In 1997 an email message spread throughout the world announcing that the internet would be shut down for cleaning for twenty-four hours from March 31 until April 2. This cleaning was said to be necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam" that had accumulated in the network. Dead email and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites would be purged. The cleaning would be done by "five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba ML-2274) situated around the world." During this period, users were warned to disconnect all devices from the internet. The message supposedly originated from the "Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff, Main Branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology." This joke was an updated version of an old joke that used to be told about the phone system. For many years, gullible phone customers had been warned that the phone systems would be cleaned on April Fool's Day. They were cautioned to place plastic bags over the ends of the phone to catch the dust that might be blown out of the phone lines during this period.
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.

---

Page 1 of 2 pages  1 2 >

---

Only in America!!!
Posted by rob  in  canada  on  Sat Sep 11, 2004  at  10:43 PM

---

that's hilarious!
Posted by becker  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  01:04 PM

---

My grandfather pulled the "blow the dust out of the phone lines" stunt on his sister 65 years ago. Their descendants still tell the story of how she fell for it. I'm glad to know it lives on in "modern times."
Posted by Jim  on  Sat Mar 26, 2005  at  05:33 PM

---

thats pretty funny!
Posted by Hunter  in  Yahooo  on  Wed Mar 30, 2005  at  04:34 PM

---

Um, so really, though -- how do we get rid of the flotsam and jetsam?
Posted by Sher  on  Mon Apr 04, 2005  at  01:53 PM

---

Sher, hahaha, you're not the brightest bulb in the box, are you? You probably would have actually fallen for this! XD Cleaning out the internet... haha...
Posted by Fran  on  Wed Apr 06, 2005  at  09:14 AM

---

obviously, Sher was trying to be funny (poor attempt). Obviously, Fran, you are an idiot.
Posted by ITWIG?  in  Hell, Michigan  on  Sun Apr 10, 2005  at  09:00 AM

---

That is the best ! ! ! !
Posted by Adeana Westbrook  in  Silicon Valley, CA, USA, Earth  on  Wed Apr 13, 2005  at  09:22 PM

---

This gag was played by a local radio station as I was growing up. My nanny heard the announcement on the radio and covered the phone with plastic for the day. My mother called for some reason and could barely make out the nanny's voice and asked if there was something wrong with the phone. The nanny replied (nearly inaudibly) "the phone company is cleaning the lines."

The two of them talked about this when they met face-to-face, much to the delight of their respective husbands ... who had heard about the gag through their own circles of friends.
Posted by Grasshopper  on  Fri Dec 23, 2005  at  12:59 PM

---

Back in 1997 I heard that and I thought that It's true.
Silly me...
Posted by Felixr  in  Tel - Aviv, Israel.  on  Tue Feb 21, 2006  at  09:49 AM

---

That hoax was written by a fellow in California named Matt Carey. The wording has changed somewhat here and there, but the original is unmistakably his. I wasn't aware that it had roots in the phone system, however.
Posted by nobravery  in  usa  on  Sun Apr 02, 2006  at  11:34 AM

---

Actually, this Internet hoax was not written by that fellow in California. It was written by me when I worked for IDX Systems in Burlington, VT in the mid 1990s.

I worked in the IT group for the Systems Division portion of the company and I used to send out a weekly PC tips email to the 200 users that we supported. On April Fool's day I sent this to everyone. Unfortunately someone took it seriously enough to forward it on to someone outside of the company.

It was not written maliciously and was not intended to make its way onto the Internet..

It cracks me up a bit to see what people write about how this got started because it's not true. In fact, I didn't know anything about the "fax hoax" when I wrote this.

Cheers!
Posted by Christian Jackson  in  Boston, MA  on  Fri Jun 23, 2006  at  08:47 PM

---

Hey, this is the very 'Matt Carey' that wrote the original email.


I wrote the email in 1994, which was a leap year. I sent it around in Feb of the year in question. The letter set 'internet cleaning day' as Feb. 29, leap day.

I signed the letter as 'Kim Dereksen'. I used the unusual spelling in order to make the letter traceable through internet searches. Try it; you'll see.

Few people fell for the prank, I think. But the letter propagated wonderfully, mutating as it went.

& that's the facts jack
Kallisti
Posted by Matthew Carey  on  Mon Feb 05, 2007  at  02:45 PM

---

Well Kallisti, or whoever you are, the name "Kim Dereksen" is certainly all over the Google indexes related to this topic but that doesn't make what you say true.

