Slashdot Mirror
Hoax-a-go-go!
Soko writes, "I've run into more that a few Internet hoaxes in my time. I get more of a laugh out of the people that frantically forward me this type of SPAM than the hoax itself. Check out this story on C|Net for their list of the five 'best' ones. There's a link on the last page to start your own hoax, too!"
The owner of a website which got "slashdotted" is suing slashdot.org for damages. This could cost slashdot.org MILLIONS and FORCE THEM TO CLOSE!!! This is outrageous!!!! Slashdot needs your help!!! Simply forward slashdot's url to 1000 of the friends. But remember, each one of your friends must send the url to 1000 of their friends or else it won't count!!!
This type of thing goes way back according to the Western Union web site:
.-. . .. ... ... --- -- . .. -- .--. --- .-. - .- -. - .. -. ..-. --- .-. -- .- - .. --- -. .-.-.- -... . .-- .- .-. . --- ..-. .- ..-. .. .-.. . -.-. .- .-.. .-.. . -.. --. --- --- -.. - .. -- . ... .-.-.- .... .- .--. .--. -.-- .... .- -. ..- -.- .- .... . ...- . .-. -.-- --- -. . --..-- .- -. -.. -... . -.-. .- .-. . ..-. ..- .-.. --- ..- - - .... . .-. . .-.-.- - .... . .-. . .. ... .- ...- .. .-. ..- ... --- -. .- -- . .-. .. -.-. .- --- -. .-.. .. -. . -... . .. -. --. ... . -. - -... -.-- . -- .- .. .-.. .-.-.- .. ..-. -.-- --- ..- --. . - .- -. -.-- - .... .. -. --. -.-. .- .-.. .-.. . -.. --. --- --- -.. - .. -- . ... --..-- -.. --- -. - .-. . .- -.. .. - --- .-. -.. --- .-- -. .-.. --- .- -.. .. - .-.-.- .. - .. ... .- ...- .. .-. ..- ... - .... .- - .-- .. .-.. .-.. . .-. .- ... . -.-- --- ..- .-. .... .- .-. -.. -.. .-. .. ...- . .-.-.- ..-. --- .-. .-- .- .-. -.. - .... .. ... - --- .- .-.. .-.. -.-- --- ..- .-. ..-. .-. .. . -. -.. ... .-.-.- .. - -- .- -.-- .... . .-.. .--. - .... . -- .- .-.. --- - .-.-.-
.... .
was transmitted by an early mechanical teletype set to automatically repeat (based on a phonograph wax cylinder), thus being the first recorded DOS attack and electronic hoax. Amazing.
The Slashdot staff posts this "news" (for nerds) item, I'm assuming with the attitude that it is amusing. It seems to me, however, that these "hoaxes" are nothing more than trolls (gasp!).
So, I guess it's different when it's someone else's site?
What a bunch of tech-savy hypocrites.
Fuckers.
And perhaps YOUR MACHINE has already been hacked by this master-hacker named Root ! If he has managed to insert a fake entry in your password file (/etc/passwd) with his own name, then DELETE THE LINE IMMEDIATELY !!! This will surely lock him out of your system :)
Yet another thing you might add:
If you're really, really worried about some warning or virus you hear about online, take the time to investigate it *before* you pass it on. Sunscreen causing blindness? Go to your favorite search engine, type "sunscreen blind" as the thing to search on, and see what comes back.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Sweet, I wrote the same thing (in C) a while back.
I'm going to write another version eventually that only chops the message to a fixed space after the last >, because otherwise it'll mange ASCII art. (I tried it on your page just to make sure that it works the same way mine does...)
main()
{
inti=0;
chars[512];
while(gets(s)){
while((s[i]=='>')||(s[i]==''))
i++;
puts(s+i);
i=0;
}
}
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It's on my to do list. I don't think it would be hard. Text document similarity is pretty well studied.
< :)
>Subject: Fw: viral warning
>Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 10:28:22 -0400
>
>
>This came from our IT department, so it must be legitimate!
>
>Arlene
>
> > >>> >Dear All,
> > >>> >
> > >>> >This is VERY, VERY SERIOUS!! Please forward it to everyone you
> > >>> >know..they will be grateful
> > >>> >
> > >>> > Important
> > >>> >
> > >>> > There is a virus out now being sent to people via email...it
>is
> > >>> >called the A.I.D.S. VIRUS. It will destroy your memory, sound card
>and
> > >>> >speakers, drive and it will infect your mouse or pointing device..as
> > >>> >well
> > >>> >as your keyboards (possibly motherboards) making what you type not
>able
> > >>> >to
> > >>> >register on the screen. It self terminates only after it eats 5MB
>of
> > >>> >harddrive space & will delete all programs.
> > >>> >
> > >>> > It will come via E-mail called "OPEN: VERY COOL!
".
> > >>> >
> > >>> > DELETE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! immediately!! It will basically
> > render
> > >>> >
> > >>> >your computer useless. Please pass this on to everyone you know!
> > >>> >
> > >>> >
> > >>> >
> > >>> > PASS IT ON QUICKLY & TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE
> > >>> >
> > >>> >
> > >>> >
> > >>> >
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
This may be an AC pretending to be the impulsiveprofits guy, who, I'm pretty sure, posted as a logged-in user. Which would make this a hoax, instead of spam, making it just about every bad thing you could call it except for "off-topic".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"George W. "W" Bush said almost exactly the same thing last week, in a speech where he also blasted every single major Internet censorship proposal that has come up so far."
Sorry, hoaxes have to have at least *some* element of believability to them in order to work.
Thank you for playing and goodnight.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
"fraudian slip"
Was this a Freudian slip, disclosing your intenton to fraud us?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Is the above not an accurate statement of a security problem with a particular piece fo software? Was it moderated as a troll solely on its own merits (or lack thereof) or because of who posted it?
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
For "fo", read "of". I can spell just fine, it's my fingers that have trouble.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
This post, which was #20, arrived fewer than 10 minutes later than post #16, making it quite likely that the poster of this was unaware of the first. As both contain the same content, probably neither are original, yet 5 moderation points have been wasted because one or more AC's came along an hour or so later and started whining before considering the evidence.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Don't forget the wonderful HCF (Halt and Catch Fire) from early 68k units (aparently(sp?), it was implemented for stress testing the CPU's, and they forgot to take it out :)
Commodore 64, Loading up the dance floor!
