Cyber Libre: Cubans Log On Behind Castro’s Back

By John Coté
Researchers: Cyrus Farivar and Osvaldo Gomez

photo by John Coté A hacker works in his Havana apartment.

The rooftop apartment in Central Havana has black iron bars on the front window and door. Jagger, a German shepherd, growls and charges the doorway, his lean head pressed against the iron as he snaps at the visitors. Antonio Cuesta, a gangly 26-year-old Cuban with a crew cut, takes Jagger by the collar and chains him to a yellow hallway door grooved with claw marks.

"Guard dog," he says and flashes a smile. "When my mom’s here alone, he won’t let anyone in."

Not quite comfortably out of Jagger’s reach in the front room sits Cuesta’s passion: a patchwork computer, the parts borrowed from friends or bought on Cuba’s black market.

Before he sits down, Cuesta looks at the visitors.

"If I get caught telling you this, it’s 30 years," he says. "They’ll send me to a place no one would ever want to go."

With a few mouse clicks he brings up a list of pirated codes to access the Internet. He selects one, and the modem dials.

No dice.

The code’s legitimate owner might be logged on, or maybe the system is experiencing a glitch.

"Sometimes different phone lines in different areas go down," says Cuesta. He shrugs and clicks another icon. "So I have 11 accounts."

Hackers must be resourceful to survive in a Communist world, where fraying infrastructure, snarled bureaucracy and draconian security services are the norm. But cyber criminals like Cuesta are not simply survivors; they’re an indication that Fidel Castro is unable to control the inherently democratic world of the Internet.

"If I get caught telling you this, it’s 30 years," he says. "They’ll send me to a place no one would ever want to go."

Ever since the government embraced la revolucion digital to make state-run companies more competitive, it has tried to control popular access. For the most part it’s been successful. Black market Internet accounts like Cuesta’s are rare simply because most Cubans don’t have phones and can’t afford a computer. In 1999 there was one personal computer for every 100 Cubans, far below the amount in other Latin American countries such as Mexico, where, in the same year, one computer served every 23 citizens, according to the World Bank. When a plan to increase and digitize Cuba’s phone lines is completed in 2004, only 1 in 10 Cubans will have a phone, according to Cuban government figures and census estimates. With an average monthly salary of $20, many of those who do have phones are not thinking about buying a computer, let alone a black market Internet account.

The government also controls the island’s four Internet service providers, whose traffic is routed through a single state-controlled Internet gateway. Home Internet accounts are restricted to foreigners, company executives and state officials. Access codes are required to log on to the country’s 3,600 legal Internet accounts. That suffices for a population of 11 million. In addition, about 40,000 academics and government workers have legal email accounts, half of them with access outside of Cuba, said Luis Fernandez, a government spokesman.

photo by Mimi Chakarova

That’s what the government allows. But as Cuesta demonstrates, the Internet doesn’t stop there. A small but lively black market has emerged. Sometimes legitimate account holders want to supplement their state wages by selling their access code. Other times, people like Cuesta steal codes while repairing computers for company executives. Pirated codes go for $30 to $50 a month for Internet access, $10 to $15 for email-only accounts. That’s too steep for most Cubans, but affordable for some earning dollars off Havana’s pulsing tourism. This new class of Internet users who circumvent government controls is a testament to Cuban ingenuity, said a Western diplomat in Havana who asked to remain anonymous. It also seems to indicate the Cuban government can’t completely leash the teaming world of online information.

Cuesta should know. On the third try his modem hisses its familiar singsong, and this time a server elsewhere on the island squawks back. He doesn’t look up from the monitor, but a sharp smile flashes across his face. It’s the smile of child telling his friends he just got away with cheating on a test.

"Look," he says, pointing as his Netscape browser opens. "Where do you want to go?"

Soon Cuesta is on Hotmail checking his email.

"This is the account we should use – it’s not Cuban," he says. "The government doesn’t look at it, and it’s faster."

Cuesta has reason to be concerned about government surveillance. Black market Internet accounts, largely copied or stolen from someone authorized to access a server at a company or government institution, usually don’t warrant jail time. But Cuesta’s case is different. "In general people who have access are related to someone in power. They get fired, they take away their Internet access, and they fine them," he said. "This is not similar to my situation. I’ve done illegal work for them." Cuesta clarified. "Them" is the government. He pauses and looks down. When he raises his head, the smile is back. "The state prepared me to steal secret data," he says.

