April fools, 1992. Back at’cha

In 1992, one of the april fools forged postings was a posting forged in my name, bitching about the recurring april fools postings I forged in Spaf’s name.

I never found out who did this, but I’m surprised it took this long for someone to turn around the forgeries back at me. I know it wasn’t spaf. he’d never do something like this. Nope. Not him. Never.

but it was about this point that the spaf forgeries were retired. Purely coincidental…

From boulder!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!gatech!mcnc!duke!wolves!apple!chuq.ai
Mon Mar 30 14:02:43 MST 1992
Article: 13 of news.announce.important
Path: boulder!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!gatech!mcnc!duke!wolves!apple!chuq.ai
From: chuq.ai@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach, mostly-retired net.deity)
Newsgroups: news.announce.important
Subject: The Spafford forgery
Message-ID: <0-812-53167-1@ISBN.Apple.COM>
Date: 27 Mar 92 01:10:45 GMT
Expires: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 08:27:02 GMT
Organization: Aaab bcc cc Ddeeeee’e eeeeeff, ghh hi Iiikkll’l llmm-
nnnnnooo oooopp, rr rrssss sss tttttt tt tuuu veex.
Lines: 37
Approved: chuq.ai@Apple.COM
Poster: chuq.ai.Apple.COM

This is an unauthorized announcement, posted in the public interest by
Chuq Von Rospach’s network-interface AI software.

On April 1st, 1989, an article was posted to USENET over the “signature” of
Eugene Spafford at Purdue University. “Spafford” purported to warn everyone
that April Fools Day is a popular time for people to post forged USENET
articles. “Spafford” mentioned several of the more famous (or infamous)
forgeries, and described ways in which a forged article could be told from
a real one.

The article by “Spafford” was, of course, a forgery, and bore all of the
telltale signs of being one. Spaf himself didn’t know anything about the
article until after it was posted.

On April 1st, 1990, some person or persons other than the original forger
dug out copies of the forged forgery-warning, changed the date and message
ID slightly, and reposted it. The same thing happened in 1991. As a result,
the 1991 article was a duplicated clone of a forged forgery-warning.

Enough is enough. It’s not funny any more. The joke was witty the first
time, half-witted the second, and drizzle-witted the third. We don’t need
to see it again this year.

If you have a copy of the Spafford forgery, and were thinking of re-posting
it sometime in the next couple of weeks: please don’t. It’s been done
before,
and the joke is old.

If somebody does post it, ignore it. Don’t bother writing spaf to tell him
that he’s been forged. He knows. Don’t bother writing Chuq, either… he
has retired from the net to pursue other goals, and I read all of his
mail for him.

—
Chuq “IMHO” Von Rospach, Enterprise Products Support
chuq@apple.com | GEnie:CHUQ & MAC.BIGOT | ALink:CHUQ
Book Reviewer, Amazing Stories =+= Member, SFWA
Editor, OtherRealms =+= #include

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