Some background: MIT is famous for their pranks, aka Hacks, throughout its 120 year history. More info at Hacking Stories.

According to How to Get Around at MIT "Hacks at MIT tend to differ from your average college pranks through their emphasis on originality, humor value, technical brilliance, and, most important of all, benign intent (which means not harming, physically or otherwise, the people and/or structures being hacked)."

In April, 2001, a student managed to gain access to MIT's web site, and submit a phony press release. The following is from http://web.mit.edu/britney.html

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Britney Spears will visit the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday, April 16, to deliver a major address on the history of western music that will be broadcast live in the United States and around the world.

Attendance in the 1,200-seat Kresge Auditorium will be limited to the MIT community and invited guests. Notable national personalities including former President Bill Clinton and Nobel Laureate Professor Paul Samuelson will be expected to attend the address.

MIT President Charles M. Vest commented, "I am very pleased that Britney Spears will visit MIT and share her thoughts with us. We are very fortunate to host the nation's revolutionaries from time to time. As an educational institution, it is our duty to clarify the misconceptions people have had about music over the past thousand years, and introduce them to the truth about the heroes of western music."

"I would like to restrict my talk only to literary issues in the art and history of music," Britney told reporters. She added, "I would like to introduce people to the Three-B model of western music history. The Three-B model states that the three greatest musical composers of all time are: Bach, Beethoven, and Britney. Other composers are just details but I would give them a few footnotes in musical history."

The address will be followed by a live performance of "Oops! I did it again." Britney stated that the song will be really appropriate for MIT because "you know, the music video was filmed on Mars and I'm sure MIT people are really crazy about Mars exploration." She added, "Well, you know, I could perform any one of my other songs but they all involve some degree of nudity... I understand that there will be many under-21 kiddies in the audience and I don't want to give them more than they should be handling at their young ages."

Britney Spears is much inspired by the man with great contributions to computer science, Bill Gates. Britney says that Bill has always been a source of encouragement for her. She mentioned that her favorite quote is: 

"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, Viking Penguin (1995), page 265

She says that this quote changed her life. "When I was in high school, my math teacher would always give me a C because she was plain simple  jealous of my singing abilities. You know, she was so successful in her discouragement that I even started thinking that I was stupid, really, no kidding. Then I read this quote and decided that it was going to be me who would arrive at the 'mathematical breakthrough.' Guess what, I did it in only one year! That was when I found out that I was actually a genius."

"You know, my jealous math teacher is still a math teacher; but I am the princess of pop. Take that!". She added, "I don't really give a <bleep> about my math teacher anymore, you know."

"It is really sad that there is no Nobel Prize in singing, otherwise I would have bagged three of those already." To this Britney added, "But that doesn't discourage me from doing all the research that I am doing these days. I recently published a paper on "why Beethoven and Bach should be among the three great figures in western music" in which I provide evidence as to what makes Beethoven and Bach almost as great as I am. I am graceful - I give credit where it's due."  

Last year, Britney Spears co-authored a book titled "Britney Spears' Heart to Heart" which took the world by storm. The book has already received thousands of reviews that praise the book for its deep philosophies. Reviewer Ronald Rivest from Cambridge, MA says that "this book is the best book I have ever read. It speaks of the unlimited potential our younger generation possesses. Britney Spears' Heart to Heart moved me so much that I decided to drop cryptography and instead pursue a career in youth counselling." Britney is hoping that her literary work might earn her the Nobel Prize in Literature, "You know, everyone says that Shakespeare was such a great writer... can you believe that? Shakespeare can't even write a line; most of his words are misspelled and just simply wrong - no one has ever heard of them. If that bum can be the greatest writer of all time, it shouldn't be surprising if I manage the Nobel Prize in Literature for a book so beautifully written - just ask the fans, they'll tell you."

Britney Spears will discuss these and other issues of great importance to mankind. Her address will bring great honor to MIT.

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