Cuesta, who asked that his name be changed, says he was trained as a teenager to be a government hacker. Sitting in worn jeans and a knock-off Calvin Klein T-shirt, he hardly looks like a covert state operative. His story could not be verified beyond his stash of illegal access codes, but the respect he commanded from other informaticos, or "computer geeks," was unassailable. His computer knowledge was likewise extensive, and, given the shortage of computers on the island until recent years, it seemed unlikely he could reach that skill level without formal training.

"The state trained me to circumvent passwords and access databases," he says. "They would buy software and then I’d be paid to break the dynamic code so we could load one copy on all the machines."

With palpable caution, Cuesta describes excelling at science at an early age. When he was 14 he was selected to attend a specialized science boarding school. There he was introduced to computers, and soon after he arrived, Cuesta says he started working on computer viruses for fun. While at school he studied Trojan horses – programs that appear to be useful but then launch a virus or an unintended function – and had written a virus by the end of his first year. "I demonstrated it to the professors," he says and laughs. "They were a little bit jealous."

Even at 14 Cuesta says he had to look beyond his teachers for inspiration. He found it in his 21-year-old girlfriend, who was studying cybernetics, the theoretical study of communication and control in machines and animals. "I would study with her," he says and pauses for a moment. The smile is back. "We would exchange ideas."

After graduating from the science high school he sharpened his computer skills at the Eduardo Garcia Delgado Electronics Institute in Havana. At 21 Cuesta says he went to work for a state-run construction company that specialized in large projects like airports and hotels. His job: hacker. "The state trained me to circumvent passwords and access databases," he says. Most of this training came on the job at the construction company. "They would buy software and then I’d be paid to break the dynamic code so we could load one copy on all the machines."

Cuesta says his company, which was in competition with other state-run companies, would get one copy of the cheapest and most basic version of a program. It would be designed to be loaded on only one computer. His job was to crack the software security and install unlicensed programs on however many computers the company needed. He says he would also hack into other companies’ computer systems – either the software designer or a company that had a better version of the program – to steal information or computer code to upgrade his company’s version of the software. Trade-specific software for designing a large hotel, for example, could then incorporate more variables and make more complex calculations.

An agent in the FBI’s computer intrusion center and an executive for a U.K.-based computer and Internet security firm both say the situations Cuesta describes are plausible, but neither had any first-hand information about hacker attacks by Cuban companies.

Cuesta says at his job he targeted both foreign and Cuban companies – whatever it took to make his company more effective. "The state owns every company and business, but each must finance itself. They are in competition," said Cuesta. "But no one important can really go out of business. It’s a false economy."

Disillusioned with the poor treatment and meager salaries at state-run companies, Cuesta quit his job at the construction firm in January and decided to try the world of freelance programming. With two partners he does contract work designing software and Web sites. The work is not sponsored by the state, and therefore illegal. To minimize the danger for both the contractors and the programmers, the business relationship is deliberately murky. Cuesta says he and his two associates are currently designing software for an Italian company. When asked, he says he doesn’t know the name of the company, just the names of contact people he talks to weekly. And the Italian contacts don’t know Cuesta’s partners. "It’s not convenient for them to know who we are," Cuesta says. When asked if he wanted to know more about his employers, he shakes his head. "It’s better to know less."

The nature of the work promotes secrecy. Cuesta says the Italian company would be expelled from Cuba for contracting a group without government oversight. He also said because the work is illegal, he and his colleagues write software using whatever means necessary. He says they copy sections of code from patented software and hack other useful information from databases. When speed and file size are a factor, he turns to a friend at ETECSA, the Cuban phone company. The friend sneaks Cuesta into ETECSA after hours to use its contemporary machines and high-speed connection, a considerable improvement over Cuesta’s 28.8 kbps modem and 133 megahertz Pentium I desktop. But he’s coaxed that computer into performing beyond its capacity. Most computer towers have multiple bays inside for hard drives, allowing for an additional drive to easily be added. But Cuesta has jerry rigged two 1-gigabyte hard drives to operate simultaneously in one bay – taping a white plastic bag between them to keep their electrostatic charges from shorting each other out. He also doubled the capacity of one drive by using an application called Double Spacing. All this gave him three times the original 1 gigabyte of hard disk space.

But these details are of little consequence to his Italian employers, who, according to Cuesta, want software they can sell as their own on the world market.

"They want cheap software," Cuesta says. "And we want dollars."

