I think I've invented the greatest internet hoax ever - need help building it

[Sketcz]

NOTE: in attempt to make tracing this difficult for Google bots and web users, everyone posting in this thread must post IN CODE by replacing a e and i, like so:

T1m3 tr@v3ll1ng 3m@1l

Basically we buy the domain for a year:

t1m3tr@[email protected]

Obviously without the numbers, just the actual normal text.

Next we code some kind of scripting engine (in Java Script?) with a box for the recipient's email, a drop down menu to select month and year of destination (going back to 1990 or whenever emails were first used), and then a box to write a message 500 characters or so in length.

When the user clicks "SEND" the webpage dumps the info, along with a t1m3 stamp, as a text file on our server space. The HTML pages will be small in size, and the resulting text files will also be small, so we'd only need 5mb or so tops, maybe even as little as 2mb.

Then we wait for people to:
Visit and, thinking they can send an 3m@1l back in t1m3, will post a message along with an address.

This could be the next twitter! It could be bigger than Bonsai Kitten even!

We could also have an FAQ page explaining how it works in scientific speak:
According to Einstein anything travelling at the speed of light goes back in time. Lasers are basically condensed light. So using our special technology we convert 3m@il data into laser light, and project it back in t1m3 to a satellite we know all the previous positions of, to be dropped into the general sea of data at that time. Only accurate up to a month and year.

Obviously much longer than that.

And in the FAQ, we'll have a question like: I sent myself a test email for yesterday but never got it (yesterday).

And we could answer something like: there are many alternate universes according to Einstein, also, if you'd done that you'd create a paradox, so the reason you didn't get it, is because of praradoxes and stuff, and the universe has a built in safety mechanism to stop this, so yeah, paradoxes.

We could include a bunch of random equations and so much technical jargon no one can understand it.

Then we sit back and wait for the people to roll in.

[monel]

I love hoaxes, after a few weeks I would put quite a bit of time into something if a good hoax is on the cards.

[toythatkills]

Genuine question - why?

EDIT: BTW, if you post this in The Blue Room, Google can't find it.

[Sketcz]

Genuine question - why?

I was born at a very early age, and since that time I've often done surreal things to amuse myself. I once squeezed a roast chicken carcass into an empty gherkin jar filled with vinegar, calling the creation Pastor Barnes and claiming it was MY MOJO. I then placed it outside in plain view for when the plumber came by. Was so tempted to hide it in his van when he wasn't looking.

On another occasion I filled a blue rubber glove with aduki beans and hung it from a tree outside my house, then told my friends it was to show I was the secret 4th member of the BLUE MAN GROUP.

This idea was born from a desire to email an old school chum from 12 years ago, whose old email I still had. I once recalled finding an English essay of his in the English room, and I read it in secret, as it described a variety of personal stories from his childhood, things only he would be likely to know (I once mentioned one to him in class and he freaked out that I knew it). Then I thought about starting a fake email account today, emailing him after over a decade of no contact, and claiming to actually BE HIM from the future, after which I would convince him by recalling the various personal stories from the essay. I'd explain that I was using future technology to send a time travelling email, and then give him a series of cryptic made up warnings, such as:
On a winters' day in November you'll be in a pub, when a guy in a red shirt will ask you if you know a man named Barnaby - it's essential you say YES, and then while he's in the adjacent room leave the pub and never return!

The likelihood of anything remotely like this happening are zero, so there's no harm in it.

Then after a while I thought: what if instead of sending one person a fake time travelling email, I invented an online system where people thought they could do it, and then I could read such emails for personal amusement.

Then I was reminded of this:

http://timetraveler.ytmnd.com/

I read an interview with the guy who first put that ad up, just to fill space in the paper he worked at, and for years he's received letters from people. It made me realise, people WILL believe this.

In short: it seemed like a laugh.

[toythatkills]

Oh, reading people's emails is the point? Fair enough, I was just trying to work out why you'd bother setting all this up to no end!

That's totally illegal, though.

[charlesr]

There would be some small print surely that no one would read that would say it's all fine.

[randombs]

This sounds awesome. I have nothing useful to add right now(probably never will) but this way I get subscribed to the thread. I also love how NO ONE has replied in code, thus the whole thing is ru1n3d

[monel]

As long as the actual cunning plan's details are in cod3, surely it's still ok?

[^Katsu]

F1n411y 1 c4n 41/\/\@5t typ3 n@r/\/\411y, c4n 1 h4z /\/\y 3/\/\4i1 53nt lik3 th15 411\/\/4y5?

[Sketcz]

Also, in addition to some wacky things I do:
Comedy letter to kid who sold me N64 magazine in 1998

Would you destroy retro sales items for the money?

You gotta love that N64 letter.

That's totally illegal, though.

Well, if you were reading emails, technically the website would just be a box that people are putting messages in. Like a suggestion box? And the small print could be there too.

This could be an experiment also in seeing how gullible the public can be.

I recall a website which said if you provide your email and password and another person's email, they'd be able to send you their password. The guy later revealed it was a hoax, but said he'd received thousands of replies. He never tried any of them, and destroyed the data, but his experiment was to see how many would fall for it.

And yeah, I guess the code idea is kinda pointless now.

So my question: is it possible to code such a simple web page?

[cavalcade]

Could you not amend the header information on the mail and give it a new timestamp the same as the selected preference for how far back in time you want the mail sent? Most people sort by date in their mail programs, and the mail would slip into their list in the correct place (and if it's a gmail account or something, no bonging or downloading of it to say its arrived). The idiots would go to check it was there after sending it and be so shocked they'd think it had worked. Limit it to one mail per IP address (for the safety of the time continuum), make the minimum time to send back a few months so it won't flash up no their first page and you might get it going viral.

[Sketcz]

Cavalcade is on the right wavelength!

[charlesr]

http://www.futureme.org/

[Sketcz]

Fantastic.

I'd like to point out to other NTSC-uk readers, this website could have been us, making millions.

I'm going to trawl my old email address book and send fake Futureme emails to all my old upper school chums, pretending to be them!

[charlesr]

I stole your idea and made it better. I'm making millions*.

*Not much truth in any of that.