Technology versus Conflict
How Data Networks Penetrated the Iron Curtain
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In 1977, computer scientists from East and West established a data connection through the Iron Curtain for the first time. At the IIASA in Laxenburg near Vienna, they worked together on the development of computer networks that transcended boundaries. Improved means of communications were to stimulate international research and create a research network that embraced much more than the scientists located at the institute. In addition, there was the idea that societies could be better managed with the help of data networks. These planning utopias belong to the past, but the vision of computer networks has become reality with the Internet.
(Osteuropa 10/2009, pp. 101–120)