The quest for dollars doesn’t stop at Cuesta’s front door. From there one can look across stained rooftops sprouting TV antennas and makeshift satellite dishes to the Capitolio, the domed Cuban capitol modeled after its counterpart in Washington D.C. From the broad granite stairs radiating heat to the air-conditioned Internet café tucked off the main hall, the push for dollars is evident. Hawkers on the steps charge $1 for a bill with a picture of Che Guevara on it worth 14 cents. A box of suspect Montecristo cigars goes for $40. But neither these Cubans, nor someone like Cuesta, are allowed in Cybercafé Capitolio, where another type of business goes on.

"It’s called inventa," says James Philips, a foreign national who has frequented the Internet café regularly during his four years in Cuba. "It’s a creative way of stealing. … Say you’re online for two hours. You pay for that two hours, but they ring it up as one hour and pocket the rest."

The Internet café – the first in Cuba when it opened in April 2000 – provides Internet access on seven computers for $5 hour. Pesos are not accepted, and the café’s commercial license only allows foreigners and Cuban nationals married to foreigners to use the computers, says Rolando Garcia, the café manager. Customers’ passport numbers are written down before they can get online.

Garcia says the restrictions were simply a business decision, not a move to control access to information. He dismisses the notion that Internet access could facilitate social change in Cuba. "The revolution isn’t afraid of this," says Garcia. "The revolution is already committed to educating the population." He says he wants to apply to the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment, which controls the café, for a license allowing Cubans to get online, but he hasn’t started the process yet.

Most Cubans simply can’t afford to pay $5 for an hour of surfing. If they can, Garcia says they would still be turned away. But one of the cafe clerks, who asked to remain anonymous, says Cubans who can pay could get online.

"Today is a slow day," says Garcia, glancing around the narrow room where four café tables are squeezed between floor-length windows and a counter. While they wait for a computer, tourists drink bottled water and beer at the tables or mill around a rack of Castro and Guevara postcards. "There are more or less always 20 to 25 people waiting," Garcia says.

While that may be an exaggeration – on several trips to the café before 10:00 a.m. only two to three people were waiting – business is undoubtedly good. Garcia wouldn’t give specifics on how much revenue the café was bringing in, but he says he wanted to get permission from the ministry to reinvest some or all of the operational income. "Right now we’d like to finance ourselves," says Garcia. "We’re working on changing to a much bigger and more comfortable location."

The ministry may be wary though about the short-term loss of hard-currency. Besides the initial investment in the computers and the cost of Internet service, the café has little overhead. Garcia says his salary is about $12 a month. The six other employees make less than Garcia. The café looks to be a cash cow, and Garcia says similar operations have been opened in the cities of Santiago and Santa Clara.

photo by Mimi Chakarova

The government is also not the only one getting dollars from Cybercafé Capitolio. The workers are too. "It’s called inventa," says James Philips, a foreign national who has frequented the Internet café regularly during his four years in Cuba. "It’s a creative way of stealing. … Say you’re online for two hours. You pay for that two hours, but they ring it up as one hour and pocket the rest." According to Philips, who asked that his real name not be used, the practice of shorting the register is common anywhere dollars are paid. "It’s the same thing at the grocery store," he says. "Everything works on the dollar and informal client relationships. After I’d been going to the Capitolio for a while, one day they just said I was next. There was a list of names in front of me."

Philips said he was online for about a half hour. His bill was $3. He gave the clerk a five-dollar bill and told her to keep the change.

"The next time there was a line and it was simply ‘We’ll fix it,’" says Philips. "They’re not supposed to accept tips, but I know they’re keeping that money." After that Philips says he no longer had to wait in hour-long lines to check his email, and he always tipped when he paid. Soon after he says an employee at the café offered him a black market Internet account for $50 a month. When approached months later by a foreign national posing as a student living in Cuba, the same employee said he could arrange a black market account. A meeting was scheduled with the employee’s "friend" who supplied access codes.

Philips, however, got a black market account for $50 through a different source. "I don’t even know his name," Philips says. "I just call him Jorge’s friend. He shows up every month for his money. He calls occasionally to make sure everything is OK."

Depending on the type of black market account, service can be spotty. According to multiple sources, black market accounts are usually created in one of three ways: the access code is stolen, the access code is sold by the legitimate owner, or an illicit account is created by a network administrator who oversees a server.

"Generally people who have Internet access are directors; they don’t know anything about computers," says Cuesta. "We steal the accounts and just sell the codes."