If you check out some of the anti-drug sites on the net, you'll find a striking similarity.
Well, except that the DHMO site is 100% facts.
Sheesh, the next thing that's going to happen is that User Friendly is being forced to shut down. If you don't know, don't ask.;-)
The word you are looking for to describe the DHMO page is satire.
I can see the fnords!
Another tame list from C|Net. Reminds me of the "Greatest hacks" list. Fake eBay listings and 4 email chain letter "forward this and win something" emails. Sigh.
It just goes to show that one has to take those legends with a grain of salt and pray your timely e-mail messages don't get delayed.
--
Gleepy the Hen. More intelligent than the average hen.
With all these hoaxes, it really gets one worried about the future fate of humanity. I mean, look at what some people will actually believe! I had a message forwarded to me before about flesh eating bacteria found in a shipment of bananas "forward this to spread the word and protect yourselves." JESUS CHRIST PEOPLE!! HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE NUTS??? Some of these hoaxes are worse than stories in Weekly World News, and yet more people forward these to eachother and actually believe it!
Here's a direct link to the RealVideo.
I laughed. I cried. It was better than Cats.
--
..!!in an intastella burst i am back to save the universe!!
If I received that letter, and I was resident in the United States, here are some paragraphs that I would have sent in my reply:
I have knowledge that your organisation is using a copyright circumvention device commonly known as an e-mailer. E-mailers are software utilities that decode the contents of e-mails (which are commonly coded in the ASCII character set, and which consist of copyrighted electronic communications) or otherwise circumvent the protection afforded by coding the message in ASCII and permit the copying of the e-mail contents and/or any portion thereof. As such, e-mailers are an unlawful circumvention device within the meaning of 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(2),(3).
This e-mail is Copyright (c) 2000 <my name would go here>. All rights reserved.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
The famous "Good Times" virus wasn't a hoax. There really was a virus, transmitted by email,
There is even a special word for such a thing: it's called a meme
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
This was a hoax that I helped spawn.
Back in the early days of collectible card games, when everyone was talking about Magic and the first few, non-Magic card games came out, someone posted the Sickness and Health FAQ to rec.games.trading-cards.misc. Thinking this was funny, I thought quickly, did a bit of typing, and wrote up a partial card list. A couple of other people posted cards, comments, and so on, and eventually the original poster created a Sickness and Health web site. (It was even hosted at itis.com. What a name...)
Anyway, the thing slowly grew. Over the next two or three years I, and the other posters, would get occasional e-mails from game distributors asking when the game would be available. Someone even went so far as to print it up in an online and offline catalog, before asking us. I never had the heart to keep stringing them along.
Anyway, that's my bit of Internet hoaxing.
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
DHMO was directly responsible for the sinking of the Titanic and the deaths of many of her passengers.
--
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
You can find my standard response (it's too long to post here) here.
The good times was indeed a virus sent via email.
:)
If you note the strictest definition of a virus (in computer terms and normal use of the word) it means something that replicates itself.
The actual email informing everyone of the virus is the virus itself and it replicates itself by preying on stupid email users.
You could argue that it creates loss in that it kills bandwidth and takes time to read/delete/etc.
So, it wasn't a hoax
"DNA is God's contribution to the Open Source movement"
Well, it is possible to flash the screen in certain color/timing sequences to cause epiletic-like fits in the population. Witness the Pokemon (TV show) episode in Japan two years ago when a particularly flashy show caused scores of schoolkids to get sick, fall unconscious, etc.
Myself, I get sick from Pokemon just by watching its absolute inanity. Come on America! Will you buy ANYTHING?
Anyway, your comment reminded me of the hack on Commodore PETs and 64s where a certain PEEK command could set the monitor flyback into self-destruction mode.
Was this true or urban legend?
Karen
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GAT d-- a? C++ UX+ L++ P++ E--- W+++$ N++ o-- !K !w O---- M++$ !V PS++
Of course, the funny thing was when all the windows administrators started getting all officious, and posting notices to the effect that "a virus cannot possibly spread via email".
Result? Melissa. (Well, it made me laugh - I use Linux).
Thinking alters Thinking.
Eric
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
there was a hoax a while back about a virus that could flash colours invisibly on your monitor causing you to have an epileptic fit (this was in the days of CGA/hercules mono screens)...
This has got to be up there among the greatest of all times. After all, I'm not in the jurisdiction of this injunction, and it is certainly not a legally binding document, yet it is as threatening as they could possibly make it without mentioning your loved ones.
Anyone else get this one?
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Not by Welles, anyway. According to this movie, the broadcast was a cover for an actual alien invasion.
I've found the perfect solution to this problem. On a highly SECURED partition of my harddisk resides a copy of the Good Time virus. Everytime someone sends me a `beware of the XXXX virus' message, I send them the GT. BUT, and this is the cunning part, I change the HEADER!!!
Unsuspecting, the hoaxspammer opens the email, convinced that it will make him earn a million dollar(!!), and his entire harddisk is ERASED!!!
After that, they usually keep from sending me such email. (I've got this advice from the vice president of AOL.)
YDD
-- multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind --
Do you mean the root virus, or the ROOT virus? :)
Dear my! What are those things coming out of her nose?
Spaceballs!
Got a beef? Plug a name into the Bizarre Rumour Generator!
How about those "The phone company wants to charge per minute on modem use." Those seemed to go around every so often..
1) Limited service for about $14/mo, you get 65 calls a month. All calls after that are $0.10/call.
2) Economy service: Form about $8/mo, you get 0 calls a month. All calls are $0.085/call after that.
So, calls are not free, they are just relatively inexpensive. Since most people think that the $16+ is just for having a phone, they don't remember that they chose the "expensive" plan for their phone.
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
I think what he's trying to say is that, by being so popular and oft forwarded, it acted as a virus in the sense that it ate bandwidth and cluttered servers with unnecessary data...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
I've made a "tool" (whatever you want to call it...) to strip them. I know _nobody_ out there actually forwards stuff to people, but...just in case you got that new virus warning from metoo@aol.com and are positive it's true (sure it is...), at least you won't have to waste bandwidth....
http://www.caffeine.f2s.com/forwards/ fwd.html
Grades, Social Life, Sleep....Pick Two.
--Justin Mitchell
"2nd Place is a fancy word for losing" --Bender (Futurama)
AMEN BRUTHA!!!!!!
