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An indication of
the nature of a country's government is the presence of its citizens on the Internet,
or lack thereof. In totalitarian nations, the online representation of ordinary
people tends to be limited, if it exists at all. And there haven't been a lot
of mailing list or usenet participants whose email addresses bear the .iq suffix.
An indication of the success
of the current war will be how quickly we begin to see a proliferation of that
suffix. And Linux has a part to play in bringing that about.
The online world
has had an important part to play in global changes for years. The opposition
Interfax News Agency delivered the closest thing to accurate information about
the fall of the Soviet Union. Later, a lone poster on the international forum
of RIME, back when one got one's messages in a .qwk packet, provided news of
the Bosnian war days before news agencies had it. Those posts, made by the only
person ever to be granted posting privileges on RIME by first name only (he
feared retribution were his identity known), were compelling. The ability to
ask questions and receive answers gave RIME users a glimpse of what reporting
could come to be and what it has to some extent become in the decade that followed.
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