"Let’s say you work at CITMATEL [one of four government-run Internet service providers] and you work for pesos," says Nelson Valdes, director of the Cuban Academic Research Program at the University of New Mexico. "During the day you create a program to set up a proxy server on the commercial server. Now you have two servers effectively working on one. You’re the only one who knows it’s there, and you can sell accounts for dollars. … It happens all the time." Free software to set up a proxy server is readily available through online chat channels like Internet Relay Chat, or IRC. Valdes says that while doing research in Cuba he paid $15 a month for an email-only account set up illicitly on a proxy server.

Stolen access codes can be the most problematic for Web surfers. If the code is for a single-user account, the legitimate owner may try to log onto a server, only to be denied because someone else has taken his or her place. Often the account owner will request a new code, canceling the original one. The cut-off black market user then tells his supplier, who gives him or her a code from a different source. "Sometimes it works for weeks, sometimes for a month or so," says Philips.

"I have a multiple-user account," says Cuesta, the hacker. The account, which he says he stole from a company executive, allows a set number of people – an executive management group, for example – to dial in remotely at the same time. Since there are multiple login slots available, there is less chance an authorized user will be denied and realize the code has been compromised. "Generally people who have Internet access are directors; they don’t know anything about computers," says Cuesta. "We steal the accounts and just sell the codes. … Also, I have a lot of friends who give me connections anyway."

Some individuals with legal accounts sell their code to make cash on the side, they then set up specific time periods for use.

"My friend has an account that he can only use between 8 at night and 8 in the morning when the owner isn’t using it," says Marelys Herrera, a 21-year-old writer who shares a black market Internet account with her mother. Her friend pays $30 a month for the limited service. Herrera and her mother do a little better. "My mom works for a foreign firm," she says. "The firm hooks her up and pays the $10 for the account, but of course it’s illegal."

The unregulated nature of the black market makes it impossible to tell how many Cubans are sneaking online or buying used computer parts to circumvent costly and restrictive government stores. Even more widespread is unofficial email use. There are about 40,000 registered email accounts in Cuba, but many account owners share their addresses with neighbors, friends and colleagues. They print incoming messages for these other users and type in outgoing emails.

Cuban students linger around the stairs to the central library at Havana University, where foreign students can open an account for $5 and send email on text-only computers running a Linux operating system. Cuban students are rigorously questioned and often denied an account, so they pass hand-written messages with an email address scrawled on the top to any foreign exchange student willing to send it.

"How many people have email connectivity? We don’t know," says Valdes. "One account can have eight people using it." Valdes says there are "easily 20,000" free Yahoo! email accounts registered to Cubans. Many of these people don’t have regular computer access, so they set their accounts up to forward email to a friend who has regular access, he says.

Though more rare than surreptitious email use, everyone from painters to diplomats say they know about the black market in computers and Internet accounts. "It’s rare, yes," says Herrera, who asked that her name be changed. "But in my world, pretty much everybody has black market access. We also share computer parts and things like that. In my world we’re all informaticos."

Informaticos say they dodge the system for two main reasons: money and anonymity. If one can get government approval, an Internet account is prohibitively expensive unless a state agency subsidizes it. The National Center for Automated Data Exchange, known by its Spanish acronym CENIAI, oversees Cuba’s four Internet service providers. CENIAI charges $260 a month – more than the average annual salary of $240 cited in United Nations figures for 2000 – to Cubans and foreigners alike to register an Internet account.

"You can go the official way through CENIAI, but that way they know everything," says Herrera. "They know exactly when you get on, exactly where you go, what numbers you call. The service is better, but we don’t use it because of that – and it’s expensive. So you just go through the black market. You find someone who has it and ask them how they got it. It’s really easy to get Internet access."

The black market is also a primary source for computer hardware. "You pretty much have to use the black market to build a computer; it’s a fortune to buy one in the store," said Herrera. Pedro Mendoza, a 35-year-old painter, turned to the black market to get a used desktop with a Pentium III processor for $900. "There’s a black market for everything, but you need money," says Mendoza. "You find it. It’s that easy. That’s where you go if you want to get something done."

But not all Cubans have the money to shop the black market, or have Cuesta’s ability to get online themselves. These people have to go the official route, which is cumbersome and restrictive. At the National Library of Science and Technology, downstairs from the Cybercafé Capitolio, average Cubans can get online information, but they can’t get online. Instead, they submit requests to professional researchers who search the Web on one of seven computers. The fee is 15 pesos per hour – about 70 cents.

