For April Fool's Day, 2002, I hadn't really planned any good practical jokes, so I went with the easy standby: a hoax on the Internet. Specifically, I wrote some bogus instructions on how to bypass the copy-protection on the new version of some 3D software that I use, and posted them on the official mailing list for the software. This was the original message:
Good news! With a simple hack, you can get v9.5 (Windows version) working
with the AM2001 CD:
1. Open a DOS window and change to the directory containing MASTER.EXE
(v9.5 -- this will NOT work on any other version). Obviously, you
must have installed v9.5 first.
2. Make a backup of MASTER.EXE (just in case you make a mistake).
3. At the DOS prompt, type: DEBUG MASTER.EXE (Press the ENTER key
after this and each subsequent command.)
4. At the DEBUG prompt (a hyphen), type: E F130
5. DEBUG will display an address, followed by a value and a period.
Type the following sequence of hexadecimal numbers, pressing the
spacebar after each one (each time you press the spacebar, DEBUG
will display the next address' current value, followed by a period.
This is normal). Press the ENTER key only after entering the final
value (21):
41 70 72 69 6C 20 46 6F 6F 6C 27 73 21
6. At the DEBUG prompt, type: D F130 L D
7. DEBUG will display a status message. Make sure the message says
"Checksum is 1214." If it says anything else, then enter "Q"
(and hit ENTER) to abort DEBUG without saving your changes!
8. At the DEBUG prompt, type: W (DEBUG should display "Writing
A7F12F bytes").
9. At the DEBUG prompt, type: Q
That should do the trick!
All that this "hack" really does is to overwrite a few bytes with the message "April Fool's!" and then display it. Since DEBUG won't write EXE files to disk, there's no way it could hurt anyone's programs (though if they were attempting to get the upgrade for free, it would really serve them right).
The first person to respond was really on the ball. He knew what day it was...
nice try ... hehehe No, I didn't try iy
The next person responded privately. Probably a good thing, as the mailing list's rules forbid rudeness, flaming or reprimanding of other users.
You of course realize that by posting this to the list, you have publicly stated that you figured out how to hack Hash's copy protection? If you're to cheap to pop the $99 to upgrade, thats your buisness, but telling the entire list how to avoid upgrading is an asshole move. If you do the basic math (1400 list members)x ($99 upgrade fee) you have just taken roughly $138,600 out of Hash's pockets. That doesn't even figure in the cost of pressing the CD's that you have just now rendered useless. Nice move, dummy.
Personally, I approach anything I read on April 1st (especially on the Internet) with some healthy skepticism, but some people obviously don't. This next person (who responded to the mailing list) was also one of them. Still, he wasn't as objectionable as the first person.
Did you forget to take your meds this morning???? I can only assume that you not know how rude it is to publish a security hack on a software manufacturer's customer support forum. Please do not do that in the future. Perhaps you did not know that for less than the price of a daily cup of coffee you can keep your animation master subscription current (and legal) and still have enough for a daily soda pop. If you call Hash, Incorporated, they will be more than happy to send you a brochure that explains how you can adopt an upgrade for only $1.00 per day for less than four months........ Dude... That was really out of line.....
Next, a Macintosh user responded (privately). He, too, got the joke, but unfortunately his computing platform of choice left him out of the fun. (How well I remember that feeling from the tail end of my OS/2 days.)
Hi Jeff: At first I thought maybe you were trying an unorthodox method of unsubscribing. Then I looked at the calendar. And I felt like a Fool. :) Just out of curiousity, as I have a Mac, what does this so-called hack do?
Someone else bit, but he had a sense of humor about it, and responded in kind:
First I couldn't get it to work, but then I made my own hack and inserted the following code after yours and now it runs like a charm! Thanks a lot. 49 20 77 61 73 20 66 6F 6F 6C 65 64 20 3A 29
(The bytecodes read: I was fooled :) About two hours after I sent the original message, I began to suspect that I'd been banned from the mailing list, as I stopped receiving emails from the list about fifteen minutes after I'd posted it (and as a new version had just been released, the emails had been coming fairly frequently for the past couple of days). Not that losing list access was much of a tragedy, as I'd already received more response to my hoax than I ever had received in answer to any requests for help. Alas, my source of amusement had dried up.
It turned out, in fact, that the management had taken a very dim view of my activities. This one came from the Hash employee who moderates the list:
GROSSLY inappropriate! you have been suspended from the animaster list until you PURCHASE your upgrade!
I had suspected that this would probably happen, so I sent him back an email which I hoped would mollify him, even though I expected the ban would remain in place:
You've got every right to do that, of course. However, I would like to assure you that it's nothing more than an April Fool's hoax, and does not in fact bypass the CD check. If a person follows the instructions, DEBUG displays the message "April Fool's!" -- and that's all it does. Since DEBUG refuses to write .EXE files, there's no chance it will even alter the program in the first place. Any programmer familiar with DEBUG (and/or converting hexadecimal codes to ASCII) can confirm these facts for you. Of course, since the list rules forbid spreading misinformation, I'll take my lumps and remain off the list until I've upgraded.
He responded with:
Har, har, funny guy... Your suspension is an "April Fools" joke, too... Not in very good taste....
Another Hash employee was far more gracious when the true nature of the hoax was revealed:
Hello
I though that was pretty funny. Not everyone here did though (rotflmao)
Well, at least now the good folks at Hash know that I exist (something I frequently questioned when my technical support requests went unanswered). Anyway, I responded to the first Hash employee again and apologized for offending him, and promised to make a public apology on the mailing list. Having done so, someone else immediately replied privately to the apology:
That is absolutely hysterical! Although I didn't actually try it, yes, I can see it in the hex code pattern! I wouldn't call it "very poor taste"..."bad taste" maybe, but not very poor. Hey, after all, YOU weren't the one that invented April Fool's Day, right?