A similiar document is found at the Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability at URL describing E-Mail Hoaxes and E-Mail Viri: http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html The Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability also has a web page that documents many of the chain letters you see on the internet as well.... http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACChainLetters.html *-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Beginning of E-Mail Hoax/Virus Information *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* As taken from the Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability at http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html >>>Internet Hoaxes Hoaxes described on this page: PKZ300, Irina, Good Times, Good Times Spoof, Deeyenda, Ghost, PENPAL GREETINGS!, Make Money Fast, NaughtyRobot, AOL4FREE, Join the Crew, Death Ray, AOL V4.0 Cookie, A.I.D.S. Hoax <<< All of the above "named" hoaxes have links on that particular page about that very hoax. >From http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#identify on how to identify a hoax: >>How to Identify a Hoax There are several methods to identify virus hoaxes, but first consider what makes a successful hoax on the Internet. There are two known factors that make a successful virus hoax, they are: (1) technical sounding language, and (2) credibility by association. If the warning uses the proper technical jargon, most individuals, including technologically savy individuals, tend to believe the warning is real. For example, the Good Times hoax says that "...if the program is not stopped, the computer's processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop which can severely damage the processor...". The first time you read this, it sounds like it might be something real. With a little research, you find that there is no such thing as an nth-complexity infinite binary loop and that processors are designed to run loops for weeks at a time without damage. When we say credibility by association we are referring to whom sent the warning. If the janitor at a large technological organization sends a warning to someone outside of that organization, people on the outside tend to believe the warning because the company should know about those things. Even though the person sending the warning may not have a clue what he is talking about, the prestige of the company backs the warning, making it appear real. If a manager at the company sends the warning, the message is doubly backed by the company's and the manager's reputations. Individuals should also be especially alert if the warning urges you to pass it on to your friends. This should raise a red flag that the warning may be a hoax. Another flag to watch for is when the warning indicates that it is a Federal Communication Commission (FCC) warning. According to the FCC, they have not and never will disseminate warnings on viruses. It is not part of their job. CIAC recommends that you DO NOT circulate virus warnings without first checking with an authoritative source. Authoritative sources are your computer system security administrator or a computer incident advisory team. Real warnings about viruses and other network problems are issued by different response teams (CIAC, CERT, ASSIST, NASIRC, etc.) and are digitally signed by the sending team using PGP. If you download a warning from a teams web site or validate the PGP signature, you can usually be assured that the warning is real. Warnings without the name of the person sending the original notice, or warnings with names, addresses and phone numbers that do not actually exist are probably hoaxes. Another area of concern is Internet chain letters that may or may not be true. For more information on Internet chain letters reference http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACChainLetters.html.<<< Snipped from a very long FAQ (frequently asked questions) on internet e-mail hoaxes: >>>----------------------------------------------------------------------- Was the hoax a sort of virus itself? Yes, but it wasn't a computer virus. It was more like a social virus or a thought virus. When someone on alt.folklore.urban asked if the virus was for real, Clay Shirky (clays@panix.com) answered: "Its for real. Its an opportunistic self-replicating email virus which tricks its host into replicating it, sometimes adding as many as 200,000 copies at a go. It works by finding hosts with defective parsing apparatus which prevents them from understanding that a piece of email which says there is an email virus and then asking them to remail the message to all their friends is the virus itself." Shirky eloquently described what a lot of people were thinking. So what is a virus? To a biologist, a virus is a snippet of genetic material that must infect a host organism to survive and reproduce. To be contagious, a virus usually carries instructions that cause the host to engage in certain pathological activities (such as sneezing and coughing) that spread the infection to other organisms. To a computer programmer, a virus is a snippet of computer code that must infect a host program to spread. To be contagious, a computer virus usually causes the host program to engage in certain pathological activities that spread the infection to other programs. >From this perspective, it's easy to see the Good Times hoax as a sort of thought virus. To be contagious, a thought virus causes the host to