"We don’t have sufficient technology to serve every Cuban," says Anierta Pereira, a 37-year-old researcher at the library. "There are limitations."

One of the limitations is that foreigners are given priority, says Pereira. "The only thing is they have to pay in dollars," she says. Foreigners are charged $5 an hour for research, or they can get online themselves in the next room, where there are six computers with Internet connections for the same $5-per-hour rate.

According to Pereira, most of the information requests come from academics or students. Pereira says no Web sites are blocked at the library, but superiors can monitor researcher’s movements.

To demonstrate, Pereira opens the Web site for the Cuban American National Foundation, the largest U.S.-based Cuban exile group, which is known for its militant anti-Castro stance. "You see?" she says. "We can access anything, but it’s the time. We have to be productive. … The cost to use the Internet is very high, and we don’t want to put the institution in a position where they have to pay more money."

The Internet is more expensive in Cuba than elsewhere. Pummeled by economic hardship as the West leapt into the information age, Cuba is struggling to modernize an antiquated telecommunications system that wasn’t built to handle electronic data traffic. There are no fiber optic links off the island, and all digital data is relayed through two costly satellite links. In a bid to catch up, the government is overhauling its phone network in a joint venture with Italy's Telecom Italia and Mexico’s Grupo Domos, digitizing analog lines and laying new cables. When the project is completed – slated for 2004 – there will be 1.1 million phone lines. That is less than one phone per 10 Cubans. Now there are about 623,000 phone lines, or one for every 18 Cubans. More than half of these lines are analog and effectively useless for sending digital information.

"We know the government monitors chat rooms," says Santiago Ferrer. "If you say something out of the ordinary they kick you out of the chat room. They have spies who are moderators."

The government frequently cites the lack of infrastructure and current Internet costs as the main hindrance to Cubans getting online. To address this, communications officials announced a plan to set up email and "Internet" terminals in 2,000 post offices across the country, allowing even rural Cubans to get online. In March three post offices were wired, and another 30 were brought online in April. "We had to find a way to use the Internet for the public," said Juan Fernandez, head of Cuba’s e-commerce commission. "Here really the only restriction for getting on the Internet is technology. Cuba is not afraid of the challenge of the Internet."

Fernandez’s assurances seem hollow, however, considering the post offices that are wired don’t offer Internet access. Rather, they provide access to a national Intranet, a closed network that only contains sites endorsed by the government. Cubans have to pay in dollars – $4.50 for three hours – to surf the domestic Intranet or to send email internationally. Web-hosted email accounts like Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail are not accessible. Ostensibly Cubans are allowed to send domestic emails for 5 pesos per hour, but at the main cyber post office inside the new Ministry of Information and Communication the clerk said even domestic email had to be paid for in dollars. Later, a second clerk at the same post office said domestic emails could be paid for in pesos, but she didn’t know what the rate was. "Almost no one uses pesos," she said.

"We have to be realists," Sergio Perez, head of the Cuban computer firm Teledatos, told the government-controlled newspaper Granma in April. "Cuba, a poor country which is economically blocked by the biggest imperialist powerhouse in the world, has food rations and a shortage of medical supplies. How is it that we also wouldn’t have Internet access limitations?"

While Cuban officials frequently blame the U.S. trade embargo for the country’s economic problems, the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversees U.S. financial dealings with Cuba, authorized U.S. companies in 1997 to negotiate with Cuban officials on opening a fiber optic link between Florida and Cuba. The move came after the State Department issued a policy statement earlier that year indicating it supported a fiber optic link to increase the flow of information and cut high phone rates between the two countries. The only condition was that no new technology could be given to Cuba.

"Our end goal is that there would be a fiber optic cable so that we could encourage a greater development of Internet between the United States and Cuba," says James Wolf, economic coordinator for Cuban affairs at the State Department. "To our knowledge there has not actually been an agreement between the Cuban phone company and any of the U.S. companies that have been looking into this."

A fiber optic ring being laid around the Caribbean should be completed by the end of 2001, but in its current form it bypasses Cuba. Some observers have speculated the network, know as Americas Region Caribbean Ring System, or ARCOS-1, could be linked to Cuba if the political and business factors fall into place. When completed, the ring will pass within 50 miles of Havana, at which point an ARCOS-1 network map indicates a "branching unit" will be laid down. The international consortium funding the project includes 25 telecoms from 14 countries, including AT&T, MCI and Genuity (formely GTE).

Wolf would not comment on whether the consortium was negotiating with the Cuban side, but noted, "at this point there has not been a single application by any company to actually install such a cable." Valdes, director of the Cuban Academic Research Program, framed the question facing the Cuban government in economic terms: "Do we bring in optical lines, or do we bring in pipes so we don’t have to truck in water to Havana?"

The Western diplomat in Cuba, however, viewed it differently. According to him, the Cuban government is making substantial revenue off high phone charges between the U.S. and Cuba. Operating an efficient fiber optic network with a U.S. business partner would cut into its revenue stream. For U.S. government approval, the network would also have to allow for the free flow of information, undercutting the Cuban government’s ability to filter or monitor where its citizens venture in cyberspace.

It is unclear how extensive government control over cyberspace is. In March it blocked access to web phone sites like dialpad.com and online conferencing services like Net Meeting. But both government-run computer centers and home computers had access to sites from anti-Castro groups and U.S. media outlets.

"It is absolutely false that the government is controlling specific sites," Perez was quoted in Granma as saying. "It is the companies or institutions connected to the Internet that decide where its workers and students browse. In what country in the world is a doctor allowed to use a hospital computer to visit porn sites or chat with a friend?"

In Cuba though, all companies are owned by the state, and many computer users say they are certain the government monitors Internet activity. "Everyone knows it," says Santiago Ferrer, and a 25-year-old technician at CUPET, the state petroleum company, and a friend of Cuesta’s. "It’s in the technology. Servers have the capacity to look and check where you were." Chat rooms are dangerous places because the government watches them for subversive talk, says Ferrer. "We know the government monitors chat rooms," he says. "If you say something out of the ordinary they kick you out of the chat room. They have spies who are moderators." According to Cuesta, all chat rooms in Cuba are controlled. The government can even monitor individually set up a channels that host invitation-only chat rooms.

But just the threat of monitoring may be an effective deterrent. "You don’t have to check someone’s urine everyday to see if they’re taking drugs," said the Western diplomat. "I would be astounded if they weren’t monitoring my every key stroke."

Even someone like Armando Estévez, a well-placed state employee, isn’t entrusted with Internet access. Relaxing in the afternoon sun on the front steps of the Capitolio, he checks his IBM personal organizer and his cell phone, conveniences someone like Cuesta only reads about. The information services manager at CUPET, Estévez even has a laptop to work from home, where he can dial into a closed company Intranet but not the Internet.

In the Cuban cyber realm – whether it’s assembling computers bought in pieces or selling Internet codes – it comes down to ingenuity, connections and money.

Still, he plays down the idea that the government was worried online information could stir political change. "Undoubtedly there is an influence, but the political change is not very big," he says. "That information is coming into the country all the time – it has been for 40 years. We can’t blockade that kind of information. You hear it over the radio or by word of mouth. People know what’s in the Miami Herald and compare it with Granma."

Estévez suggests Cubans view the U.S. newspaper and the Cuban state-run daily with equal suspicion. "The problem is the lies are very big on both sides," he says. "You can spot them immediately. That’s what politics is."

With almost 2 million Cuban immigrants in the United States, nearly all of the estimated 11 million people in Cuba have a relative living somewhere across the Florida Strait. Travel restrictions relaxed in 1999 under the Clinton administration have allowed many Cuban émigrés to visit the island, bringing news and goods from the United States. Thousands of tourists visit annually, many of them from Western Europe. Miami-based Radio Marti, funded by the U.S. government and operated by the Cuban American National Foundation, broadcasts programs heard across Cuba. According to Estévez, the Internet is "changing the minds of the people," but in a personal way rather than a political one.

"People use the Internet for communication, mainly personal communication," he says.

Ferrer, both a colleague of Estévez’s and an informatico friend of Cuesta’s, typifies a new generation of Cubans who get online to communicate. "It’s very Cuban to cooperate through chatting," says Ferrer, who goes by "macdaddy" in chat rooms. "Usually when we’re chatting we get phone numbers. We meet at the beach and stuff. It’s really weird and kinda funny. No one uses their real names when we meet. They say, ‘Hey Mac Daddy,’ and you don’t know whether to use their real name or not."

Despite the lack of home Internet access, Ferrer says chatting is "very common in Cuba now." He chats on the job. Monitoring the flow of petroleum during a 24-hour shift has its down times, but Ferrer is friends with the network administrator in his division. Even though he is not authorized to have Internet access on his computer, Ferrer said the administrator lets him get online whenever he wants.