I can see that this isn't really about getting at the truth...
Posted by Christian Jackson  in  Boston, MA  on  Sat Feb 10, 2007  at  11:14 AM

---

I made a mistake. I wrote the prank email in 1996, which was a leap year.

to Christian Jackson: Maybe, perhaps, you wrote a similar prank email. It's hardly an original concept. It's possible we both wrote something similar. The difference is that I wrote my email in 1996 with the full intent of seeing the prank spread virally across the internet.

Yours I think was likely written in 1997 with lesser ambitions.

What you say is likely true, except that my version of the prank was first and better. There's no proving anything one way or the other, and so there's no use arguing about it. Still, pretty good evidence will become available through google searching with these terms: "it's that time again" "kim dereksen" and (my email at the time.)

Check the dates on the copies of the email that these searches turn up. You'll find that there are many dated in Feb. of 1996 and that these are the earliest versions of the email that can be found.

And you will also find that these versions of the email are subtly crafted, high quality pranks.

I've been teaching Tactical Information Design for a variety of governmental and non-governmental organizations for the past 22 years. The last 3 of which have been at White Sands, NM for the Pentagon's anti-terrorism Infiltration and Subversion Training curriculum. I have a superlative reputation within military psyops circles.

Take that for what you will. No, it's not about getting at the truth; it's about victory against our nation's enemies.

I wish you luck in your future endeavors.

Ewige Blumenkraft-
Matteus Carey,
Tactical Information Solutions, LLC
Laurel, MD
Posted by Zeno Izen  in  antarctica  on  Sat Feb 10, 2007  at  01:52 PM

---

Ewige or Matteus or Kallisti:

I think YOU are a hoax. What's with all of the different names and this crazy bit:

"it's about victory against our nation's enemies."

Are we to believe that psyops consultants are working on ways to use spam email to combat terrorism?

I can't find a "Tactical Information Solutions, LLC" in Laurel, MD. I did find a company by this name in Braintree, MA. I don't see you listed on their key consultants page: http://www.tacticalsolutions-llc.com/about_consultants.html

You or someone like you altered my original email in some subtle ways to help it propagate. Adding an MIT source email address early on seems to have helped to lend credibility.

If you intentionally modified and forwarded an email with the intention of continuous propagation I believe you are a criminal.
Posted by Christian Jackson  in  Boston, MA  on  Sat Feb 10, 2007  at  03:01 PM

---

Sorry, I was just having a laugh.

Seriously, though, with the budget this war on terror has, I'm sure that there are some consultants somewhere working on something nearly as silly as what has been suggested.

To stay on topic, I did in fact write that email from scratch while waiting for an anthropology class to start in 1996. I wrote it longhand, in a notebook, with nothing in front of me except for assorted classroom furniture and some textbooks. It honestly makes no difference to me who believes this. But if you yourself truly believe that my email was derived from yours, then I wonder if you've double checked yet.

As far as Tactical Solutions is concerned, my operative moniker for the TS frontgroup is Dick Edmond. Have a look if you wish, but I've had my photo taken down.

by the sword of Joham,
Robert Seldon Lady
The Mendacity Institute
Posted by Zeno Izen  in  a very subtle way  on  Sun Feb 11, 2007  at  01:43 AM

---

All right kiddiies, lets talk about jokes and not of what right. ENJOY A GOOOD LAUGH! LOL!!!!
That's what it's all about.
Posted by MJ  on  Fri Mar 30, 2007  at  11:29 PM

---

So, "Rob in Canada", you mean only people in the US are stupid and fall for jokes?

This may come as a surprise to you, but Canada is also in North America. Check the map, it's still there.

Also, there are a number of Canadian and UK hoaxes reported on this site that require people to be at least--if not even more--stupid.

Not that we don't have a bumper crop of fools in the US, but _please_ grow up and find something else to complain about. How about your Canadian book censorship laws? That would be a good place to start.
Posted by Chris  in  USA  on  Sat Mar 31, 2007  at  09:18 AM

---

If this article is correct about the details of the 1997 version of this standard prank, there's an extra joke: MIT actually closed on April 1, 1997.

Of course, it wasn't because spring cleaning of the network made school impossible, but because of a major snowstorm. It's be hard for me to forget this; I had assignments due in all of my classes that day, which were all rescheduled to different days, and it was my birthday.
Posted by Daniel Barkalow  in  Massachusetts  on  Sat Mar 31, 2007  at  08:31 PM

---

Page 1 of 2 pages  1 2 >

---

Name:

Email (if you want to be notified of responses):

Location:

URL:

Note: To prove that you're a human being, not an automated spam bot, you've got to type in the word you see below. If you register as a member of the site you won't have to do this. Once registered, you'll then also need to login. If you're seeing this notice, and you've already registered, that means you haven't logged in. As a member you also won't have to enter your personal info every time you leave a comment.

Submit the word you see below:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?