Never Cry Wolf
By Ed Churnside Once again, I feel like a fool.
I sent a valid looking Email alert to
half the Internet and it turned out to be
a fake. Have you been caught? I bet you
have. Do you remember the "Good Times" virus? At first sight
these Emails may seem like a minor
problem; a cheap laugh; a practical joke.
However, just as water slowly running
will wear away a mountain, these phony
alerts are eroding the power of the
Internet.
The one thing that
separates the Internet community from the
community at large is that we react.
While the masses may approve of a policy
or disapprove of a law, they tend to
remain silent. The Internet community, on
the other hand, will take arms against
perceived injustice. In this the weapon
if choice is Email and the offenders will
soon find themselves swept away by a
flood of protest. It is probably the only
way we can protect ourselves against the
evil influence of corporate
"soft" money.
Bogus Emails are a
menace. These false alerts dull our
reflexes and inhibit our ability to
react. We all know the fable of "the
boy who cried wolf." These phony
causes are cries of wolf, and when a true
problem arises, we, like the shepherds of
the fable, may fail to defend our sheep.
How can we protect
ourselves against these false alerts? A
valid Internet alert requires three
things: a return Email address, a
reference URL and a date. If you are
creating an alert you must include them.
If you are passing an alert along you
must check them. Without them, or other
external verification, you must assume
the mail to be fake.
A valid Email address
must be included in the body of the
letter. You cannot just rely on the
address in your "From:" field.
As the Email is passed around the
Internet it will eventually be deleted
and forgotten. A Yahoo, Hotmail or other
free address will simply not do. Anyone
can set one of these up in a moment and
claim to be the Queen of Sheba.
A reference URL is
important too. Just about anything we
need to know about will be posted
somewhere. The most likely source for
this information is one of the many web
news services, but some special issues
like fighting
spam or Internet
free speech
have their own sites. The U.S.
Department of Energy Internet Hoax Page is also a good place to find
out about any current hoaxes.
Finally a date or,
better yet, an expiry date should be
included in any web alert. Remember, the
original send date will be lost as the
missal weaves its way across the web. It
is important to know when to stop
reacting to an alert. These things tend
to have a life of their own and often
continue for months after the issue is
resolved. The most recent mistake I made
was a valid alert -- valid, that is,
about 8 months ago.
In his article "Hoax,
They're out to get you on the Net",
Matthew Broersma says:
Another way to
tell truth from fiction in the
Email world is simply by paying
attention to the way the message
is written. Konrad Roeder, a
systems engineer and Internet
columnist, points out that every
hoax Email exists primarily to
replicate itself as many times as
possible, and therefore, it will
always include two elements:
first, it will provoke an
emotional response, and second,
it will urge readers to act on
their emotions by forwarding the
message to as many people as
possible. "In a sense, what's
happening is it's a thought
virus," Roeder said.
"They affect you, making you
feel something, and then get you
to pass [the message] on to other
people."
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Let me share an Email I
received from a close friend recently:
We are a
fourth grade class at Little
Prairie School in Windtunnel,
Illinois. Our class has 16 boys
and 7 girls. Our school has 360
students. We decided to map an
Email project for our school
because we were curious to see
how far Email can travel by
Internet in the United States.
Our project will last just two
months, beginning January 22,
1999 and ending March 22, 1999 We would like your help.
We ask that:
1. If you
receive our Email letter, could
you Email our class back telling
us your location.
2. Also, please
send our class letter on to 2
more people.
Our Email
address is
lpsfourthgrade@yahoo.com
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Is this letter valid? I
do not know but there are warning signs.
Although the period was about 2 months, I
received it just 2 days before the
deadline and the earliest recipient I
could find was just 2 days earlier. This
timeline prevents checking its validity
via US Snail. There is no URL reference
even though most schools have a web page,
especially a school that would run this
type of experiment. This teacher has not
given us his or her name. Finally, the
clincher for me, is that the only address
is at Yahoo.com. Not only is this a
fly-by-night address but this type of
letter is specifically banned by Yahoo's
rules of conduct. So, what's the verdict?
Is this just some young teacher showing
her web inexperience? Perhaps, but it
could also be a savvy spammer using our
vulnerability to children to build his
mailing list. There were close to 200
names on the copy I received -- you be
the judge.
One final note to help
us in the fight against spam: When you
send letters, even valid letters, out to
a large group of people, you never know
where they will end up. Someone down the
pipeline may inadvertently forward it to
a spammer, giving them a list of all your
friends. Always include your mailing list
under the "BCC:" field
not the "To:" field. BCC
-- Blind Carbon Copy -- will still
distribute your mail, but no-one who
receives it will see any mail address but
their own.
References:
Hoax! They're out to
get you on the Net By Matthew Broersma.
October 25, 1997 12:29 PM PST ZDNN
Some known hoaxes:
A.I.D.S. Hoax, AOL Riot
June 1,1998, AOL V4.0 Cookie, AOL4FREE,
Bill Gates Hoax, Bud Frogs Screen Saver,
Death Ray, Deeyenda, Disney Giveaway
Hoax, E-mail or get a Virus, Ghost PENPAL
GREETINGS!, Good Times Spoof, Good Times,
Internet Access Charge, Internet Cleanup
Day, Irina, Join the Crew, Make Money
Fast, NaughtyRobot, PKZ300, WIN A
HOLIDAY.
Brought
to you by: World Wide Information Outlet
- http://certificate.net/wwio/, your
source of FREEWare Content online.
Ed Churnside is a
freelance writer, programmer and web
designer. While he has written articles
on subjects as diverse as Internet
etiquette, astronomy, woodworking and
bunnies, Ed, a self-confessed computer
wizard, is probably best unknown for his
programming. "About 50% of Americans
have used programs I designed," he
says enigmatically and grins. Winner of
the prestigious Atari Consumer Products
Award, Ed now spends his time writing
articles and short fiction, programming
shareware and freeware, and maintaining
several web sites. He can be reached at Wulf@DragonQuest.com or via his
website at http://www.DragonQuest.com
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