My usual response is "You goddamned sonofabitch muthafucka... What the HELL are you thinking sending that SHIT to me?!?!?!"
But yours works. definitely.
Isn't it called a "worm" when it exploits software holes without intervention from the victim?
--
The shareholder is always right.
HEREISSOMEIMPORTANTINFORMATION.BEWAREOFAFILECAL
so i doubt it's that old
--
The shareholder is always right.
I guess you could call it one, but it's not an intervention in the same way that opening an executable e-mail attachment is. The malicious code that I think the original person was referring to actually exploited a security hole, allowing it to run arbitrary code including "forward this message to everyone in your address book".
Outlook express happens to show an e-mail in a panel as soon as you click on it, but that's not really important here; even if the user had to double-click the message to trigger the malicious code, he/she probably would (expecting that simply reading an e-mail should be safe, and most likely knowing the person who sent the message).
--
The shareholder is always right.
I don't think
Yeah, and I seem to remember TWO anti gravity articles right here on slashdot that some people took seriously.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
Sorry, I have to disagree. Humor has always been the best way to defuse anything.
Well, this is what made the Good Times virus amusing, at least the version I saw. It warned of a virus that would spread to all your friends mailboxes, clogging up all the mail servers. You didn't even need to execute a program for this to happen. So, if you see an email with the title "Good Times" delete it immediately!
Of course, the title of the warning email was Good Times. Many naive people spread the warning between each other, and infact the warning WAS the virus. It propogated not through a software exploit but via the foolishness of the typical computer user, who would themselves transmit the "virus".
Pretty clever and fairly amusing at the time.
cot
cot
Anytime something sounds devious, the initial reaction is "well, I wouldn't put it past Microsoft" ;)
Best regards,
SEAL
I remember getting this one, and passing it on to the other computer guys at my last job. One of them forwarded it to his mother. He came into my office a few days later, and told me that his mother said I owed her a new fridge. It seems immediately after reading the posting, her fridge died.
Coincidence? I think not.
"Good Times"
This seems to resurface ever few years or so inciting people on usenet and irc and generally is a pain in the butt.
have to admit, ive thought a little too much about how that could be done..
LW
The current list isn't as good as C|net's top 10 list from 1999 which contains a 1993 USENET hoax by Joe Skaggs (sp? Is it a word?).
Joe Skaggs has been hoaxing the mainstream media for years and is one of NYCs most loved and hated citizens. Here's a retrospective of some of his hoaxes going as far back as the sixties. My favorites are dog meat soup, the geraldo hoax and coma cocoon
Related Links:
[1] http://i.am/hoax-info
[2] http://www.tu-berlin.de/www/softwar e/hoax.shtml
greetings
Cyberstar
Do you want to know what's stupid? ICQ ones. I mean, i've seen ones that said "ICQ wants you to forward this message: Don't Forward Any Messages!!" and people did it of course. *sigh*
----
Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Do you want to know what's stupid? ICQ ones. I mean, i've seen ones that said "ICQ wants you to forward this message: Don't Forward Any Messages!!" and people did it of course. *sigh*
----
Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
FINALLY A CHAIN LETTER THAT I LIKE!_____________________________________________ ____
-
:) :)
Hello, my name is Basmati Kasaar. I am suffering from rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, extreme virginity, fear of being
kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not Forwarding out 50 billion f$#%ing chain letters sent to me by people who actually
believe that if you send them on, then that poor f&^%ing 6 year old girl in Arkansas with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her off to the travelling freak show. Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send "his" email to $1000? How stupid are you? Ooooh, looky here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by every Playboy Bunny in the magazine! What a bunch of f&^$ing bullshit. So basically, this message is a big F&^% YOU to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards. Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will
come into my apartment and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by Jesus in 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity. F&^% them. If you're going to forward something, at
least send me something mildly f*&%ing amusing. I've seen all the
"send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for
a human being will somehow receive a Nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times. I don't f%$*ing care. Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out forwards. Chances are it's your own unpopularity.
THE FOUR BASIC TYPES OF CHAIN LETTERS:
-------------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 1:
(scroll down)
Make a wish!!!
<Keep Scrolling>
No, really, go on and make one!!!
Oh please, they'll never go out with you!!!Wish something else!!!
Not that, you pervert!!
STOP!!!!
Wasn't that fun?
Hope you made a great wish
Now, to make you feel guilty, here's what I'll do. First of all, if you don't send this to 5096 people in the next 5 seconds, you will be raped by a mad goat and thrown off a high building into a pile of manure. It's true! Because, THIS letter isn't like those fake ones, THIS one is TRUE!! Really!!! Here's how it goes: *Send this to 1 person: One person will be pissed off at you for
sending them a stupid chain letter. *Send this to 2-5 people: 2-5 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter. *Send this to 5-10 people: 5-10 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter, and may form a plot on your life. *Send this to 10-20 people: 10-20 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter and will napalm your house.
Thanks!!!! Good Luck!!!
---------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 2
Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no parents, and no goats. This little boy's life could be saved, because for every time you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little Starving Legless Armless Goatless Boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund.
Oh, and remember, we have absolutely no way of counting the emails sent and this is all a complete load of bulls^%t. So go on, reach out. Send this to 5 people in the next 47 seconds. Oh, and a reminder - if you accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people, you will die instantly. Thanks again!!
---------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 3
Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897. This is absolutely incredible because there was no email then and probably not as many sad pricks with nothing better to do. So this is how it works... Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible will happen to you like:
*Bizarre Horror Story #1
Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a crack in the
sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty,she died. This Could Happen To You!!!
*Bizarre Horror Story #2
Dexter Bip, a 13 year old boy, got a chain letter in his mail and ignored it. Later that day, he was hit by a car and so was his boyfriend (hey,some people swing that way). They both died and went to hell and were cursed to eat adorable kittens every day for eternity. This Could Happen To You Too!!!
Remember, you could end up just like Pinsley and Bip. Just send this letter to all of your loser friends, and everything will be okay.
----------------------------------------------
Chain Letter Type 4
As if you care, here is a poem that I wrote. Send it to all your friends.
FRIENDS:
A friend is someone who is always at your side.
A friend is someone who likes you even though
you stink of s^%t, and your breath smells like you've been eating catfood.
A friend is someone who likes you even though
you're as ugly as a hat full of assholes.
