I've seen everything come across my email desk - warnings on viruses that will jump from your PC and eat your dog - fathers pleading that you forward emails to save their babies - the post office is planning to tax email (Bill 602P). Many of these have been recycled several times. Some have been altered a bit to give them a "fresh look" but others are straight out of the box.

Very few people validate emails. The explanations I hear are:

• "It came from a friend - it must be true!" Even though the friend got it from another friend who got it from another friend and so on and so on....
• I thought better safe than sorry! Oy vay, now I'm on someone's "list." *sigh*
• It sounded so official! Egads! Check out False Authority Syndrome at vmyths.com below.

When in Doubt, Check it Out - Don't Spread that Hoax!

If you are seriously concerned about a virus or some other tid-bit you've gotten in your email box, below are some great websites where you can go and check it out.
(Clicking a link below will open a new window.)

HoaxBusters: A public service provided by CIAC (Computer Incident Advisory Capability) and the US Dept of Energy. The Hoaxbuster site and the CIAC main website are extremely helpful regarding hoaxes, chainletters, scams, security issues, real virus issues, and many more items regarding the Internet. Definitely well worth a looksee and a bookmark.
vmyths: "Truth about Computer Security Hysteria" - very interesting with tips on how to recognize a hoax.
Urban Legends: What you need to know about Folklore, Netlore and Urban Legends - very interesting and fun
QuackWatch: Your guide to health fraud, quackery and intelligent decisions. Very good and interesting and funny.
Symantec: Virus Alerts from the makers of Norton AntiVirus.

Personal warning - All of the above websites are fun and addicting and you will find yourself there for hours *G*

Don't Spread that Hoax!

Here's why ...

The Risk and Cost of Hoaxes

The risks and costs of hoaxes may not seem like much, and they aren't if it's just one hoax on one computer. But check-out the multipliers.

Example, if everyone on the Internet got one hoax message and spent one minute reading and discarding it, the cost would be something like:

50,000,000 people * 1/60 hour * $50/hour = $41.7 million

But most people get much more than one hoax message and many people cost a business far more than $50 per hour when you add in benefits and overhead. The result is not a small number.

Risk:

"Probably the biggest risk for hoax messages is their ability to multiply. Most people forward hoax messages to everyone in their address books but consider if they only sent them on to 10 people. The first person (the first generation) sends it to 10, each member of that group of 10 (the second generation) sends it to 10 others or 100 messages and so on.

Generation:	1	2	3	4	5	6
Number of Messages	10	100	1,000	10,000	100,000	1,000,000

As you can see, by the sixth generation there are a million e-mail messages being processed by our mail servers. The capacity to handle these messages must be paid for by the users or, if it is not paid for, the mail servers slow down to a crawl or crash. Note that this example only forwards the message to 10 people at each generation while people who forward real hoax messages often send them to many times that number.

There are rumblings that spammers (bulk mailers of unsolicited mail) are harvesting e-mail addresses from hoaxes and chain letters. After a few generations, many of these letters contain hundreds of good addresses, which is just what the spammers want. We have also heard rumors that spammers are deliberately starting hoaxes and chain letters to gather e-mail addresses (of course, that could be a hoax). So now, all those nice people who were so worried about the poor little girl dying of cancer find themselves not only laughed at for passing on a hoax but also the recipients of tons of spam mail.

The foregoing info on Risks and Costs came from an article on CIAC website.