https://godfatherof.nl/kremvax.html The kremvax hoax --------------------------------------------------------------------- | intro | A hoax that shocked the (in the sense of networking still mostly American) world. Konstantin Chernenko It was 1984, and the world was still in the middle of the Cold War, so any form of network connectivity to any East Block country, let alone the USSR, was unthinkable and considered a direct threat to (US) national security, as was the idea of modern computer technology (Digital Equipment Corporation's 'VAX') being in the hands of the Soviets. Konstantin Chernenko was prime minister of the USSR, General Secretary of the Communist Party and head of the 'Politburo' (the body that had the real political power in that time). Here's the original Usenet article: --------------------------------------------------------------------- | article | From chernenko@kremvax.UUCP Sun Apr 1 15:02:52 1984 Relay-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC840302); site mcvax.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 4/1/84 (SU840401); site kremvax.UUCP Path: mcvax!moskvax!kremvax!chernenko From: chernenko@kremvax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.general,eunet.general,net.politics,eunet.politics Subject: USSR on Usenet Message-ID: <0001@kremvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 1-Apr-84 15:02:52 GMT Article-I.D.: kremvax.0001 Posted: Sun Apr 1 15:02:52 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 1-Apr-84 12:26:02 GMT Organization: MIIA, Moscow Lines: 41 <.....> Well, today, 840401, this is at last the Socialist Union of Soviet Republics joining the Usenet network and saying hallo to everybody. One reason for us to join this network has been to have a means of having an open discussion forum with the American and European people and making clear to them our strong efforts towards attaining peaceful coexistence between the people of the Soviet Union and those of the United States and Europe. We have been informed that on this network many people have given strong anti-Russian opinions, but we believe they have been misguided by their leaders, especially the American administration, who is seeking for war and domination of the world. By well informing those people from our side we hope to have a possibility to make clear to them our intentions and ideas. Some of those in the Western world, who believe in the truth of what we say have made possible our entry on this network; to them we are very grateful. We hereby invite you to freely give your comments and opinions. Here are the data for our backbone site: Name: moskvax Organization: Moscow Institute for International Affairs Contact: K. Chernenko Phone: +7 095 840401 Postal-Address: Moscow, Soviet Union Electronic-Address: mcvax!moskvax!kremvax!chernenko News: mcvax kremvax kgbvax Mail: mcvax kremvax kgbvax And now, let's open a flask of Vodka and have a drink on our entry on this network. So: NA ZDAROVJE! -- K. Chernenko, Moscow, USSR ...{decvax,philabs}!mcvax!moskvax!kremvax!chernenko --------------------------------------------------------------------- | followup | Obviously the article caused a flood of reactions, especially from the US, and of course I had taken care that they were all directed to my own mailbox. After 2 weeks, when some people had started worrying about the costs (!) the discussion about the "hoax-or-for-real" was causing on Usenet (costs? sure, most of the network then was still a dialup network and modems were very slow), I reveiled the real source, while including some of the reactions I got. Here's how it ended: --------------------------------------------------------------------- | unraveled | ------------ From: piet@mcvax.UUCP (Piet Beertema) Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC840302); site mcvax.UUCP Newsgroups: net.followup,eunet.followup Subject: USSR on Usenet: The Mystery Unraveled Message-ID: <5779@mcvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 15-Apr-84 13:53:11 EST Article-I.D.: mcvax.5779 Posted: Sun Apr 15 13:53:11 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 15-Apr-84 23:41:56 EST Organization: CWI, Amsterdam Lines: 298 Well then, here we are, two weeks after the Big Bang Thanks to all of you, netpals, who replied to my "USSR on Usenet" article. Reading all your replies really made worth while the forging I had to do hide the real origin. There were only a few negative responses. So humour still prevails in this (net)world. 