Web surfers spoiled a national promotion by General Motors that was intended to gradually reveal a secret message. Under the campaign, which is about half completed, each day a billboard in a different part of the country divulges a word (or a punctuation mark) in a message. A billboard in Arlington, Tex., for example, says "you." One in New York City shows a period.
The billboards also promote the Web site www.findthemessage.com, on which GM explains that it created the campaign to spread "a message so important we need the whole country to tell it." But some Web visitors quickly found that most of the "secret" message is included in the site's source code. [Doh!] The message was: "This is the last time you will ever have to feel alone on our nation's roadways." "They did crack the code," said Rob Peterson, a communications manager at GM. In other news, Welcome to Database Nation. Please drive through. Feeling a sense of deja vu, but can't pinpoint the date and time you were last in this exact location? Just ask your car. Your car knows what you did last summer. Web Surfers Crack GM's Mystery Ad | 