A friend is someone who cleans up for you after you've soiled yourself. A friend is someone who stays with you all night while you cry about your sad, sad life. A friend is someone who pretends they like you when they really think you should be raped by mad goats, then thrown to vicious dogs. A friend is someone who scrubs your toilet,
vacuums and then gets the cheque and leaves and doesn't speak much English...no, sorry that's
the cleaning lady. A friend is not someone who sends you chain letters because he wants his wish of being rich to come true.
Now pass this on! If you don't, you'll never
have sex ever again!
--------------------------------------------
The point being? If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or
luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on. Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana
with no teeth, who's been tied to a dead elephant for 27 years, whose only saviour is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this mail,
otherwise you'll end up like Miranda. Right? Now forward this to everyone that you know otherwise you'll find all your knickers missing tomorrow
morning.
ROTFL!! You people just don't get it.
This post itself is a chain-letter!!! Can't you see the hint? Look:
I think this post deserves a few additional +1 Funny mods...
Disclaimer: if you don't have a sense of humour, please don't waste your moderator points on me.
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
Hahaha, good point. Just about every post on this article can be interpreted as a hoax if you're creative (or paranoid!) enough.
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
As I understand it Orson Welles did not intentially planned on fooling people.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to see if I can find my sense of humour again ...
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
I do not support the ban on DHMO.
After extensive travels to Scotland (highlands in particular) I found that the local pubs are refusing to serve scotch in glasses with DHMO in its solid form. I do not consider myself dependant to the chemical but have found that it enhances the pleasures associated with consumption of many foods and drinks.
I wouldn't be surprised if my next physical showed extremely high concentrations in my body. Don't believe these rumermongers.
sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
isn't that something like the famous nobody virus?
Amazing magic tricks
Was that really worth posting on /.? Now, if we're talking about new planets, *that's* worth reading...
I know you moderators are just trying to dump Karma so you can get it over with and participate, but SHEESH!!
And by the way, I think this discussion is turning into the worst form of bandwidth waste ever! Chain letters are bad enough!
Moderate the whole article down to -1 so the rest of us who get these stupid chain letters can't see it!!!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Oh my gawd, this is the most horrible thing I have ever seen. This even beats out the nasty crime scene photos my friend sends me.
Now, I'm not one to critisize the way people look, but this is beyond ugly. I can only hope to Christ that the photos were doctored.
And I thought *I* was ugly.
tcd004
LostBrain
Oh my god I hate chain mail more than anything onto this earth.
Why I hate chain mail is because it timewise is taking so long on my life.
Looking in inbox all the day and seing chain mail all the day.
Taking all day to deleting inbox for chain mail or I take time to make inbox filter all the day
Then I use all day to make inbox filter and so that day is used also
But very good once you have maked inbox filter because then it is more you can do what you want and not delete inbox all day.
One in a while however there come mail that has no inbox filter.
And then you have to sit down with the inbox filter all day again
This is why I hate chain mail. I really do
Why they copy my page to goldenmoments? Yes it is very evil
The fact that local phone calls in most countries outside of the US are *not* free probably has a lot to do with the fact that Internet use is lagging in all those countries. I pay quite a lot to my friendly local telcom monopoly for every online minute & have to restrict use as much as possible to evenings and weekends when the rates are cheaper. How's that for a way to build a thriving online economy?
DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM 12:01 AM GMT ON APR. 1 TO 12:01 AM GMT, APR. 2 !! *** Attention *** It's that time again! As many of you know, each year the ENTIRE Internet (not just MIT) be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean it. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead email, inactive ftp and www sites, and empty USENET groups, allows for a better working and faster Internet. This year, the cleaning process will take place from 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 1 until 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 2 (the time least likely to interfere with ongoing work). During that 24-hour period, five powerful Internet search engines situated around the world will search the and delete any data that they find. In order to protect your valuable data from deletion we ask that you do the following: 1. Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their Internet connections. 2. Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the Internet. 3. Disconnect all disks and hard drives from any connections to the Internet. 4. Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any way. We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet users, and we apologize. However, we are certain that any inconveniences will be more than made up for by the increased speed and efficiency of the Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic flotsam and jetsam. We thank you for your cooperation. Kim Dereksen Interconnected Network Maintenance staff, Main branch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sysops and others: Since the last Internet cleaning, the number of Internet users has grown dramatically. Please assist us in alerting the public of the upcoming Internet cleaning by posting this message where your users will be able to read it. Please pass this message on to other sysops and Internet users as well. Thank you.
Great. Now we're going to get a bunch of people following the "Create your own hoax" link and causing even worse mailbox flooding than we already have. Doesn't this writer have any sense at all???
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
What are you talking about? This is not a hoax. Every word of it is true; it is al verifiable fact. If only the vast majority of people didn't sleep through their chemistry classes, they would understand exactly what this is saying, and so wouldn't be worried about it.
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Isn't opening the email an intervention?
Fight Spammers!
This includes most of the urban/internet legends. It did leave out the albino gator (or crockodile).
Fight Spammers!
Fight Spammers!
So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at him and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation. Send THIS to all the friends who send you their junk mail and you will receive 4 green M&Ms, but if you don't the owner of Proctor and Gamble will report you to his Satanist friends and you will have more bad luck: you will get cancer from the Sodium Laureth Sulfate in your shampoo, your wife will develop breast cancer from using the antiperspirant which clogs the pores under your arms, and the U.S. Government will put a tax on your e-mails forever.
I know this is all true 'cause I read it on the Internet.
Fight Spammers!
A company called Aureate is using secret spy software on your computer. You'll know you have it if you find any of the following DLL's on your computer. You'll also most likely have it if you installed the following list of programs.
Not one person I've talked to about this laughed when they got it. Nooooo. They checked to see if any of their programs were on the list (CuteFTP, GoZilla usually did it for them). Then they checked to see if they had the DLL's. Then the more knowledgeable ones check their registry for the 'spy' keys. Then they started religiously monitoring netstat to check what connections were taking place.
Heck, one guy was about ready to break it all open and start checking the contents of his packets! That's when I couldn't hold it in any longer and just started laughing and laughing.
What makes this one good is it hasn't gotten mass exposure and thus mass dis-proof. We all know about Good Times, cause The Public knows about it. Most of the public wouldn't care what the hell the Aureate scam is, PointClick's actions seem to show that. As such, geeks are taken for a nice little ride.
