A message was distributed to members of Usenet (the online messaging community that existed before the rise of the internet), announcing that the Soviet Union was joining Usenet. This was quite a shock to many, since most assumed that cold war security concerns would have prevented such a link-up. The message purported to come from Konstantin Chernenko (from the address chernenko@kremvax.UUCP) who explained that the Soviet Union wanted to join the network in order to “have a means of having an open discussion forum with the American and European people.“ The message created a flood of responses from members of the Usenet community. Two weeks later the author of the message revealed that it was a hoax.