engage in certain pathological activities that spread the infection. In the case of Good Times, the original strain (happy Chanukah) explicitly told people to "forward this to all your friends." The other major viral strain (infinite loop) encourages people to "Please be careful and forward this mail to anyone you care about," and "Warn your friends and local system users of this newest threat to the InterNet!" Likewise, the stories of an FCC modem tax encourage people to tell their friends and post the warning on other BBSes. David Rhodes' Make Money Fast scam instructs people to re-post the message to as many as ten bulletin boards. In The Selfish Gene (1976, University of Oxford Press), Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins extends the principles in his book from biology to human culture. To make the transition, Dawkins proposes a cultural replicator analogous to genes. He calls these replicators memes: "Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. ... As my colleague N. K. Humphrey neatly summed up an earlier draft of this chapter: "...memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically, but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell."" Amazingly, when I read alt.folklore.computers looking for research material, two people had already mentioned Dawkins' memes. One of them referred to an article in the April 8, 1995 New Scientist about something called the Meme Research Group. (The article erroneously stated that the group is at the University of California, San Francisco. In fact, they are at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.) The Meme Research Group is collecting chain letters to analyse them. The more copies they get, the more information they have to analyze. Send those unwanted chain letters to meme@scottlabsgi.chem.sfu.ca. I am not a memeticist, and a real memeticist might take umbrage at my explanation of the concept. To learn more, visit the alt.memetics newsgroup on Usenet, and especially the alt.memetics home page on the World Wide Web (http://www.xs4all.nl/~hingh/alt.memetics/). Though we've talked about memes in terms of viruses (a common analogy), the concept of a meme is neither good nor bad. The idea of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is as much a meme as the Good Times hoax. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- What's the best way to control a thought virus? Create a counter virus like this one as an antidote. To make the counter virus contagious, include instructions such as, "The Good Times email virus is a hoax. If anyone repeats the hoax, please show them the FAQ." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- What are some other hoaxes and urban legends on the Internet? The FCC Modem Tax Every so often someone posts a dire warning that the FCC is considering a tax on modems and online services. The warning encourages you to tell your friends so they can take political action. It's a hoax. It's been going on for the five years I've been online, and probably much longer. If you'll notice, the warnings don't include a date or a bill number. Make Money Fast If you haven't seen a Make Money Fast message, call your local anthropology department. They might be interested in studying you. Devised by David Rhodes in 1987 or 1988, Make Money Fast (sometimes distributed on BBSes as a file called fastcash.txt) is an electronic version of a chain letter pyramid scheme. You're supposed to send money to the ten people on the list, then add your name to the list and repost the chain letter, committing federal wire fraud in the process. Posting a Make Money Fast message is one sure way to lose your Internet account. (Information from the Make Money Fast FAQ by ewl@panix.com.) Craig Shergold needs your get well cards Craig Shergold is a UK resident who was dying of cancer. He wanted to get in the Guinness Book of World Records for having received the most get well cards. When people heard of the poor boy's wish, they began sending him postcards. And they kept sending him postcards, and never stopped. Shergold is now in full remission. He was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1991. He really does not want your postcards any more, and neither does his hometown post office. These are just the urban legends that you're likely to encounter on the Internet. There are many more in real life that you probably believe. I won't give them away, but here are some clues: peanut butter, Neiman Marcus/Mrs. Fields, Rod Stewart, and the Newlywed Game. For more information, read the alt.folklore.urban FAQ, listed in Online References at the end of the FAQ. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Online References o CIAC Notes 94-05 95-09, and especially 94-04 + ftp://ciac.llnl.gov/pub/notes/ + http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/ o alt.folklore.urban FAQ + ftp://cathouse.org/pub/cathouse/urban.legends/AFU.faq + http://cathouse.org/UrbanLegends/AFUFAQ/ o America Online's official statement + keyword "virus2" on America Online o The Good Times Virus Hoax Mini FAQ + A greatly simplified version of this FAQ. At two pages, it's short enough for message boards, faxes, mailing lists, and people with short attention spans. FTP to usit.net and look in the pub/lesjones directory. The URL is: ftp://usit.net/pub/lesjones/Good-Times-Virus-Hoax-Mini-FAQ *-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Ending of E-Mail Hoax/Virus Information *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*