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CATEGORY: Hoax virus alerts
While not
the first of its kind, this one proved
the first wildly successful hoax
virus alert in late 1994. Many hoaxsters
copied its technique over the years (sometimes
almost verbatim) in an effort to duplicate
its success. The person who concocted
Good Times remains unknown.
Many corporate
& academic email servers crashed
throughout 1995 under the strain of this
hoax chain letter. Frightened users forwarded
the alert to "all," prompting others to
hit the "reply to all" button with questions
or comments...
The hoax
alert warned your computer would get infected
if you read the words "Good Times" with
your eyeballs. Ironically, users often
included the phrase "Good Times"
in the subject line of their own warning
messages about the virus. In some cases,
system administrators forwarded the alert
to everyone, then sent another email a
few minutes later with "Good Times" in
the subject line. If you opened it, you'd
find a stern lecture about the danger
of opening emails with "Good Times" in
the subject line!
For more
visit
www.vmyths.com
CATEGORY: Hoax virus alerts
This hoax
email declares you will receive $1,000
in prize money directly from Microsoft
chairman Bill Gates. However, the fine
print mentions an "embedded executable
virus program" (EEVP) which reduces your
prize to nothing. If you believe the email,
of course...
For more
visit
www.vmyths.com
CATEGORY: Hoax virus alerts
The
Associated Press once reported
the existence of a computer virus running
amok in Silicon Valley. This virus supposedly
made video monitors burst into flames.
However, AP filed this newswire
just eight days after an April Fool's
Day.
This hoax
virus alert gained new life some years
later when the Weekly World News
tabloid claimed the computer virus made
monitors explode, thrusting shards of
glass into the eyes of children who received
infected PCs as Christmas gifts.
For more
visit
www.vmyths.com
Don't
be myth-informed
If you send an e-mail to five friends
at 7 a.m., and an hour later they send
it to five more friends, each of whom
forwards it to five more people within
the next hour — and this continues throughout
the day — by 5 p.m. your message will
have reached some five million people.
Such is the power of information distribution
in the modern age — a world in which a
new form of "myth-information" can sweep
the planet and alter our view of issues
and events in but an instant.
Clearly the Internet has emerged as a
powerful and useful business tool, yet
it also continues to create havoc when
it comes to disseminating information.
This is most evident in our willingness
to accept urban legends, fraud and other
forms of obviously false but widely accepted
beliefs that can quickly spread online.
Consider, for example, the recently falsified
image depicting US presidential candidate
John Kerry with Jane Fonda at an anti-Vietnam
war rally in the early 1970s. Carefully
prepared from two separate photographs,
it was such a clever forgery that it made
its way around the world within a matter
of hours. Not surprisingly, some people
who saw the image concluded that perhaps
Kerry wasn't quite the war hero he was
made out to be. (Read
more...)
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