"If you chat at lunch my boss won’t do anything," he says. "It’s not a problem. We shouldn’t chat it in front of him when we’re supposed to be working, but we can surf the Web." Ferrer says surfing is actually part of his job responsibilities. "My boss knows. Everybody knows," he says. "My boss tells me to find stuff on the Internet."

As he talks, Ferrer leans against a glass display case in the electronics store at Havana’s Plaza Carlos III shopping center. He is among a group of twenty-something males looking wistfully at a new shipment of modems, motherboards and other computer gear, most without price tags. According to the store manager, the parts arrived three days ago, and the store headquarters hadn’t decided how much to charge. The few items that had prices were two to three times more expensive than in the United States. A Multi-Tech Systems 56K modem was $230. The same modem is listed on buy.com for $115. Similar markups are found in the few other computer stores sprinkled around Havana.

Ferrer is building his computer piecemeal, cobbling together parts bought on the black market or loaned to him by friends like Cuesta. He still needs a monitor, a CD-ROM drive and a modem to complete it. "It’s very expensive," he says, casting a sidelong glance at modem. "Most of the parts I have I got from friends."

Cost is not the only factor when purchasing a computer. Prospective buyers must have written permission from a company or government institution, like the professional writers union, to buy a complete system. They then have to purchase the computer with a check, usually drawn from a company or government account, since few Cubans have personal bank accounts. Computer parts can be bought without authorization, but in all cases the transactions are in dollars.

"If you chat at lunch my boss won’t do anything," says Ferrer. "It’s not a problem. We shouldn’t chat it in front of him when we’re supposed to be working, but we can surf the Web."

According to Ernesto Reyna, manager for the Plaza Carlos III store, anyone can come in and buy all the parts to build a complete computer system at one time. Although no hard drives, CR-ROM drives or tower cases were on display, Reyna said the store had everything to put together a full system. Once the pieces are bought, Reyna says staff will assemble the machine if the customer requests. A Pentium III system with a CD-ROM, modem and speakers would cost just over $2,000 – more than double the price in the U.S.

In the Cuban cyber realm – whether it’s assembling computers bought in pieces or selling Internet codes – it comes down to ingenuity, connections and money. Cuesta operates at one extreme, but the rules are the same even at the shiny state-run computer clubs he describes as "bullshit."

The government started opening the clubs in the 1990s to help Cubans succeed in a technology-driven world. Affiliated with the Union of Communist Youths, a government student organization, the clubs teach classes in Windows, Excel and Word, as well as more advanced skills like web design and multimedia presentations. They focus on youths, but offer classes for adults as well. There are currently 174 of these clubs throughout the country, said Damian Barcaz, technical assistant director at the Central Palace of Computing, the flagship club. He said the government plans to have between 200 and 300 throughout Cuba’s 15 provinces in the next two years.

"There’s really nowhere you don’t need a computer," says Barcaz. "It’s the way to the world." But many of these youth computer clubs, like the one is the Havana neighborhood of Vedado, lack Internet access. At the Central Palace of Computing in Old Havana, five of the 10 computers available for students to do work outside of their classes have Internet access. Barcaz says no sites are blocked or filtered out, bringing up CNN’s Web site when asked. "Staff walk around and can look where the students are going, but we don’t block anything," says Barcaz.

Upstairs from the main hall, past a framed placard on which Castro wrote "Siento envidia!" (How would you translate that?) when he christened the center in 1991, a group of six- and seven-year-olds sit two to a computer in a modern classroom. They practice their spelling as brightly colored graphics of leopards and buses appeared on their screens. One boy uses the mouse and keyboard to color in a graphic of Peter Pan and then write a few words about the scene. Barcaz says the exercises teach young children basics like how to use a mouse and turn on a computer while also developing on language skills.

"Many writers don’t have computers at home," says Joanna Ramirez, 20, one of the café administrators. "Writers can work on their books here and then send them to other countries for interaction and discourse."

In the next classroom the mood is more serious. Groups of three or four adults huddle around each of the nine computers as they practice using Windows 2000 and Microsoft Excel. Many say they needed computer skills for their job. "At my bank there’s one computer and I have to know how to use it," says Leticia Betancourt, 23. "This is the only way we can learn how. Society demands that you know how to use a computer now, so we come here."

Marta Baros, a 50-year-old accountant, is in a similar position. "I want to be able to use this," she says, gesturing at an Excel spreadsheet open on her screen. "If I can, my work will be much better."

