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See also the GOOD TIMES eMail - very simular to the JOIN THE CREW message.
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 20:32:55 MST
To: jsexton
From:
Subject: Email viruses explained
The virus warning quoted at the end of this message is a hoax, as are ALL
(yes, ALL) warnings of this type. Check out the Web sites:
http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/Howto/Virus/
http://snopes.simplenet.com/spoons
As a somewhat snotty but accurate explanation, Web developer Bill Arab wrote:
=====
E-MAIL IS TEXT! That's all it is: TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT! It's lights
on a glass screen. It is only meaningful to humans because recognize the
symbols To your computer, text in an E-mail is as dead as a flounder.
Let's try an experiment:
Write the words "I am poking my finger into my eye" on a piece of paper.
Now read it. Did you feel anything? No? That's because the act of
reading that information is different from the act of poking yourself in
the eye. Now let's pretend you have a DOS/Windows computer, and write
this in an email:
cd\.
del *.*
y
Right, now if we were at a DOS prompt, and you typed the proceeding three
lines, you would delete all the stuff on your hard drive. Notice how
this has not happened even though I typed that into an E-mail and you
opened it. And it won't happen:
- Even if I type it a lot.
- Even if some total stranger tells someone who knows a friend of
someone who knows you that it will.
- Even if that total stranger alegedly works at IBM.
- Even if there are REALLY A LOT of people mentioned in the forwarding
headers,
- Even if the addresses say nasa.gov,
- Even if it's from your own mother.
I'm not saying that you can't trust your mother, I'm just saying that I
probably know more about E-mail than she does.
Now, it is possible to send programs to people attached to E-mail, just
as you can send all kinds of files attached to E-mail. If someone sent
you a malicious program, and if you ran it, you could have some problems.
But if you are the kind of person who is willing to run any application
from any anonymous source on your computer, well, you probably have
larger problems than computer viruses. Like what to do with all the
bridges you keep buying, and trying to find a price for all the Bre-X
stock you bought last week.
As Derek once very succinctly put it, "If someone says 'smell this',
don't."
So the bottom line is: can you get an virus simply by opening an E-mail?
No.
Just opening an E-mail can't blank your hard drive, can't give out your
passwords, can't rename your files, give you scabies, make you start or
stop being Mormon, or make the stuff your dog says make sense. If it was
that easy to program computers, we'd all be out of work.
Tell the world. Tell them all.
=====
It was written:
>Vidarebefordrar h=E4rmed internationell virusvarning. I klartext lyder
>meddelandet:
>"If you receive an E-mail titled "JOIN THE CREW" DO NOT open it.
>It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter
>out to as many people as you can. This is a new, very advanced
>virus and not many people know about it.
>This information was announced yesterday morning from IBM.
>Please share it with anyone that might access the Internet.
>Once again, pass this along to EVERYONE in your address book"
>ANN
----- End of Forwarded message -----
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