Editing Kremvax

{{Short description|A hoax Usenet site at the Kremlin}}
[[File:Kremvax1.jpg|thumb|''kremvax.[[DEMOS|demos]][[.su]]'', a follow-up server in 2007]]
'''Kremvax''' was originally a fictitious [[Usenet]] site at the [[Moscow Kremlin|Kremlin]], named like the then large number of Usenet [[VAX]]en with names of the form ''[[foo]]''vax. Kremvax was announced on April 1, 1984, in a posting ostensibly originated there by [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] leader [[Konstantin Chernenko]]. The posting was actually forged by [[Piet Beertema]] of [[Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica|CWI]] (in Amsterdam) as an [[April Fool's Day|April Fool]]'s prank<ref name="beert1">{{cite web|url=https://godfatherof.nl/kremvax.html|title=The kremvax hoax|last=Beertema|first=Piet|publisher=godfatherof.nl|access-date=2009-04-11}}</ref>—"because the notion that Usenet might ever penetrate the [[Iron Curtain]] seemed so totally absurd at the time".<ref name="jf" /><ref>{{FOLDOC|Kremvax}}</ref>

Other fictitious sites mentioned in the [[hoax]] were moskvax and kgbvax.  The actual origin of the email was mcvax, one of the first European sites on the internet.<ref name="wired1">{{cite magazine|url=http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/16-04/st_best|title=10 Best: April Fools' Gags (the Web Is Closing for Spring Cleaning!)|last=Novak|first=Asami|date=24 March 2008|magazine=Wired|access-date=2014-07-23}}</ref>

Six years later, Usenet was joined by [[DEMOS (ISP)|demos.su]], the first genuine site based in [[Moscow]]. Some readers needed convincing that the postings from it were not just another prank. [[Vadim Antonov]], the senior programmer at Demos and the major poster from there until mid-1991, was quite aware of all this, and referred to it frequently in his own postings. Antonov later arranged to have the domain's gateway site named kremvax.demos.su, turning fiction into truth and, according to one account, "demonstrating that the hackish sense of humor transcends cultural barriers".<ref name="jf">[[Eric S. Raymond|Raymond, E. S.]]: "The [[Jargon File]]", [http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/K/kremvax.html Kremvax entry], 2006</ref>

During the mid-1980s, Usenet users were not aware of the official [[X.25]] computer connections between USSR and other countries. The X.25 connections had existed since 1980, primarily via [[VNIIPAS]] and [[Academset]] to [[Soviet bloc]] countries and [[Austria]]n hosts at [[IIASA]] and [[IAEA]].<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-94-009-3647-8|doi = 10.1007/978-94-009-3647-8|title = The Status of Soviet Civil Science|year = 1987|isbn = 978-94-010-8132-0|editor1-last = Sinclair|editor1-first = Craig}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/11/videochatting-with-communists/382221/|title=Videochatting With Communists|last=Barton|first=Julia|date=2014-11-03|website=The Atlantic|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-11}}</ref> In 1983, the ''San Francisco Moscow Teleport (SFMT)'' venture was created to maintain USSR-American digital connections via VNIIPAS with its own Usenet analogues later known as ''Sovamnet'' ("Soviet-American net").

In 1992, the company [[Sun Microsystems]], a commercial rival to VAX, gifted an own-made server to pioneer Soviet commercial network [[RELCOM]]. The company demanded that the server was named ''KremlSun'', an [[allusion]] to then-legendary ''Kremvax'', and made a [[Root DNS servers|root DNS server]] for the [[.su]] domain. The conditions were met, and the server became one of the initial devices when forming the [[Moscow Internet Exchange]], since then the largest Russian [[Internet exchange point]].<ref>{{in lang|ru}} https://www.osp.ru/os/2004/08/185037</ref>

==See also==
*[[RELCOM]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://groups.google.com/group/eunet.politics/msg/cf080ae70583a625?hl=en Original message archived on Google Groups]
* [https://godfatherof.nl/kremvax.html Author's Account]

[[Category:Computer-related introductions in 1984]]
[[Category:1984 in Moscow]]
[[Category:April 1984 in Europe]]
[[Category:Science and technology in Russia]]
[[Category:Usenet]]
[[Category:April Fools' Day]]
[[Category:Internet in Russia]]
[[Category:1984 hoaxes]]
[[Category:Internet hoaxes]]
[[Category:Computer humour]]