Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't fractal image compression a real technique?
However, I did read about a hoax in the 90's where there was a claim of a fractal compression technique that could reduce a file down to 1% of its original size, which turned out to just be a program that stored a reference to the file's location instead of an actual compressed file.
Do you have references? I'm curious; I've tried Googling but don't get a lot about the hoax part of it. Would be really interested in that story - the last I ever heard fractal compression being mentioned was to do with jpeg2000.
that wikipedia page was mostly written by one of the people behind the hoax.