In the late 90's/early 2000's I worked for a company that made foreign language courses, mostly geared towards home school education.

The internet still felt new at that time. We had our own email server that we maintained. And one or two of us nerds at the company figured out how we could intercept outgoing emails and change them.

There was also a secretary at the company named Joan. Everyone loved Joan. But she was constantly sending emails to an alias that would forward on to the whole company. Everyone was always getting these emails from Joan.

One day she sent out an email related to an upcoming company party. She reminded people that they needed to bring plenty of water. She explained it was going to be outside at a park. It would be hot. The company would provide a 20 gallon jug of water. But she recommended that we each bring some bottled water. It was important that we drank plenty of water to avoid dehydration. Lots of talk about water.

It was the perfect opportunity for a prank. We intercepted the email before it went out. Then all that was needed was a simple find and replace. We replaced all occurrences of the word "water" with "urine." Then we let the message go through to everyone in the company.

There would be a company party. It would be outside and hot. The company would provide a 20 gallon jug of urine. But we should also bring our own bottled urine. It was important that we drank plenty of urine. And so on.

The thing is, this email went out to everyone in the company, including Joan. So she saw it. And when she did she was shocked and embarrassed. Within minutes she drafted another email and sent it out:

We allowed this email to go through. It went to the whole company again. We waited a few minutes and then sent another email that looked like it came from Joan: