Been here before? Skip the verbage and go to the List O' Links©

Remember way back in elementary school when the common wisdom was that if you touched a member of the opposite sex, you got "Cooties"? Well, that sort of thing is still with us today. Every other day, the webmaster receives a well intentioned forward of an e-mail alerting him to one or more viruses that will bring an end to the world as we know it if you open certain e-mail, download a certain file or wear the wrong tartan.

Email hoaxes are not just limited to virus warnings. There are plenty of hoax messages about gang initiations, AIDs needles in pertol pumps and pleas to forward the message to 1,000 of your best friends so that Microsoft/Disney World will donate free iron lungs to all the needy children in Lizard Lick, NC.

Please READ and HEED the following paragraphs which were shamelessly pilfered from the "CC: Contagious Correction" web-page. While it deals mainly with an old computer virus hoax, it gives an insight into how this sort of thing is able to spread.

Various email thought contagions now spread on the Internet, warning people about mythical email computer viruses-even though opening an email text cannot set off an embedded computer virus. The false belief is the real virus. As a thought contagion, it is a meme that manipulates you to retransmit rather than an actual computer virus infecting computers. The real "host computer" is the human brain, and a population of brains interconnected by the Internet provides the susceptible medium for pandemic thought contagions. Early strains arose by mutation and selection:

Someone wanted to stop a chain letter called "Good Times" with rampantly spreading instructions to delete the "Good Times" message. A memetic accident.

Later versions resulted from both good intentions and prankish imitations, with the most infectious strains gaining the widest circulation and becoming the commonest basis for new variation. One version warns against the heading "Penpal Greetings," another "Join the Crew," still others "Valentine's Greetings," "OPEN: VERY COOL!:)," etc. One of them even fouls up normal Internet communications by telling you not to read the message "Returned or Unable to Deliver," stopping people from knowing when they've used a bad or mistyped address. Some advise you never to take mail from "people you don't know," which could mean your best friend writing from a new address or an important job offer. And just to confuse the "worried well" we even have pranksters with scary screen names trying to "prove" the "virus" real. It now swamps real virus fighters with false alarms that can cause risky delays in an actual emergency.

The false virus warnings get themselves spread by making an implied threat to your computer if you don't rush copies of the warning to everyone who has your email address. Other emails instead use the carrot by offering money from Bill Gates or charitable donations if you forward the bogus message. Still others warn that your Internet phone access will become expensive unless you petition Congress and forward the message. They are all false and all cause some kind of harm: The $1000 letter gets one expelled from listservers for SPAM.

What can we do? First, if you get such a message, then copy this letter and send it to all the people on its "from," "to," and "cc" headers unless one of them has beat you to it-but take off the names of anyone you don't know or who does not want such a message. The sooner you act, the better, because a long "cc" list means a very short delay until someone retransmits. Do not mail only to the senders email address expecting them to send the correction-they will probably not check their email until long after someone on their "cc" list retransmits. If you have old false alarm letters in your mailbox, you can still help by recycling the "from," "to," and "cc" headers, because some of these people still delete bounced mail and other important messages.

(Where available, please use "bcc" instead of "cc" to cut clutter.) And when you see a false alarm posted in a newsgroup, post & mail this letter in reply.

If you have already sent out a false message, now is your chance to prove good intentions by copying this message and sending it as a correction. Posting to "institution.general" newsgroups helps. This message also works as a mental vaccine for network beginners, and anyone unaware of how disk software viruses or BRAIN software viruses infect. It also works as the "booster vaccine" for people who get skeptical spoof letters.

Finally, do not believe any email warnings of computer viruses that supposedly activate merely by opening and reading email text. And save a copy of this letter to resend the next time you get a bogus email virus warning. For quick reference, keep the subject line as "!-Contagion Warning," because your computer puts the "!" character before the "a" character in its "alphabet." And remember, this really is about "exclamation contagions" creating false worries and wasting resources. Better to send recursive corrections!

This "!-Contagion Warning" does not call for all recipients to resend the way chain letters do, but only for sending when circumstances warrant. So please, don't assume the message has widely spread just because it comes from a thought contagion expert. Anyone getting a bogus warning still depends on YOU to send the correction, and it needs to be this recursive correction in order to reach all of THEIR contacts! Because "!-Contagion Warning" shifts into dormancy as it succeeds in stopping viral false alarms, you can send it with a clear conscience too.* Let's rid our local nets of harmful communication fears!

*PS., An "always-send" take-off of this letter will NOT go dormant when it needs to, unless followed by this letter as a "safe send" option. ("Always send" IS a chain letter!)

The first version of "!Contagion Warning" was written in response to a "virus warning" put on list servers by a prominent American East Coast science professor. The source of that message proved that even some very smart people still need to get this letter.

List O' Links©

See the following for more information:

Virus Hoaxes and Netlore -- A site designed to debunk email hoaxes
Truth or Fiction?
Urban Legends Reference Pages
The AFU & Urban Legends Archive
Network Associates Virus Hoax Information
Computer Virus Myths
The Truth About Computer E-Mail Viruses
Symantec Security Response