FYI: 20th Anniversary Chernenko / kremvax hoax
Max Hauser
Internet (or at least those who saw these messages at the time think so). I
've included links to archives of the originals, but here is the story.
In 1984 the late Konstantin Chernenko was a leader in the then-USSR. A
growing list of regions then had access to standardized email and newsgroups
but the USSR was thought not yet among them. Also in those days, it was
still sometimes necessary to specify email paths through backbone or hub
computers (like philabs!wherever!max) rather than the more convenient
absolute addresses (m...@wherever.com), and many hub servers were VAX
minicomputers made by Digital Equipment Corp., the machines that fueled some
of the growth of the Internet in the 1980s. Also, the original pre-1987
newsgroup namings such as net.general were still in use.
On April 1, 1984 a message appeared on popular newsgroups "saying hallo"
from "K. Chernenko" in the USSR with greetings and PR, including a poke at
the US Reagan administration, and the novel return path
mcvax!moskvax!kremvax!chernenko
with mail servers listed for reference as "mcvax kremvax kgbvax." Actually
this was a joke by Piet Beertema, a Netherlands networking pioneer later
decorated by the queen for his contributions besides this, and it was well
done, at a time when forged return addresses were not so common, and it took
some people in. The original is accessible at the following link. (If you
should see any of these links wrapped to more than one line, put it back
together before clicking on it.)
groups.google.com/groups?selm=0001%40kremvax.UUCP&output=gplain
The cool part is the second message linked below. By 1991 someone pointed
out that real news servers around the Kremlin appeared to have been
contributing to newsgroups for a while, and then their system administrator,
Vadim Antonov, broadcast an introduction message describing his equipment
and how the famous 1984 hoax was appreciated in Moscow, to the extent that
he had named his real machine "kremvax" ("hm, could you call it by other
name if you were me?") and that "kgbvax" had also been reserved for the
corresponding department but that they had shown no interest, as yet, in
posting on newsgroups.
groups.google.com/groups?selm=1991Jul16.194635.4455%40hq.demos.su&output=gpl
ain
A further comment from the Jargon Dictionary at info.astrian.net (which
actually employed Antonov later as consultant): "In an even more ironic
historical footnote, kremvax became an electronic center of the
anti-communist resistance during the bungled hard-line coup of August 1991.
During those three days the Soviet UUCP network centered on kremvax became
the only trustworthy news source for many places within the USSR" and a
conduit to the outside world also.
A little history. -- Max