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!"
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 ?