Strangly enough, I have never received Good Times or the Bill Gates hoaxes - are these for real or just urban legends? :)
Nor have I received Mellissa - which is a shame cause I wanted to examine the source code (it couldn't infect my system anyway).
Has anyone else noticed that in the last few weeks the mainstream media seem to be taking a 'higher than normal' interest in these sort of things (.net in the UK's done recent features).
Somes I wonder who actually wrote the original hoaxes - you never see anyone claim the credit do you? I recent email I received placed the blame on aliens trying to overload our technology - I believe every word of itRichy C.
--
And be sure to send an email to M$ telling them you have complied so they can remove you from the list. You wouldn't want to get a duplicate mailing, would you?
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
I didn't write this, but it's perfectly relevant.
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Hello, my name is Basmati Kasaar. I am suffering from rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, extreme virginity, fear of being kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not forwarding out 50 billion fucking chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, then that poor 6 year old girl in Arkansas with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her off to the traveling freak show.
Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send "his" email to $1000? How stupid are you?
Ooooh, looky here! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by every Playboy model in the magazine! What a bunch of bullshit. So basically, this message is a big FUCK YOU to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to sendme stupid chain mail forwards.
Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my apartment and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by Jesus in 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity.
If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times.
THE FOUR BASIC TYPES OF CHAIN LETTERS:
Chain Letter Type 1:
(scroll down)
Make a wish!!!
No, really, go on and make one!!!
Oh please, they'll never go out with you!!!
Wish something else!!!
Not that, you pervert!!
Is your finger getting tired yet?
STOP!!!!
Wasn't that fun?
Hope you made a great wish
Now, to make you feel guilty, here's what I'll do. First of all, if you don't send this to 5096 people in the next 5 seconds, you will be raped by a mad goat and thrown off a high building into a pile of manure. It's true!
Because, THIS letter isn't like all of those fake ones, THIS one is TRUE!! Really!!!
Here's how it goes:
*Send this to 1 person: One person will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
*Send this to 2-5 people: 2-5 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
*Send this to 5-10 people: 5-10 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter, and may form a plot on your life.
*Send this to 10-20 people: 10-20 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter and will napalm your house.
Thanks!!!! Good Luck!!!
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Chain Letter Type 2
Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no parents, and no goats. This little boy's life could be saved, because for every time you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little Starving Legless Armless Goatless Boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund.
Oh, and remember, we have absolutely no way of counting the emails sent and this is all a complete load of bullshit. So go on, reach out. Send this to 5 people in the next 47 seconds.
Oh, and a reminder - if you accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people, you will die instantly.
Thanks again!!
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Chain Letter Type 3
Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897. This is absolutely incredible because there was no email then and probably not as many sad pricks with nothing better to do.
So this is how it works:
Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible will happen to you like:
*Bizarre Horror Story #1
Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a crack in the sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall.
Not only did she smell nasty, she died.
This Could Happen To You!!!
*Bizarre Horror Story #2
Dexter Bip, a 13 year old boy, got a chain letter in his mail and ignored it. Later that day, he was hit by a car and so was his boyfriend (hey, some people swing that way). They both died and went to hell and were cursed to eat adorable kittens every day for eternity.
This Could Happen To You Too!!!
Remember, you could end up just like Pinsley and Bip. Just send this letter to all of your loser friends, and everything will be okay.
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Chain Letter Type 4:
As if you care, here is a poem that I wrote. Send it to every one of your friends.
Friends
A friend is someone who is always at your side,
A friend is someone who likes you even though you stink of shit, and your breath smells like you've been eating cat food,
A friend is someone who likes you even though you're as ugly as a hat full of arseholes,
A friend is someone who cleans up for you after you've soiled yourself,
A friend is someone who stays with you all night while you cry about your sad, sad life,
A friend is someone who pretends they like you when they really think you should be raped by mad goats, then thrown to vicious dogs,
A friend is someone who scrubs your toilet, vacuums and then gets the cheque and leaves and doesn't speak much English...
no, sorry that's the cleaning lady.
A friend is not someone who sends you chain letters because he wants his wish of being rich to come true.
Now pass this on! If you don't, you'll never have sex ever again.
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The point being?
If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on.
Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth, who's been tied to a dead elephant for 27 years, whose only saviour is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this mail, otherwise you'll end up like Miranda. Right?
Now forward this to everyone you know otherwise you'll find all your knickers missing tomorrow morning.
Come on it sounded believable...
The real conspiracy was whether it was a rumour started by KFC to get free publicity...it sounded real enough to convince people who don't normally fall for a hoax especially in these days of GM food etal...hands up how many people got the e-mail from a normally reliable source?
It was funny how they managed to fuel the hoax by first denying it and then suddenly changing their adverts to mention chicken way to obviously.
So all the conspiracy theorists come out of the woodwork and it spreads like wildfire, hence more free publicity for KFC and so on...so maybe more a publicity stunt than hoax ?
'The ZX81 powerfull enough to run a nuclear powerstation'
From the they don't make adverts like'em anymore department.
Heres another 'true story' doing the rounds, for more stories go to Unix Humour :
It's official: Microsoft SUCKs
Microsoft announced today its decision to formally abandon Java in favour of its new Simple Unified C++ Kit (SUCK). The name of the project, previously codenamed COOL, was changed to reflect Microsoft's new corporate image.
"We've decided to take a much more aggressive approach to software industry standards," said SUCK development spokesman Pout Tantrum.
"In the past, Microsoft has been extremely gracious and supportive of open industry protocols and standards, even when it challenged our desktop monopoly. And what did we get for it?
Lawsuits from Sun, the Department of Justice, and some tiny companies out in the boondocks that nobody's ever heard of.
Well, that's going to change. SUCK is 100% Microsoft invented, owned, patented and controlled.
It's our way of giving something back to the computing industry. A clear message saying, 'Up yours, Charlie, we're Microsoft.'"
SUCK is slated to replace VBA, VBScript, J++, C++, CMD.EXE shell, and 8086 assembler as Microsoft's official systems integration language, and will debut with the long-awaited Windows 2000.
In keeping with their new streamlined corporate philosophy, Microsoft will also launch a global saturation advertising campaign featuring the digitally-recreated likeness of J. Edgar Hoover wearing silk lingerie.
There was also an article by Mark Clifton in the February 1958 issue of Astounding Science Fiction (Don't you love The Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase). It is about this frightening condition and is well worth a look if you can find it.