'Sorry' for those who took this April Fool so bloody serious...... (I got serious letters more than 3 pages long!) Thanks also to those over here for the suggestions that eventually led to this article. Here's a summary of the responses, some of them with a comment. Not afraid to at last reveal the real source... Piet Beertema (piet@mcvax.UUCP) P.S. Sorry I had to explicitly state the date (twice) in the article body; otherwise it might have fooled more people; but the risk of the news software mangling the date in the header was just too bad). ------------ *** And April Fool to you too, Komrade! *** As for the real discussions in politics: it was Mr. Chernenko, not any single member of the Sovjet people, who was allowed on the net April the 1st. (I AM a single member of the Soviet people, comrade! Chernenko.) *** Where is Reagan's opener? Does he have a terminal? (Can he use one? Wargames, perhaps? Encrypted mail?) (No, he can't: has to keep his fingers on the trigger...) *** This isn't funny. I hope you get so much mail in response to this that you're reading it for a week straight. F**k you. (I did. And enjoyed it! Fuck me? Ain't no chick, pal. motss perhaps?) *** Gee, I thought that every time Russia tried to buy a VAX, customs came along and filled the boxes with concrete. *** get out of our network!!! *** chto eto za govno? ya ne veryu to chto ya chitayu v pyervom aprelye. (Sorry, but my Russian isn't what is used to be.... Cherny.) *** Hmmm, "kgbvax," I like that one. Enjoy. *** Your message sounds like a prepared speech! (It sure was....!) *** If your net contact is used as another channel for government- authored propaganda, not too many of us will be interested in reading your messages. *** Many Americans will tend to dismiss your attitude as "typical Soviet xenophobia," and I warn you that you will manage to persuade very few people to change their minds (I tried some months ago to do so on the net, and gave up in disgust). *** Do you have wombats in Mother Russia? *** So let's open a bottle of Wild Turkey and celebrate this (he says modestly) historical event: CHEERS!!! *** Gosh, does sending this letter put in the files of the CIA & KGB??? (Sure bet! And don't forget the CWI!) *** If you receive this, and the network doesn't send back an 'unknown address' message to me, then you may not be kidding around, pulling everyone's leg. (it will, from now on) *** Wow! Is this for real? Honest-to-god Russia? Gee. I never thought that I'd see it. Does this imply that Unix is behind the Iron curtain? (Isn't that where at least the encryption algorithm came from?) *** Perhaps you are not aware, but the standard phrase "misguided by their leaders...seeking for war and domination of the world" is one of those things we have heard in those exact words so many times that it is a subject of humor to our comedians and satirical writers. (Well, how about this satirical writer?) *** It will be interesting to see which newsgroups you wind up participating in. (net.nuclear and net.jokes....) *** How cute! Where does this end up, anyway? (In my mailbox... Piet) *** (Oh yeah... you forgot net.news.newsite :-) ) (Sorry for that; can happen with a novice.... Cherny) *** Very Clever April 1 ........ *** This sounds like a joke, but what the heck! Here we go: Welcome to the world of USENET. First, let me congratulate you on getting funds approved for your telephone expenses. It must be pretty expensive to read all this garbage that the net is flooded with every day. Are you actually typing from the Kremlin? Wow! I didn't think any information can get out of there without being thoroughly checked, approved, rechecked and all that, and that can take days! How long, I wonder will it be before I recieve your response to this mail? You will respond, won't you? (Of course...) *** Welcome! [From an isolated CIA outpost] (Then why didn't you send your mail to 'kgbvax'.....? Actually no one did. Pity.) *** /dev/null) *** The USSR joins the net article did not arrive here 1 April. Is there not a convention that jokes that are not obvious contain the :-) symbol? (See P.S. above; see explicit date and phonenumber(!) in article) *** Subject: Know News Versions in use version B 2.10.1 4/1/83 (SU840401) kremvax.UUCP (Shouldn't computers be told about April 1 too?) *** I am extremely happy at this chance to talk. Let us see where this leads us. At present this is a private letter to you. If our correspondance begins to make sense, we shall start posting it. *** The article was obviously a prank, from the subject header on down. The thing that bothers me are the people who say things like '[using the network as a reliable source of information.]' HAH. *** But the reference to the beginning of April was a dead giveaway, and it was meant to be. (Yes. See P.S. above) *** I should have been more on my guard, and