The Danger of Test Messages

An article in Information Week demonstrates the danger of using test messages in production systems — Sometimes the test messages leak out!

An advisory issued December 17th, 2003 by the National Weather Service stated: “the Earth has left its orbit and is hurtling towards the sun… Unusually hot weather will occur for at least the next several days as the Earth draws ever nearer to the sun. Therefore, an excessive heat watch has been posted.”

Another aspect of this is April 1st messages, which were very popular when the Internet was young, but are becoming increasingly troublesome in these net-centric times.