It pointed out how people who have eaten tomatoes start to show symptoms such as deteriorating eyesight, arthritis, general weakening, etc. as they grow older. Any cases of people who have eaten tomato soup and survived beyond 100 years showed they are severely debilitated.
If tomato soup is withheld then the addict's craving drives them to use substitutes such as water. If all substitutes are withheld then the addict dies of withdrawl.
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
This is an excellent guide to e-mail for not-so-newbies and in-duh-viduals. I should really add this to my "You're an idiot for sending this to me" e-mails.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
If you like that, go over to www.joeyskaggs.com. This guy makes a 'living,' somehow, of hoaxing the media. His actual purpose is to reveal uncritical media reporting. I think the best one was the 'Solomon Project'; he basically got CNN to show up for a 'news conference' at some graphics art studio where some dummied-up pc's were meant to be this computer program designed to replace judges and juries. CNN broadcast the show _once_; when he revealed the hoax it was buried and I believe CNN to this day will not admit that the thing ever existed.
All you need are some LSD-laced Mickey Mouse stamps and you've covered the gamut of UL idiocy for the last 20 years.
Exactly. The internet has revolutionized the way information reaches people, and making a joke out of disinformation will only encourage more people to spread them.
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JavaScript tutorials scripts
Can I believe anything that's posted here? LOL.
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JavaScript tutorials scripts
I always liked some of the ones where they are strait forward with telling there going to spam you and people complane about their email being clogged up and being spamed. "In a world of mostly idiots, dont copy"
Hehe, I know what your're thinking about AOL, but as I'm sitting here providing tech support for them I have to say there must be some hoax about AOL and kicking people off randomly. Oh, well...AOL members(newbie's for the most part) for ya. Maybe not a good hoax, but its better than those on Cnet.
SolidSnot
I'm getting sick of it... I don't see it anymore though... it's in the killfile.
I know the email's a joke but certain less than robust persons will believe it!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
and even harder to eradicate as it's livelihood is dependant on human gullibility. Sadly to say, the problem is difficult to fix as it would require a total rewrite of DNA.
I guess getting SPAM and other junk mail is the price of freedom and privacy. Is it possible to have one without the other?
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
UK riot police use DHMO-firing "cannons" to attack rioters. Many people have suffered severe injuries as a result.
I don't think it can be said to pollute sewage, but it's certainly a major component in toxic sludge.
Ban DHMO!
--
Xenu loves you!
Yeah, the same folks who think a p120/16mb is a reasonable machine for faculty and doesn't even ened a memory upgrade because "that's enough for windows 95."
.
Anyway, one of them sent one of the Good Times style ones to the department. I wrote her back with the reminder that the message *is* the virus. She insisted that this one, which clamed netscape (?) had verified it and wanted you to send it to everyone was real . .
I gave up.
>It was more like a social virus or a thought virus.
Yuk. Social viruses. THe ones that drop into your office and
drop for hours. Then they leave to infect another office, and your
day is so shot by this point that you go bother someone for
a couple of hours . . .
Lots of us thought about it for a moment, realized it was possible, saw how to do it, and then, the problem solved, lost all interest . . .
Kind of like the "Perfect Crime"--the attributes that would let one plan it correctly are the same ones that stop people from doing it . . .
I also saw a shorter version which wasn't nearly as amusing. Here
it is:
If you receive an e-mail with a subject line of "Badtimes," delete it
immediately WITHOUT reading it. This is the most dangerous E-mail
virus yet.
It will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any
disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your
refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream melts and your
milk curdles. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards,
reprogram your ATM access code, screw up the tracking on your VCR
and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.
It will give your ex-boy/girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix
antifreeze into your fish tank. It will drink all your beer and leave
its dirty socks on the coffee table when there's company coming over.
It will hide your car keys when you are late for work and interfere with
your car radio so that you hear only static while stuck in traffic.
Badtimes will make you fall in love with a hardened pedophile. It will
give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will replace your shampoo
with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine, all while dating your current
boy/girlfriend behind your back and billing their hotel rendezvous to
your Visa card.
It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is
the power of Badtimes. It reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things
we hold most dear.
Badtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat
up and leave the hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub.
It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows,
it will refill your skim milk with whole. It is insidious and subtle. It is
dangerous and terrifying to behold.
It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.
These are just a few signs.
Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
Ohhh... I know exactly what it is.
Can you belive I actualy used to dring stuff with high concentrations of it ? The very thoght of that makes me shiver.
Fortunatly Red Stripe isn't as poluted as most other beers are so the efect of DHMO in that brew should be minimal.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Sorry, I forgot:
This virus is spreading like wildfire so forward this message on to all of your friends so that their files won't be destroyed!
Sincerely,
Steve Thompson, Compaq Computer Corp
Ah, but in common English usage, the two words are the same. It's only in scientific usage that the two words take on different meanings, and mainstream dictionaries generally do not cover technical definitions.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Ok, hands up - who was the turkey who moderated THIS one up?
... um... a virus?
You (and your clueless moderator) missed the joke. The Good Times virus is a REAL virus.. a meta-virus that spreads via email. Dig? This Particular virus pop up again and again. It spreads via clueless users who bounce their email warnings (telling to you beware the good times virus) around like
Now do you get it?
It is precisely these hoax's that are worrying some folks and giving those people that want to regulate the internet some ammunition. I'm not saying we should dismiss them entirely but lauding them as wonderful forms of humour seems to just be asking for more trouble to me.
Oh, yeah??!? I take it that any form of irony, sarcasm or leg-pulling on the Internet should be now verboten just in case "some folks" get upset and will close the Internet down? And I should probably start wearing a three-piece suit with a sober and responsible dark tie to work, so that some folks wouldn't get the wrong impression? You'd probably want me to start using expressions like "would you be so kind as to" and "I cannot even start express my undying gratitude and appreciation to you"? And, let me guess, you don't like the word "fuck", do you?
Well, tell you what, sport. These "some folks" can fuck off. Yes, I actually used a naughty word on the Internet -- in case you didn't hear, they can FUCK OFF. And as to you, some thinking about the meaning of the word 'freedom' will probably do you good.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
This is one of the best Web-hoaxes I've found (well, so far ;-):
;-)...
A guy created this fake (and not really real-looking) commercial site selling the "IDChip" which was described (on purpose) a lot like the "sign of the Beast" from Revelation. He got so many e-mails and death-threats from religious fanatics, he had to shut down and reveal the hoax in less than a week. Definitely worths the click to his "letters" section
engineers never lie; we just approximate the truth.