you can bet I will be next year!" *** ...would anyone be willing to serve as a Soviet gateway site? (I can honestly state mcvax, as the gateway to continental Europe, will) *** The April Fool's day posting from kremvax was the most refreshing thing I've seen on usenet. To those who ask - "How would you feel if it came from ciavax or fbivax?" - I wish I had been imaginative enough to have posted a reply from ciavax! (I wish you had...) *** C'mon guys. Do you expect that a letter from Ronald Reagan on the USENET would be legitimate? Than why did you expect such from the U.S.S.R? (Would you expect a letter from ANY politician on USENET?) *** Dear sir, I am very glad to see that there is now a Soviet site on the net. Welcome. I am a computer science major at .....; I have class in a couple minute, so I will ask that you reply to this letter somehow. *** In fact, I thought that the author of it should have used a leading Russian scientist as his spokesperson, instead of Chernenko, to make it more believable. Boy, did I overestimate Net intelligence! *** KGB Officers are university admissions personnel? AHA! THAT explains it! Now I know why the current crop of students are who they are... *** Selling them a VAX is likely to set them back ten years. *** ------------ Well, thanks for your attention, Comrades. But right now I've got the Russian Flu, so I'm afraid I won't see you again before April 1 next year! K. Chernenko --------------------------------------------------------------------- | months later | From a reliable source I heard that this, eh... "problem" had been the subject of a serious discussion at the Pentagon about "how to deal with it". Wow! :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 7 years later | Interestingly, what was a hoax then, turned into reality in the years that followed, when the political climate changed so dramatically that the (for some!) unthinkable became true: network connectivity to the East Block, culminating in even full IP connectivity! And it was in 1991 that "kremvax" became reality too, when (with my official blessing ;-)) Vadim Antonov of Demos gave this name to one of his machines in Moscow: kremvax.demos.su (a newer computer bearing that name may still exist1) and be located in Moscow). Demos is also the story of Relcom, that - in that same year 1991 - played a key role in making a coup plot against Boris Yeltsin fail . 1) Existence and reachability last checked and verified on 16-4-2022. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 38 years later | In 2022 Russia invaded its sovereign, peaceful and neutral neighbour country Ukraine and started an extremely ruthless war, bombarding homes, schools, supermarkets, theatres, museums, hospitals, maternity clinics, killing women, pregnant women, women in labor or just having given birth, children and elderly people. Putins gangsters used banned cluster bombs, starved besieged cities. Russian troops looted, committed atrocities, war crimes, massacres, raped women and girls, and deported numerous civilians to Russia or Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. And when Putin was faced with loosing his war, he reverted to massive terrorism against civil infrastructure and public utilities all over Ukraine, in an attempt to force surrender by depriving people from such basic needs as electricity, drinking water and heating, just before winter would set in. That didn't affect the resilience of the Ukranians either - on the contrary - but created a striking resemblance to what happened in 1941: then it was Hitler trying in vain to conquer Russia ("Operation Barbarossa"), now it was Putin (nicknamed "Putler") attempting to do the same with Ukraine. This left me with a moral dilemma: should I keep the "kremvax" story on my website or remove it? After long consideration I've decided to keep it. Main reasons for keeping it were: * Removing "kremvax" wouldn't change anything and would serve no purpose. * Removing "kremvax" would boil down to retro-censoring and in a sense falsifying history. * In those 38 years "kremvax" has become widely spread over the internet, preserved in digital archives, written about in magazines and books, and is thus beyond any possibility of removal. * Last but not least: the contrast between Chernenko's 1984 fictitious words "our strong efforts towards attaining peaceful coexistence" and Putin's 2022 war against Ukraine, and the contrast between the fictitious connecting of the Soviet Union to the net in 1984 and the blocking of large parts of the internet by Russia in 2022, couldn't be sharper. --------------------------------------------------------------------- homepage