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Current Hoaxes
and Urban Legends
By Ira
Wilsker, APCUG Director and Columnist, The Examiner,
Beaumont TX iwilsker@apcug.net
WEBSITES:
http://www.snopes.com
http://urbanlegends.about.com
Some of us find them cute, entertaining,
exciting, and fun,
while others of us find them embarrassing, irritating, and a waste of
time. Many forward them believing that
they are doing good, or warning of harm, or forward them because they
came from
an allegedly reliable source. A few are
so convinced of their truth that I am explicitly requested to put them
in this
column, or announce them on my radio and TV show. What
I am referring to are the hoaxes and
urban legends currently circulating on the internet that many of us
seem to
love to forward to everyone in our email address books.
Many of these hoaxes and urban legends have a
grain of truth or logic in them, while many others are totally lacking
any
basis in fact, yet many of us still enjoy forwarding them without a
second
thought.
In order to avoid
embarrassment I strongly recommend that
everyone tempted to forward such emails should check out their validity
prior
to another mass send to all we know.
There are several excellent websites that compile
information on these
emails, and a quick check can save us from the embarrassment of sending
out a
hoax, and preserve our personal credibility.
If we find that the interesting email is indeed true, we
should still
consider not forwarding them to everyone, as many of our intended
recipients
may not find our interests to their likings, and may even be offended
that we
consumed their valuable bandwidth and time.
Typically, when I receive one of these from an
acquaintance, if I am not
already familiar with it, I check it out; if it is true (a minority of
the
time), I may choose to selectively forward it only to those that I
think may be
interested in the topic, but I never send it to everyone in my address
book. If it is false, I usually reply
back to the sender that it is indeed false, and include a link
documenting the
falsehood. Some emailers are so
humiliated that I caught them in an inaccuracy that they reply in anger
back to
me, despite the incontrovertible fact that it was they who had sent the
bogus
email.
To verify the authenticity
or falsehoods of these oft
forwarded emails, I use two primary, and several secondary resources. Primarily I use the excellent and
comprehensive urban legends resource of Snopes, at www.snopes.com. Well organized in an easy to navigate menu
format, along with a competent search engine makes Snopes an excellent
choice
to check out the validity of questionable emails.
My other primary resource
for checking the legitimacy of
potential hoax emails is urbanlegends.about.com. This
site is frequently updated with the
latest hoaxes in circulation, and can reliably document their validity.
A common topic of these
questionable emails is virus
warnings. For this reason, most of the
major antivirus software publishers also compile lists of hoaxes,
mostly virus
related, on their websites. I utilize
these sites as secondary resources. It
is also notable that old hoaxes and virus warnings never seem to die
out, and
periodically reappear. One that has been
documented to be in circulation for over six years, but is again
currently
making the rounds in mass emailings is the “It takes guts to say Jesus”
virus
hoax. This email, in several iterations,
warns that according to CNN, AOL, McAfee, and other reputable
resources, that
there is an email circulating with a virus that can not be detected by
contemporary antivirus software and that if you open the email, your
computer
will be effectively destroyed. Every one
of the hoax and antivirus websites list this as a hoax, yet countless
copies
are being forwarded by well intentioned people trying to warn their
acquaintances. Some of the
variations
even go on to state that while it may be false, it is so important that
it is
being forwarded anyway. Another similar
email warning that does have some validity is the one that says “I've
Got Your
E-mail on My Account”. It goes on to
warn that someone is using “your” email account to spread a virus, and
I have
received 10 copies of it, all with your email address and ISP in the
header.
The email then says, “I have copied all the mail text in the windows
text-editor for you & zipped then.
Make sure, that this mails (sic) don't come in my mail-box
again.” Attached to this dire warning is a
file,
commonly named “your_text.zip”. If
opened, the file will infest your computer with the Sober.N worm. If it infects your computer, Sober.N will
terminate the antivirus and firewall software on your computer,
rendering it
vulnerable to further attack, and then forwarding itself to everyone in
your
address book! This Sober.N warning is
the exception to the rule that most warnings of this type are bogus.
Another dire warning, which
I am receiving multiple copies
of, is the warning that a directory of cell phone numbers is being
compiled to
enable telemarketers to call us on our cell phones, consuming our
valuable
supply of limited minutes. This hoax,
which is now circulating for the second time, is listed by several
sites as one
of the top hoaxes in circulation. The
grain of truth in this is that most cell phone carriers are instituting
a
“411”directory service of cell phone numbers, this list will
emphatically not
be for sale to telemarketers.
To see the latest hoaxes in
circulation, as well as the ones
in widest distribution, check out the hoax and urban legend websites,
or the
website of your favorite antivirus software.
You may find some of the hoaxes actually quite
entertaining, and wonder
how intelligent people could fall for such silly emails.
There is no restriction
against any non-profit group using
this article as long as it is kept in context with proper credit given
the
author. The Editorial Committee of the
Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international
organization
of which this group is a member, brings this article to you.
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