There's this really funny story about some poor sap who thought he was going to someone's personal home pahe, but in reality was sent to a hardcore bestiality web site! Check it out at http://home.san.rr.com/~jrf/hoaxes/hoax1.html.
Not that I clicked it, but I still think this is funny enough to repost at a higher score.
------
If a tree falls on an anonymous coward yelling 'first post' in the forest, does anybody hear?
The hoaxes like these, get a gift certificate from the Gap, Abercrombie and Fitch, etc., Bill Gates will give you money for testing his email traking system aren't the worst of the bunch. Most people (I hope) realize that they aren't really true, but forward them for the fun of it. On the other hand, a recent rash of "URGENT: Email virus XXXXX strikes" type messages went flying through my company, down from some senior-type IT folks who should know better. When it found its way into my mailbox, being the diligent skeptic that I am, quickly discovered that it was a typical hoax virus warning. I replyed to the higher-up folks that warnings of email viruses should be treated with the utmost skepticism, it is unlikely that they are a "real" threat. It actually took some convincing, and pointing them to some sources who confirmed my suspician before they actually believed me, but I'm sure the next urgent virus warning that comes along will have them madly forwarding again. Oh well, what can you do?
Spyky
I found this in my mailbox this morning...
__________________________________________
I was on my way to the post office to pick up my case of free M&M's, (sent to me because I forwarded their e-mail to five other people, celebrating the fact that the year 2000 is "MM" in Roman numerals), when I ran into a friend whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken -which is predictable, since as everyone knows, there's no actual chicken in Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is why the government made them change their name to KFC.
Anyway, one day this guy went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his bathtub and it was full of ice and he was sore all over and when he got out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEYS HAD BEEN STOLEN. He saw a note on his mirror that said "Call 911!" but he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened e-mail entitled "Join the crew!"
He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the $250.00 Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates. (It's true - I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.)
The poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys, but a voice on the line first asked him to press #90, which unwittingly gave the bandit full access to the phone line at the guy's expense.
Then reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped around a note that said, "Welcome to the world of AIDS." Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital - the one where that little boy who is dying of cancer is,the one whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send him an e-mail and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every e-mail he receives.
I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of x's and o's in the shape of an angel (if you get it and forward it to more than 10 people, you will have good luck but for 10 people you will only have OK luck and if you send it to fewer than 10 people you will have BAD LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS).
So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at him and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation.
Send THIS to all the friends who send you their junk mail and you will receive 4 green m&ms, but if you don't the owner of Proctor and Gamble will report you to his Satanist friends and you will have more bad luck: you will get cancer from the Sodium Laureth Sulfate in your shampoo, your wife will develop breast cancer from using the antiperspirant which clogs the pores under your arms, and the government will put a tax on your e-mails forever.
I know this is all true 'cause I read it on the Internet.
_______________________________
The Good Reverend
A few years ago, my local paper put in a notice about the "Good Times" virus. I e-mailed them and told them it was a hoax. They responded with, "A very respected doctor sent us that information. Do you have any proof?" (I worked for the local ISP, and I have helped many doctors. Just because they have a medical degree doesn't make them computer experts). I sent them some URL's from Norton and McAffee, but they never printed a retraction.
PLEASE PASS THIS NOTICE TO OTHER USERS WHO MAY NOT SEE IT!
As many of you know, each year the Internet must be shut down for 24 hours to allow us to clean it. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead e-mail and inactive ftp, www and gopher sites, allows for a better-working and faster Internet.
This year, the cleaning process will take place from 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 1 until 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 2. During that 24-hour period, five very powerful Japanese built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba ML-2274) situated around the world will search the Internet and delete any data that they find.
In order to protect your valuable data from deletion we ask that you do the following:
1. Disconnect all terminals and local area networks from their Internet connections.
2. Shut down all Internet servers, or disconnect them from the Internet
3. Disconnect all disks and hard drives from any connections to the Internet
4. Refrain from connecting any computer to the Internet in any way
We understand the inconvenience that this may cause some Internet users, and we apologize. However, we are certain that any inconvenience will be more than made up for by the increased speed and efficiency of the Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic flotsam and jetsam.
Sysadmins and others: Since the last Internet cleaning, the number of Internet users has grown dramatically. Please assist us in alerting the public of the upcoming Internet cleaning by posting this message where your users will be able to read it. Please pass this message on to other sysadmins and Internet users as well.
no sig.
In case anyone believes the above, here's a link to the Good Times Virus Hoax FAQ.
Geddit? (Goddit.) Good!
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
Insightful my ass, somebody shoot or maybe wake up the moderator. It's the lack of security regarding personal info that might be a downfall to the net. False adverts can occur in all forms of advertising, it's not a net thing. And if someone really thinks that they might be able to buy a F-117 off of EBAY, they deserve what ever happens to them.
that sucker hundreds of thousands of people who
have little or no computer knowledge.
My favorites are the ones that circulate in
supposedly knowldgable circles.
For example, I have had several friends who
bought into this teledildonics ad, but maybe that was wishful thinking.
At its core, a hoax is just a meme that
reproduces without depending on the rationality
of its host.
Hoaxes are clever hacks that take place
in 'meatspace'. Maybe the biggest difference
between a hoax and an urban legend is that
hoaxes are created by someone while urban legends
are memes that evolve in a
common way.
Amazing magic tricks
If these things were not redundant, then it would not have become an urban legend?
Fight Spammers!
Are there any other legends I left out?
Fight Spammers!
Fight Spammers!
I used to have a procmail filter that did a fairly decent job. It got around 75% of the spam.
/[Mm]ake ($?[0-9]+|millions|thousands|unlimited amounts) (per|every|in (one|a)) (year|month|day|hour|short time)/.
.*", or "herbal". A big one was "Dear friend". Never, ever, use that salutation.
