Poisson d’Avril

It’s April Fools’ Day. But ya knew that. One thing you might not know, Gentle Reader, is there’s a web site that lists the “Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time.” Great good stuff there. Blog-Bud Barry, from whence I got the link, likes Number Five on the list…and I have to agree with him, being the language person I am (or like to think I am, anyway).

#5: San Serriffe

In 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology. The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that gripped the British tabloids in subsequent decades.

I could see this particular hoax flying long and far in the USofA, given our woeful geographic knowledge. But it surprises me the Brits were taken in, what with the fact the British are very well-traveled (compared to us), and especially the blatantly obvious “Upper Caisse,” “Lower Caisse,” yadda, yadda.

Also from the list… the first internet hoax, ever:

#12: Kremvax

In 1984, back in the Stone Age of the internet, a message was distributed to the members of Usenet (the online messaging community that was one of the first forms the internet took) 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. Two weeks later its true author, a European man named Piet Beertema, revealed that it was a hoax. This is believed to be the first hoax on the internet. Six years later, when Moscow really did link up to the internet, it adopted the domain name 'kremvax' in honor of the hoax.

Who said Commies had no sense of humor?

The Wiki also has an impressive list of April Fools’ Day pranks… Also from The Wiki is this bit of trivia, with which I have personal experience, given I lived in Paris as a boy: “The April 1 tradition in France includes poisson d'avril (literally "April's fish"), attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim's back without being noticed.” You cannot imagine, Gentle Reader, the lengths young boys will go to just to attach a paper fish to another boy’s back (or girl’s…but not so much at ages 8 ~ 10). It’s pretty danged difficult to spend an entire day with your back to the wall, so to speak.

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And then there’s this:

Happy April Fools' Day!

As expected, Google's Gmail rolled out a fake "custom time" feature, which purports to let users send e-mails into the past and consequently never miss important deadlines again. The new feature "utilizes an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality," Google wrote.

"I just got two tickets to Radiohead by being the 'first' to respond to a co-worker's 'first-come, first-serve' email," a fake testimonial on the Custom Time site read. "Someone else had already won them, but I told everyone to check their inboxes again. Everyone sort of knows I used Custom Time on this one, but I'm denying it."

April Fools' Day is something that the Gmail folks take very seriously--the product's real beta launch was, in fact, on April 1, 2004.

Fun at the Googleplex… I use G-Mail but I missed the prank. Google must have taken “custom time” down by the time I rolled out of bed.

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This is no joke, however:

A new storm worm with an April Fool's Day theme is targeting the Web, according to security software firm PC Tools.

"The Storm worm gang has done it again. This time e-mails are being circulated, which are associated with the April Fool's Day theme," said PC Tools chief threat officer, Kurt Baumgartner.

The e-mail messages contain links that direct users to Web sites that contain malware. Once the files are downloaded and executed on the computer it sets a firewall exception rule and then attempts to 'phone home' using various outgoing ports.

According to Baumgartner, the packer and major sections of executable code have changed significantly, indicating that it could be another variant and AV detection for this threat is close to nonexistent.

"The most effective way users can protect against these new threats is with antimalware products that use behavioral technology. Traditional AV products, which use signature detection are simply not equipped with this behavioral technology and the threat is currently evading those users' defenses," he said.

Read the whole thing…and be careful out there.

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Not related at all to Poisson d’Avril… but here’s another link, this time from Blog-Bud Mike… News I can most definitely use (and you might as well, Gentle Reader):

Worth noting that if you haven't heard by now, every single episode of South Park is now available for viewing for free at their website. Let me repeat that: Every. Single. Episode. For free.

Bookmarked for those times The History Channel is in re-runs and The Discovery Channel is doing yet another of those oh-so-lame “survival in the wild” things.