With 1,040 students enrolled at the center, and thousands of applications received before new courses start every four months, it appears many Cubans think computers are the key to their future. Deciding who gets in, and who does not, is the "most difficult task," according to Barcaz. He says he is one of four people who determine what percentage of workers, students and housewives the club accepts. Individuals from those categories are then enrolled on a first-come first-served basis. Once they are selected, "everything is completely free," says Barcaz.

Raul Varella, a former student whose name has been changed, says the process is really based on who you know or how much you pay. Varella, who runs in the same informatico circle as Cuesta and Ferrer, said he was denied admittance on his first attempt, but his father was friends with a teacher at the club, who used his influence to get Varella in. After he completed his first course, Varella again tried to enroll aboveboard and was denied. "Through friendship it’s much easier," he says. He also says business employees are given priority because their companies pay in dollars to have them trained. According to Varella, it costs companies $180 to enroll their employees in one four-month course.

"They prioritize the admittance list according to business people like me who work in an office," he says. "The company gives you money and you take the classes. For individuals it’s free, but businesses have to pay because you are getting skills."

The youth computer clubs are not the government’s only efforts to get certain citizens computer skills. The official journalists union handed out 150 computers and home Internet accounts to distinguished members in 1999, including installing phone lines if the reporters lacked them, says Aixa Hevia, vice president of the union.

The state-sponsored artist and writers union, known by the Spanish initials UNEAC, opened up an Internet café for its members in October 2000. Tucked in the back of a colonial palace off the Plaza de Armas, the café gives writers access to the outside world, even if the connection is slow. The five computers share one modem linked to a proxy server at the Book Institute, the country’s largest publishing house. But the café was bustling on a Saturday, with two people seated at each computer, staring intently at emails or tapping furiously in Microsoft Word as Simon and Garfunkel’s "Sound of Silence" – downloaded off Napster – slipped around the room.

photo by Mimi Chakarova

"Many writers don’t have computers at home," says Joanna Ramirez, 20, one of the café administrators. "Writers can work on their books here and then send them to other countries for interaction and discourse." The 180 writers authorized to use the café pay about 50 cents a month for membership. They have to book computer time in advance in two- to three-hour blocks. For some the time isn’t spent seeking critiques of their work, but rather emailing friends, getting new versions of songs, or downloading software like PhotoShop. A few members have computers and black market Internet accounts at home, and one writer brings in his hard-drive, complete with songs downloaded overnight from Napster – the embattled music sharing program – so others in the café can hear and copy the songs. Another artist uses the time to get world news not presented in the Cuban media, including Castro’s nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, which was submitted in March 2001 by leftist Norwegian politician Hallgeir Langeland.

"We found out Fidel was nominated for the Nobel Prize on the Univision Web site," says the writer, who asked not to be named, referring to the Spanish-language broadcast group. "It was never announced here. That only goes around by word of mouth."

"It’s not like is used to be," says Ferrer in the musty Central Havana apartment he shares with his mother. "Then we were in a bubble. We used to see the world through tinted lenses. It was very difficult." He is lounging against a Russian TV with a Marlboro in his hand, sunglasses on his head, and gold bracelets on his dark wrists. The shutters are closed and his mother is gone. It seems like a hacker’s room. Tacked to the shelf above him is a sign that reads "no smoking." Overhead, an inflatable silver alien dangles from a fluorescent light bulb. The shelves are piled with bootleg CDs and grainy pictures of Maria Carey and Pamela Anderson that had been downloaded and printed out. Varella and Cuesta recline nearby. Ferrer’s "Frankenstein" computer is on the desk. It’s a lonesome gray case – no keyboard, no mouse, no monitor. A piece of white cardboard carefully cropped to fit around the disk drive and start button covers the front of Ferrer’s unfinished gateway to the world.

"We don’t have to see what they want us to see," he says. "The world is getting to know each other through the Internet. Everyone in the world is the same as in Cuba."

Cuesta, however, is more cautious in his assessment. "The state thinks the Internet can change society," he says. "Tourism is more abundant and is creating more of an effect though. People compare their lives to the lives of outside people. That makes them think."

He leans back in his chair against the closet door. Ferrer takes a drag of his cigarette, fiddling with a bootleg Mariah Carey CD. He rests his eyes on Frankenstein for more than a few seconds.

"You can’t predict what’s going to happen," he says.

 

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