Open Exchange of Information vs. Security Concerns : Computer Link With Soviets Sparks Mixed Feelings

Gregg Maryniak used to wait up to six weeks for an answer when he wrote letters to Soviet scientists with whom he is working on space technology issues. Now he just bangs a message into his computer at the Space Studies Institute in Princeton, N.J., and sends it off by electronic mail. A satellite carries it to Moscow almost instantly.

As communications technology advances and international tensions abate, the flow of electronic data between the United States and the Soviet Union is quickening. Soviet computer buffs talk with American counterparts using electronic “bulletin boards.” U.S. companies keep in touch with their Moscow offices by computer.

While it is a welcome sign of greater trust between the world’s two superpowers, the increased data exchange is raising concerns among some U.S. government agencies and security experts that such exchanges may open doors that would be better closed.

Some believe that such communications could ease access by the Soviets to U.S. databases in which sophisticated technical information is stored or become a conduit by which spies would send information out. Or, it could make computers here more vulnerable to sabotage through the introduction of “viruses.”

A recent National Academy of Sciences report raises such concerns, saying the proliferation of global networks increases the “means to export ‘soft’ technologies . . . that may be outside the reach of current control mechanisms.” Unlike computers, which can be easily seen, “soft” technologies such as computer software, reports, formulas and other “know-how” are harder to track.

Technology Improved

A Pentagon spokeswoman said the easier ties raise “national security concerns” but refused to elaborate on how the government was reacting to that concern.

Direct computer-to-computer links have been possible for years between the United States and the Soviet Union. But the poor quality of Soviet phone lines and the complicated series of international links required to connect the two countries made the contacts cumbersome and expensive.

Recently, however, improved telecommunications lines and the addition of a direct satellite link are making such hookups easier. To many that is an entirely welcome development, fostering international understanding on a person-to-person level and facilitating research and trade.

In the United States, one of the most enthusiastic new communicators is John Draper, who earned fame masquerading under the name “Cap’n Crunch” and busting into the U.S. phone system in the 1970s. Draper, who served a jail term for his tinkerings, returned from a trip to the Soviet Union last year and immediately urged fellow computer hackers in America to send messages to their Soviet counterparts.

“Ask anything about computers,” he advised them, but “don’t call them Russians.”

Draper’s enthusiasm aside, Soviet society is a long way from nurturing a hacker culture.

Access to computers and modems is strictly limited, and so far the high cost of international communications links puts electronic access to the United States out of reach of all but a handful of computer enthusiasts.

Not long ago, one of the few Soviets with access to a computer and networks, Alex Yegorov, sent an electronic mail message to Draper: “It is Sunday over here, and I told myself not to get up from my PC before putting through your ‘Gateway’ as much vivid impressions to our American friends as I would manage.”

He went on: “A cup of coffee is in front of me ready to be spilt on the keyboard in case it takes fire, a pack of cigarettes, Winston this time, (How much would they pay me for free advertising?) and a roll of all your messages filling all the available table space. My wife and my kid are still asleep--it’s 7 a.m.”

Such communiques seem harmless enough, but some U.S. officials worry that innocent messages can turn into more serious and potentially damaging exchanges. Indeed, the new technology simply adds a new twist to the well-known tension between nurturing free and open communications and protecting national security.

Ever since public databases came on line in the United States, storing everything from stock prices to medical literature, they’ve been almost as open as the public library. For anyone with a computer and a modem, access to vast storehouses of data is just a phone call away.

No one is suggesting that this policy change. In fact, the last government hint at monitoring the use of databases, contained in a 1986 memorandum by John Poindexter, then national security adviser, met with a storm of protest. No one has dared mention the idea since. Unlike public databases, electronic storehouses of classified military information are presumably secure enough that no unauthorized user--American or foreign--can tap into them.

Of greater concern to officials is just how to monitor the growing international network traffic. As more citizens hook up, it becomes more difficult to keep track of what’s being shipped and who’s doing the shipping.

It wouldn’t be that difficult to “put the plans for your next microchip and ship it through a network,” said Seymour Goodman, a University of Arizona professor who chaired the National Academy of Sciences committee that looked at the subject. “If there are more orifices for this electronic shipment, it makes it easier than if you have to take microphotos and smuggle them out the old way.”

Easy to Monitor

Some disagree, saying the new direct links to the Soviet Union make it easier than ever to track the flow of information.

Maryniak, of the Princeton center, believes that data links are easily monitored by government agencies. “You might as well write the message on a postcard and send it through both postal systems,” he said.

At Princeton and other sites, the computer links are designed to give the Soviets access only to what Americans at this end send them.

“They’re not talking to our computers. They’re only talking to our mail drop,” said Les Cottrell, of Stanford University’s Linear Accelerator Center. “They can’t hack into our computers. They can’t put worms or viruses into our computers. They can’t drag any information out of our computers.”

As the pace of technological change steps up in the United States and the Soviet Union, the questions about information sharing are likely to grow more complex. One official, for example, looks toward a proposed coast-to-coast U.S. supercomputer network that is intended to give thousands of researchers access to the computational power of America’s largest computers.

Would that include Soviet researchers?

Said Michael Michaud, director of the State Department office of advanced technology: “We need to look at the implications.”