Computer Hacking in Russia
The email hacking of the Democratic National Committee just prior to their 2016 nominating convention, brought back memories. . .. It was 1994, I crewed on a friend’s 38-foot sloop, Tiota. We were moored to the Petrozavodsk city pier alongside an attractive waterfront park with nicely landscaped lawns, well-organized flower beds, comfortable park benches, winding walkways, nice looking people, and several modern sculptures.
Petrozavodsk is a city of 300,000 people and the capital of the Karelia Autonomous Republic. Peter the Great founded the city on the shores of Lake Onega back in the early 1700s. It became an important center for iron mills. Onega is the second largest lake in Europe ─ nearby Lake Ladoga is the largest. According to an amusing translation in a tourist brochure, “The Onega is twice as little as the Ladoga.”
I spent an hour or so at a sidewalk café ─ two hot dogs and two beers for $1.10 — watching the locals stroll by. As in Archangel, the number of well-dressed women in current Western fashions and hairstyles impressed me. The men, on the other hand, looked rougher and tougher ─ or maybe I was just prejudiced by recent stories of gangsterism in the New Russia. Nevertheless, everyone looked healthy and well fed. I saw only one or two beggars since arriving in Russia ─ a far cry from the number of American beggars and homeless encountered daily in almost every city.
For our small Dutch fleet, Lake Onega was big enough. It gave us an opportunity to sail again after many miles of motoring in rivers and canals. It also provided a great source of fresh water to replenish our depleted tanks. We were told beforehand that the lake water was better than the city water supply. We added a water purifier for precaution, but it tasted good, clean, and made excellent coffee.
Our Dutch fleet celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Russian fleet by Peter the Great, with Dutch assistance. The Dutch Coastal Cruising Association fleet undertook a 4,800 European odyssey over the top of Norway to the White Sea and Archangel. The trip included sailing Russian inland waters between Archangel and across the Baltic Sea. Fifteen sailboats hosted by the Archangel Yacht Club, became the first Western-flagged pleasure boats allowed on this militarily strategic waterway.
The prosperous look of the communities we sailed through so far made me wonder why there was so much talk about the disastrous state of Russia’s economy and why the West was sending money to fend off starvation and other dire shortages in Russia. Perhaps these areas, far from the big cities, were less affected by the turmoil surrounding the fall of communism, but, from what I’d seen during my brief encounters, the people were doing just fine. Food shopping was a hassle, especially for the uninitiated, but no one looked starved. There were no long lines at food stores. The only problem I encountered was that in Russia you could not plan a menu and then look for ingredients; instead, you found ingredients and then planned a menu. Shopping was more of a modern-day urban foraging experience.
In Petrozavodsk, I made my usual search for a computer telephone connection to send off my latest batch of journal logs. It was much harder to make myself understood in Russia, where few people spoke English, and the level of technology was about forty years behind Western standards. The hotel telephone system for long-distance calls was barely operational and not quite up to computer standards.
Fortunately, I met a young Russian computer “hacker” in a hole-in-a-wall office. In those early Internet-days, I called every computer-savvy young person a hacker. A hotel clerk gave me the address when he assumed I wanted to do some modern business with my laptop. I never really learned what “business” he conducted, but he had several computers and a modem connected to the phone system. He was quite up-to-date on Internet protocol and global E-mail networks. In a few minutes, he patched through to a local SprintNet number and on to CompuServe in Moscow. While he was working the modem connection, I busied myself trying to use the Cyrillic-Latin keyboard to address my files. We spent over an hour transferring the files, because of frequent errors in the transmissions. He apologized for the delays, explaining that Russian phone lines were notoriously noisy. In the end, we were successful, and he refused my offer to pay for the phone time or his valuable assistance. I think he was just pleased to be able to use his advanced computer skills for a Westerner.
One of the translators assigned to our fleet, a native of Petrozavodsk, was a college student studying to be a professional translator. She had just returned from spending a year in Austin, Texas, as an exchange student. I asked her if she would consider working in America after her graduation. “No. I never want to leave this area,” she quickly replied. “I love the cold clear winters here and the natural beauty all around me. America was good to me, but this is my home. I am very happy here.”
