allow them to be exchanged instantly. They inspire
communities of dissent."
     Said Shel Hall, who moderates political discussions on
CompuServe: "I suppose this means that during the next coup the
authorities will be wielding wirecutters as well as bayonets."
But had the coup perpetrators been aware of the power of
electronic communications, they might still have found those
links impossible to break.
      In case soldiers marched in and seized the main network
computers (an event that never occurred), Relcom and GlasNet
planned alternative ways of staying in touch with the networks,
no matter what.
     "Most e-mail operations can be done with a laptop," Geoff
Sears, executive director of the Institute for Global
Communications, told Spectrum. "So they couldn't have stopped it
without shutting down their entire phone system," which they
needed for their own purposes.
     Among the messages that came across the networks during the
coup were those exchanged with Nikolai Kapranov, a defense
advisor to Boris Yeltsin. He was communicating from Moscow--
possibly from one of the computers inside the Russian Parliament,
then surrounded by tanks. Kapranov, through PeaceNet, sent
detailed accounts of the events at Parliament as they occurred,
urging recipients to forward them to the U.S. media. At Global
Outlook, which had been working with Kapranov on a project, a
news reporter watched the messages as they arrived.
     In return, Global Outlook staffers prepared long texts
summarizing responses by the U.S. and other governments. Kapranov
printed and distributed this news to the people holding off the
tanks. It was also used as source material for an independent
radio station that was broadcasting out of the Russian White
House.
     NATO officials bolstered Yeltsin's defense with messages of
support through the e-mail link to Kapranov.
     "[Kapranov] told us later this information had been very
encouraging for people," said Global Outlook's Duffy. "The coup
perpetrators had been publishing information that said the
outside world supported them and it was all over for Gorbachev.
The information from us said the opposite."
     After the coup was defeated, Kapranov sent this message to
NATO headquarters and Global Outlook: "Dear everybody, Thank you
for your support, information you provided after being
translated, was spreaded as leaflets and defenders of Russian
Parliament, was on the Radio Station of Russian Parliament, the
only Radio in Moscow that provided those times with correct
information, it was also spreaded among militaries. It was also
important for people inside Parliament building to know that they
have connection with Democratical countries and to feel their
support.  Again thank you."
       Glasnet also played an important role in exchanging
messages between cities in the Soviet Union about organizing
local resistance and spreading Yeltsin's proclamations around the
country. Relcom, too, was used by resistance organizers in the
remote reaches of the Soviet Union to plan demonstrations and
obtain news updates that were printed and posted publicly.
     All this communication, said Don Reich, manager of customer
relations for Sovam Teleport, "gave people the security of
knowing that even when a country's political system gets
shaky, they were guaranteed a connection to the outside
world."
     TIANANMEN SQUARE. Only a few strands of the electronic
communications web were in place in 1989 when the students in
China revolted, making their stand at Tiananmen Square.
"The failure of Tiananmen Square was a failure of the
distribution of data," said John Gage, director of the science
office for Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View,
Calif. Because of inadequate telephone connections outside
of Beijing, e-mail was useless in spreading the information that
could have strengthened resistance.
     As a matter of policy, the government of the People's
Republic of China (PRC) had limited electronic communications to
the outside world to reduce information flow, which they
recognized as dangerous to their regime, Gage told us. Currently,
a small number of circuitous routes to China through Europe do
exist.  The Chinese Government officially forbids transnational
data flow.
     What the PRC Government had not limited, however, was the
fax. China tried to resist the use of fax machines, said Marshall
Strauss, executive director of the Democracy for China Fund,
Newton, Mass. But they have become vital for conducting business
with the outside world and therefore are key to the Chinese
economy. So the resistance was able to exploit fax technology,
particularly for distributing objective reports of events in
China and of the outside world's reaction to resistors within
Beijing. "Chinese students were aware of the importance of the
international community and wanted to stay in close contact,"
Strauss said.
     During the Tiananmen uprising, expatriate Chinese would send
faxes to any fax number they knew in the PRC, rotating fax
numbers, since regular recipients of forbidden information risked
arrest. At friendly faxes, the information was received, stripped
of identifiers, and distributed.
