The Rise of Russian Hackers Has Its Roots In The Soviet Union
CONTRIBUTOR-forex-trading
As our September 2017 centennial approaches, we're opening our archives to unearth our favorite stories. Below, stories from the June 12, 1989 issue.
COVER STORY
Cyber-Soviets
BEFORE RUSSIA GREW bold and sophisticated enough to hack a U.S. presidential election, the country's affinity for computers was evident even amid the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In the late 1980s, a growing group of entrepreneurial Russians ran computer-focused cooperatives, the private enterprises introduced under perestroika. They resold used Western computers, distributed Microsoft software and installed technology systems. They even wrote and marketed their own programs. Maxim Khomyakov, for instance, helped create an operating system called Chaos, a less-than-subtle poke at dysfunctional Soviet office life. It monitored the completion of paperwork and routine tasks and cost 50,000 rubles, or approximately $80,000 (roughly $160,000 in today's money).
"Computer hackers in the Western sense don't exist in the Soviet Union. Yet there exists a sizeable but indeterminate community of free spirits," concluded Forbes' Esther Dyson, daughter of noted English physicist Freeman Dyson and editor of Release 1.0, an influential newsletter on the emerging computer industry. "While the Soviets may lack the ability to use computer technology effectively, they are rich in fundamental . . . intelligence." Three decades later, it appears the hackers, not the entrepreneurs, reign supreme.
NOTABLE AND NEWSWORTHY
Rich Gets Richer
America's most-wanted white-collar fugitive, commodities trader Marc Rich (left), was quietly growing wealthier through sly plying of U.S. trade policy. His Richco Grain trading operation had "taken in more than $65 million in subsidies from Washington in grain deals" over the six years since Rich had fled to Switzerland to dodge tax-evasion charges in America.
THE EDITOR'S DESK
To the Point
Malcolm Forbes had a stern message on proper answering-machine etiquette: The appropriate greeting, he instructed, skipped "all that time-wasting, cheerful exuberance . . . that [drives] a caller up the wall" and simply said, " 'We're unable to answer; at the beep leave your message.' "
