The 1984 online hoax claiming Usenet had opened to Soviet users was called Kremvax.
On April 1, 1984, a fabricated Usenet posting appeared to come from a computer at the Kremlin and was attributed to Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. It announced that the Soviet Union had joined Usenet and wanted an open discussion forum with American and European users. The message was actually created by Piet Beertema of CWI in Amsterdam.
The name Kremvax combined “Kremlin” with “VAX,” a type of computer then common in Usenet host names. The hoax also mentioned imaginary machines called moskvax and kgbvax. Because cross-border computer networking behind the Iron Curtain seemed implausible to many Western users, the posting was believable enough to cause confusion and discussion.
Kremvax was fictional in 1984, but the joke later acquired an almost prophetic quality. Moscow’s genuine Usenet site, demos.su, appeared about six years later, and a real follow-up machine was eventually given the name kremvax.demos.su. Bitnet, FidoNet, and Netnews were real networking terms, not the name of this hoax.