     "Fax had a lot of power," said Sun Microsystems' Gage. "A
copy of a news article, with the New York Times banner, has more
{x,q}eclat" than a text message or a transcribed telephone
conversation.
      At several U.S. organizations, office space, with
computers, fax machines, and phone lines, was made available to
Chinese students, who used international electronic mail to
organize their activities.
     The most dramatic use of fax after the massacre, Strauss
said, came toward the end of 1989. That fall, Chinese activists
used the international e-mail networks to coordinate an
"international fax blizzard" into China, faxing a fake edition of
the People's Daily from around the world into hundreds of Chinese
Government, Communist Party, and other offices associated with
the ruling elite.
     The Chinese Government, however, though not able to stop the
flow of faxed information, was able to inhibit it. Since not many
fax machines exist in China, the Government posted guards at the
ones it knew about. The revolutionaries were able to fool the
guards to some extent by starting faxes with a few pages of
innocent material, followed by politically important documents,
by which time, said Strauss, "the guards would get bored and go
back to their card game." But this policy of guarding fax
machines was chilling to dissenters. In some cases, arrests were
made, and soldiers did cut some phone lines, reports say.
     The exile community continues to use fax and electronic mail
to organize against the PRC government. Three years after the
uprising, the international web of electronic mail has yet
to embrace China, but links are beginning to be established.

     China is also working to modernize its telephone system,
which will make internal e-mail networks easier to create.
Soon, said Gage, "with the advent of global satellite networks,
there will be no possibility to control the flow of information."
     HOTSPOTS. The worldwide web of e-mail is growing. For
example, the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) has helped
set up systems in Brazil, Ecuador, and Nicaragua. The
governments in each country have been supportive.
     "They are enthusiastic because they see us bringing
computing resources into a developing country," said IGC's Sears.
"They don't totally understand what they are getting into,
that networks have the effect of letting things get out and
bringing in all sorts of new information and ideas."
     The networks may often create unanticipated links. While the
U.S. government prohibits phone service to Cuba, and Cuba would
rather prevent communications with the United States, anyone on
Internet can send e-mail to people in Cuba. (The messages
travel through Canada.)
     These international networks are being used daily by
political groups. Most uses, however, never come to light,
since much of e-mail's content is not tracked by network
managers.
     EcoNet, operated by the Institute for Global Communications,
got heavy use during this year's Earth Summit, as nongovernmental
organizations found it an easy way to collect information and
plan events. Previously, organizers of Redwood Summer, an Earth
First-led series of protests against loggers in the Northwest,
used EcoNet to debate and plan strategy.
     PeaceNet is used by Amnesty International, London, to
distribute reports and "Action Alerts," to mobilize volunteers
around the world.
     In Central and South America, governments at various times
have closed down the independent press.  When that happens, a
network of fax machines goes into play; articles from the United
States are sent by fax, quickly photocopied, and distributed
on the streets.
     In France, the Government-run Minitel is used for political
organizing. This network was installed originally to replace
phone directories and quickly evolved into a plethora of
information services and related activities. But since the late
'80s, when students nationwide organized a strike and marches
protesting increases in student fees, "every political movement
in France regularly uses Minitel," said Jim Warren, a computer
rights activist who is on the board of Autodesk Inc., Sausalito,
Calif.
     During the Persian Gulf War, e-mail acted as an alternative
news source. In the Middle East, local networks hummed as people
traded war stories and rumors. News also traveled around the
world over corporate networks from offices in the Middle East.
And much information found its way onto commercial networks.
     PeaceNet was used extensively to organize opposition to U.S.
involvement in the Gulf. A 20-page background paper sent into the
net by a national Quaker group was printed at numerous points in
the United States and distributed widely. Protests were
organized, and Congress was snowed under with fax messages.
"Usage of our system quadrupled," Sears told Spectrum. "The load
was so heavy it almost shut us down." PeaceNet became so
recognized as a protest tool that local police departments began
logging on to get advance notice of peace demonstrations.