It looked for regexp's like
It got to be sort of a hobby to build the thing. I basically figured out that the rules could be based on the seven deadly sins: greed, lust, vanity, etc., so I built the thing to look for those. Spam itself is urban-legend-like in that people tend to latch onto the same phrases and euphemisms over and over, eg "wealth building" or "I could barely afford (rent|food|clothing), until I discovered
Two years ago I could barely afford clothing. Now I make millions every day, selling herbal anti-spam technology to my friends, neighbors, even my doctor! It's the most amazing wealth-building program ever.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
VIRUS ALERT!!!!! THIS IS NOT A HOAX!!!!p erts at Microsoft have determined that there is a new and very destructive virus that infects your computer just by opening an email! It is called the ROOT VIRUS. "ROOT" is a famous hacker who has broken into thousands of computer systems and sends fake emails with a virus that can infect your computer just by opening them.
-----------------------------------
Ex
When you open a message sent to you by Root, it infects a virus onto your system which basically wipes out your hard drive. If you see a mail from ROOT, DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY!!!! Sometimes this hacker will attempt to trick you into opening an email by making it look official. DO NOT TAKE ANY CHANCES! DELETE ANY AND ALL MESSAGES FROM ROOT IMMEDIATELY!
Based on the forward you sent me, you still have a bit to learn about the Internet. Let me take this opportunity to give you a brief education.
1. Please do not pass on chain letters. There never has been, and never will be a reward for forwarding an email message.
2. Virus warnings tend to be hoaxes. Do not forward them. Anyone who would heed your warning is probably already protected. Everyone else will just ignore you anyway.
3. Please be selective with the jokes that you pass on. Here is the acid test: Would you bother telling me this joke in person? Jokes that dont pass this test should probably be kept to yourself. If it is good enough, tell it to me the next time I see you. I would rather spend time with you than be another name on your distribution list.
4. Forwards are never a reliable source of information. Unusual reports, especially those involving major corporations, are urban legends. If it were legitimate news, it would be carried by the mainstream media. Scary or outlandish stories are usually nothing but fiction. Enjoy reading them, but keep them to yourself.
5. Do not buy anything from spammers. NEVER! Don't even go to their websites. If you know what headers are, hunt down the bastards and get their accounts cancelled. Never reply to a spam, even just to ask to be removed from their mailing list. They wont take you off, but instead they will put your name on the valid list.
6. Never run any programs or open any executable attachments that you recieve in an email. If it ends in exe, bat, or com, you should delete it. It is usually safe to open zip files, but be suspicious of any contents.
7. Dont be a spammer. Multi level marketing schemes do not intrigue me. I am not interested in becoming part of your downline. Whether it is vitamins, herbs, long distance, magnets, distributed processing, or get-paid-to-surf-the-net I will never sign up. Seriously, I have lost friendships over this kind of stuff. Dont even start.
8. Investment advice comes from professionals, not open web-boards or unsolicited email.
9. Anything that promises an outrageous salary for working at home is bogus. If the opportunity was so good, they would be turning away applicants, not begging for them.
10. This is the last forward that you will ever send. The next time someone forwards you junk, send this to them. Lets break the chain one link at a time.
-BW
I didn't get any of the e-mail hoxes they mentioned - but the one I did get again and again (and again) was that stupid e-mail claiming Bill Gates was running some sort of e-mail test and would send you $1000 for forwarding the e-mail to some friends!
At the end of every message was some lame remark like "I'm not sure its' true, but it's worth a shot!". No. It. Is. NOT!!!!! The next one I get I'm going to respond with one saying Bill Gates will give them $1 million to walk in front of a train - hey, it may not be true, but it's worth a shot!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It is precisely these hoax's that are worrying some folks and giving those people that want to regulate the internet some ammunition. I'm not saying we should dismiss them entirely but lauding them as wonderful forms of humour seems to just be asking for more trouble to me.
The famous "Good Times" virus wasn't a hoax. There really was a virus, transmitted by email, which merely needed to be read by a human to be activated.
Of course, most of the details were wrong... it didn't normally have the subject line 'good times', nor did it reformat hard drives. In fact, all that it did was clog up email systems and waste time by propagating itself.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
99% of the slashdot gang is able to tell the stupid things from the real (well, most of the time) and hoaxes like these may give ammunition to the luddites of the world.
But....
By letting the Blame The Net Crowd pick up on the stupid things, we are making our jobs of fighting them all that much easier.
Take for instance things like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A while back they were running around Washington DC screaming and yelling that 50% of all missing kids were being abducted by satanic cults. The FBI did some investigating and found they were full of bunk. There is not a single case in US history where anyone has ever been killed by a satanic cult. It is balderdash.
Next we have an episode that happened when I was in high school - one of the local religious zealot groups was trying to crack down on kids playing D&D. At one of their meetings, they were claiming that "so and so's kid was playing and they had this sword laying on the table and the sword started hovering in the air!" Um, yeah right... whatever. Yet again another idiotic bunch of twits.
Finally we have yet more bunk from the State of Kansas (as if the whole evolution thing was not bad enough)... A few years back, people in Kansas were screaming and yelling about such and such a school district teaching kids how to masturbate. Everyone was pointing fingers at each other's school districts on this one saying "they are doing it!" Well, bring in the officials and guess what? Not a single claim could be proven. Zilch. None. Nada.
I say let the idiots and morons of the world run around screaming about stupid things. Let them tell the world about "the really big moon", "how you can get a free cellular phone", and "the $200 cookie recipe." It helps me filter out very easily who I want to associate with. As soon as something idiotic is claimed as truth, then I know they are morons. If it is someone trying to enact a law based on stupidity, then it makes our jobs as citizens even easier to fight them.
It seems that net hoaxes are now reaching the level of urban legends -- you know, the "my brother's friend told me this true story.... that KFC chicken has chemicals that sterilize black men", etc.
An excellent book to read if you're interested in urban legends is I Heard It through the Grapevine by Patricia Turner, a folklore sociologist. Even if you don't read the book, read the blurb on Amazon.
Another interesting web site to visit is AFU Urban Legends.com. They have pretty much every one listed.
The interesting thing about net hoaxes is that the chain mail ones are semi-participatory. That is, action taken actually (is supposed to) results in something happening, i.e. getting a free PC or cargo pants or whatever.
I wonder how soon it'll be before someone invents an intelligent filter that removes these from mailboxes as well as SPAM. This to me would be one of the really useful uses of AI technology. I have so many clueless relatives and "friends".....
Karen
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GAT d-- a? C++ UX+ L++ P++ E--- W+++$ N++ o-- !K !w O---- M++$ !V PS++
This stuff really dose pollute sewage and is at least partially responsible for El Ninio.
Down with Dihydrogen Monoxide -
check out the DHMO Homepage
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?