For decades before the internet existed, scientists, technologists, novelists, and enthusiasts of all descriptions dreamed of instantaneous, worldwide communication systems. What forms such systems might take and what technologies could be used to accomplish this goal were open questions—questions asked by people around the world, including in the Cold War–era superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union. 

Media archaeologist Natalia Konradova examines the history of the internet in Russia and its predecessor state, cutting through layers of technological history and dusting off conceptual artifacts of the past. Inspired by the fundamental question of how Soviets imagined future technologies, she investigates experiments with telepathy alongside the (then equally improbable) dream of a global, digitally connected computer network. Since the story of the Russian internet is inextricably wound up with Soviet society and the history of the Cold War, Hacking the Iron Curtain is as much a cultural and political history as it is a technological one—a history that illustrates how collective dreams can challenge geopolitical ambitions and inspire world-changing technologies.

Natalia Konradova is a cultural historian and journalist. She previously published a Russian-language book on the same topic, titled Arkheologiia Russkogo Interneta.

A Note on Transliteration, Place-Names, and Terms
Introduction
Chapter 1. Soviet Power Plus the Digitalization of the Entire Country
Chapter 2. The Technology of the Future Is Telepathy
Chapter 3. Telepathy—Spacebridge—Internet
Chapter 4. User Revolution 
Chapter 5. “The Russians Are Coming!” The USSR Is Connected to the USENET
Chapter 6. The Russian Colonization of the American Internet
In Lieu of Conclusion  
Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Index