Page 66 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - October / November 2018

66 Top Tech Hoaxes Of All Time

Top Tech Hoaxes Of All

Time

Social media pranks and viral videos have
nothing on these truly historical technical
hoaxes.
The art of the hoax is woefully
underappreciated. Properly executed hoaxes can
be creative, cautionary, and (ideally) funny. The
Digital Age has muddied the waters, though.
Online scams, viral marketing, and even late-
night TV gags have blurred the distinctions
between hoaxes, pranks, stunts, and outright
criminal fraud – so blurred them, in fact, that
one might need an expert to distinguish them
from one another. Luckily, one such expert
exists: Alex Boese, author and curator of The
Museum of Hoaxes. According to Boese, a hoax
is "a deliberately deceptive act that has
succeeded in capturing the attention (and,
ideally, the imagination) of the public."
later years, Welles admitted that he wasn't the original nonexistent email. The Internet
entirely surprised by the public panic, went down the rabbit hole and arguably never
1. The Mechanical Turk suggesting that the incident may have been a came back up.
The concept of automatons (mechanical deliberate hoax all along.
men, basically) was hugely fashionable among 7. Legislating pi
the nerdy hipster set in the 18th century. In 4. Nylon colour television To some degree, all technology is based
1770, Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von
The early days of television featured on math. And in 1998, the noble field of
Kempelen unveiled his Mechanical Turk, a
some of the greatest hoaxes ever, as congenital mathematics played host to a hoax with a
chess-playing automaton that the inventor
pranksters discovered a new medium to exploit. curious history. By way of endlessly forwarded
claimed could think, plan, reason, and defeat all
In 1962, Sweden's national broadcasting emails, word got out that the Alabama state
comers in the sacred game of chess. For more
company, SVT, aired a special report claiming legislature had voted to change the value of pi to
than 50 years, The Turk toured Europe and
that black-and-white TVs could be made colour, 3.0, in accordance with Biblical scripture. The
America, baffling chess professionals and VIPs simply by stretching a nylon stocking over the story made headlines for a few days until it was
like Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon I. But the screen. The news report featured a fake on-air discovered that the article was actually intended
Mechanical Turk was no Deep Blue, the IBM
expert droning on about the particular light- to be parody. The parody was itself a riff on
computer that would defeat world champion
bending technology involved. In Sweden, previous urban legends going back decades.
Garry Kasparov some 200 years later. The ruse
legend holds that thousands of viewers fell for Those hoaxes, in turn, were based on an actual
was eventually revealed by a subsequent owner:
the prank, prompting a run (heh) on nylon but obscure 1897 attempt to legislate pi in
The Turk used old stage magic tricks and a
stockings the following day. Indiana -- but for practical, not religious
sliding seat to conceal the human chess player
reasons. Twirling, twirling into madness!
hidden within.
5. The Soviet Union joins Usenet
If the early days of TV were fertile for 8. The spud server
2. Keely's Etheric Engine
hoaxing, they were nothing compared to the Everyone remembers the old high
History is packed with hustlers and con
early days of the Internet. The so-called school experiment about generating a low-
men who have pitched dubious alternative
"Kremvax Incident" is considered by many to voltage electrical current from a potato. In 2000,
energy schemes, often perpetual motion
be the very first Internet hoax. On April 1, 1984 a group of dotcom pranksters took the next
machines based on dubious pseudo-science.
(note the date), denizens of the proto-Internet logical step by putting together a "spud server"
One of the most audacious was proposed by forum Usenet were surprised to read a dispatch that hosted a handful of Web pages which
John Keely, an American inventor -- we use the from Konstantin Chernenko, prime minister of loaded ... very ... slowly. Several media
term lightly -- who debuted his "hydro-
the USSR: "This is at last the Socialist Union of organizations picked up the story before the
pneumatic multiplicator" in 1874. Keely fooled
Soviet Republics joining the Usenet network truth came out. But then a curious thing
scientists, journalists, and a long list of wealthy
and saying hallo to everybody. One reason for happened. Realizing the technical feasibility of
patrons until his death in 1898. The following
us to join this network has been to have a means the scheme, Fredric White made an actual spud
year, a newspaper investigation found that his
of having an open discussion forum with the server. Kind of: Only the CPU was potato-
laboratory was rigged with an ingenious system
American and European people..." The hoax powered. His spec sheet still haunts the Internet.
of concealed belts and tubes, powered by a was later revealed to be the inspired work of a
secret air compression motor hidden two stories European Usenet regular 9. The Microsoft iLoo
below.
In 2003, a U.K. division of Microsoft
6. The "Good Times" virus issued a news release detailing the iLoo
3. "War of the Worlds"
A computer virus hoax that went viral initiative -- a fully wired and Internet-ready
One of history's most famous hoaxes
itself, the "Good Times" crisis of 1994 started porta-potty. The iLoo boasted a plasma screen,
was never intended to be a hoax at all. Or was simply enough. Online warnings began to a "waterproof silicone keyboard," surround-
it? On October 30, 1938, the CBS radio network circulate on AOL about a devastating computer sound speakers, and broadband Internet
broadcast "The War of the Worlds," based on virus spread by email -- specifically, emails connection via wireless LAN. The press,
H.G. Wells' story of Martian invasion. Directed
with the subject header "GOOD TIMES!" Open predictably, went crazy, and Microsoft issued a
by media wunderkind Orson Welles, the
the email, and the virus would send itself to bulletin that it was all a hoax. Or was it? A
production was structured as a series of "live"
everyone in your address book right before follow-up press release said that, in fact, the
news bulletins describing the unfolding alien
wiping your own hard drive. There was no such iLoo really was an active project at one point,
invasion. Welles' narrative strategy was to
virus, it turns out, but the warnings themselves but had been abandoned. The incident inspired
leverage the dramatic possibilities of mass
went viral, triggering a cascade of copycat at least one immortal news headline, from
media, but listeners weren't accustomed to warnings plus a wave of actual "GOOD (naturally) The New York Post: "Software titan
staged newscasts, and they freaked out. In his TIMES!" emails -- real emails pretending to be poo-poos iLoo." (Continued on Page 78)