[a-nikolaev]

As a person who lived in that dorm at the time, I don't think that the photo evidence is dangerous or incriminating for the author now. Maybe it could be ..somewhat.. incriminating at the time to share some of these details, but the existence of the network infrastructure was never a secret to the administration.

Let me try to explain, the network was quite organic for that place and time, I guess: The dorms administration really had no idea what internet is, and while the network wasn't officially sanctioned, it wasn't (very) actively prohibited either. It wasn't regulated, and obviously was a nuisance for the people managing the dorms. But at the same time I don't remember anyone being punished for maintaining it. It existed in a gray area so to speak: The network provided a utility to the students, but the school did not want to be responsible for it and also did not provide any alternatives. So the school administration turned a blind eye to the network for the most part, I think, until it was finally officially legalized.

Btw, I found a link to the dorms forum ("forum.local"): https://forumlocal.ru/ubbthreads.php it still exists, and its topics are going back to the times described in the article. Some old moderators are also still there (!).