Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Internet Maintenance

DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM MARCH 31st 23:59 pm (GMT) UNTIL
12:01am (GMT) APRIL 2nd.

*** Attention ***

It's that time again! As many of you know, each year the Internet
must be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean it. The
cleaning process, which eliminates dead email and inactive ftp, www
and gopher sites, allows for a better-working and faster Internet.

This year, the cleaning process will take place from 23:59 pm (GMT)
on March 31st until 00:01 am (GMT) on April 2nd. During that 24-hour
period, five powerful Internet-crawling robots situated around the
world will search the Internet and delete any data that they find.

In order to protect your valuable data from deletion we ask that you
do the following:

1. Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their
Internet connections.

2. Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the
Internet.

3. Disconnect all disks and hardrives from any connections to the
Internet.

4. Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any way.

We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet
users, and we apologize. However, we are certain that any
inconveniences will be more than made up for by the increased speed
and efficiency of the Internet, once it has been cleared of
electronic flotsam and jetsam. We thank you for your cooperation. Fu
Ling Yu Interconnected Network Maintenance Staff Main Branch,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sysops and others:

Since the last Internet cleaning, the number of Internet users has
grown dramatically.

Please assist us in alerting the public of the upcoming Internet
cleaning by posting this message where your users will be able to
read it.

Please pass this message on to other sysops and Internet
users as well.

2 comments:

Jessica said...

I sure am glad I saw this in time!! Yikes!

Phyllis Blickensderfer said...

If only 'twere true! Imagine how my inbox would appear cleaned up. I think it was about five minutes after I signed up for it!!

Good 4/1 post!