From: woody
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Subject: [io.general] Important Notice.
Date: 23 Feb 1996 18:57:29 GMT
Message-ID:
X-Moderator-Comment: I wonder how many believed him?

From: falco@zap.io.org (Golan Klinger)
Newsgroups: io.general
Subject: Important Notice.

It's that time again!

        As many of you know, each leap 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 12:01 a.m.
GMT on Feb. 29 until 12:01 a.m. GMT on March 1. 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.