     U.S. ACTION. This year, the United States is beginning to
see e-mail used in national political campaigns. But, said
Matisse Enzer, head of customer support for the Whole Earth
'Lectronic Link (Well), a computer conferencing and mail system
based in Sausalito, Calif., "this is one election too soon" for
e-mail to have a real impact. Most established political
organizations have yet to look at its potential.
     Democratic contender Jerry Brown went the furthest,
establishing addresses on the Well, PeaceNet, and CompuServe.
Brown even spent 2 hours live on CompuServe, responding to
questions. "This was one of the first times a national
presidential candidate has come on-line to carry on a dialog with
the public," said Autodesk's Warren.
     Warren has been trying to organize an e-mail presidential
debate that would be carried on Usenet, a sort of electronic
newspaper that reaches more than a million people through
Internet and FidoNet. Early on, Brown, Arkansas Governor Bill
Clinton, and libertarian candidate Andre Marrou committed to the
debate.  President Bush has not responded. If the '92 debate does
not occur, Warren said he will try again in '96. The Bush and
Clinton campaigns are currently posting statements and fielding
voter questions on the Prodigy network.
     On a local political scale, the nets are having a bigger
impact. One example of a community that uses electronic mail and
bulletin boards extensively to give citizens better access to
government is Santa Monica, Calif. In 1989 the city installed a
n electronic communications system free to any resident. Called
the Public Electronic Network (PEN), it offers, in addition to
electronic mail, databases about city council activities, the
public library catalog, and computer conferences on a host of
topics (rent control is a hot issue). Questions e-mailed to city
officials (over 200 monthly) are answered within 24 hours.
     Some 5000 residents use the system regularly. A group that
organized electronically over PEN recently persuaded the city
council to allocate US $150 000 to funding showers, lockers, and
laundry facilities for the homeless. Another electronically
organized group has blocked the development of a city-owned beach
estate into a luxury hotel.
     While a number of U.S. political groups are currently
looking into ways they might use e-mail to facilitate their
activities, e-mail is the lifeblood of one organization:
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.
"We live in virtual space," Mark Rotenberg, director of the
group's Washington, D.C., office, told Spectrum. The national
organization supports socially beneficial uses of
technology; its 2500 members communicate through the
Internet.
     POTENTIAL HAZARDS. Widespread use of e-mail for political
purposes is not without hazards. It would be easy,
for instance, for someone to change the text of a message
from a presidential candidate, Sun's Gage told Spectrum.
This could have international implications.
     And impersonation is easy: someone on CompuServe this spring
presented himself as an official representative of Ross Perot
until the Perot campaign shut him down. The impersonator was a
Perot fan, and did it out of misplaced enthusiasm rather than
mischief.
     But access would have been just as easy for a less
benevolent impersonator. A number of years ago a network
prankster reportedly sent messages that appeared to originate at
"kremvax" (Kremlin VAX computer) in the Soviet Union, sparking
concern fro m U.S. military officials.
     It is also easy to use networks for propaganda. Currently,
said Larry Landweber, professor of computer science at the
University of Wisconsin in Madison: "There is a lot of propaganda
flowing now about Croatia and Serbia; it is hard to tell where
it is generated."
     Networks can even be used for terrorism. "What if on
Internet hundreds of thousands of people who were disgruntled
with Washington sent messages among themselves, agreeing that at
noon on such and such a day, they would all call any number in
the 202 area code simultaneously?" asked Robert H. Anderson,
senior information scientist at the Rand Corp., Santa Monica,
Calif.  "That would shut down the D.C. phone system for hours."
     Enzer at the Well said such a scenerio is unlikely. "It is
easier to be creative on this medium than to be destructive," he
noted. "Getting large numbers of people to do something via
the Internet is like herding cats."
     Despite these risks, few are questioning the power of the
networks for global good.  International networks, said Sears at
the Institute for Global Communications, "are the only way to
approach solutions to problems that defy national efforts, like
global warming, ozone degradation, and pollution of the oceans."
     The networks also, Sears said, "just by helping people have
greater contact with people of other nations and alternative
sources of information about them," are a force for world peace

Copyright 1992, IEEE Spectrum.

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