EMAIL FACTS OF LIFE
1. Big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill Gates is not
giving you $1000, and Disney is not giving you a free vacation. There is
no baby food company issuing class-action checks. You can relax;
there is no need to pass it on "just in case it's true." Furthermore,
just because someone said in the message, four generations back,
that "we checked it out and it's legit," does not actually make it true.
2. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in a
bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened to
their cousin. If you are insistent on believing the kidney-theft ring
stories, please see:
http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm
And I quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued
requests for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward and tell
their stories.
None have." That's "none," as in "ZERO". Not even your friend's cousin.
3. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And even if
they do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can get a copy at:
http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html
Then, if you make the recipe, decide the cookies are that awesome, feel
free to pass the recipe on. (But I hear they stink.)
4. We all know all 500 ways to drive your roommates crazy, irritate
co-workers, gross-out bathroom stall neighbors, and creep out people on an
elevator. We also know exactly how many engineers, college students,
Usenet posters, and people from each and every world ethnicity it takes
to change a light bulb.
5. Even if the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain plutonium that
went to particulate over the eastern seaboard, do you REALLY think this
information would reach the public via an AOL chain-letter?
6. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever, ever
forward any email containing any virus warning unless you first confirm it
at an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with virii.
Try:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
And even then, don't forward it. We don't care.*
7. If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your
message, you're probably going to be punished eternally. (Ever heard of
>BCC:?)
8. If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write email, turn off "HTML
encoding." Those of us on Unix shells can't read it, and don't care enough
to save the attachment and then view it with a web browser, since you're
probably forwarding us a copy of the Neiman-Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway.
9. If you still absolutely MUST forward that 10th-generation message from
a friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight miles of headers
showing everyone else who's received it over the last 6 months. It sure
wouldn't hurt to get rid of all the ">" that begin each line. Besides, if
it has gone around that many times, we've probably already seen it.
10. Craig Shergold in England is not dying of cancer or anything else at
this time and would like everyone to stop sending him their business
cards.
He apparently is also no longer a "little boy" either.
* - The US Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability hoax site
http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HoaxBustersHome.html) is another good site for hoax info
For REAL Virus Information, Alerts and tools, visit http://www.avertlabs.com/public/datafiles/valerts. The publishers of Dr Solomon and McAfee
More hoax info athttp://kumite.com/myths/
As well as http://www.stiller.com/hoaxes.htm
This gem is from "Mikey" at www1.gospelcom.net
Click HERE for the complete KC7ZRU site
These pages are Copyright © 1998-2002 by Tate Belden.
all rights reserved. Please send comments, ideas and suggestions (but no
spam !) to:KC7ZRU