Email Hoaxes Stop them in their tracks!!! We have noticed that certain e-mail messages that have been flying through the Internet have been passed to College students, faculty and staff and they in turn have forwarded these messages on to others. These messages which urge the recipient to forward the message to others are chain letters and hoaxes. They use up tiger's resources and fill up student, faculty and staff mailboxes with useless mail messages. Some are illegal, all clog up the Internet with useless messages. They are also against the Georgetown College Technology Ethics Policy. The recent ones that have flown by are (original source for text is CIAC*): Name Sample Text A Little Girl Dying This little girl has 6 months left to live her life, and as her last wish, she wanted to send a chain letter telling everyone to live their life to fullest, since she never will. She'll never make it to prom,graduate from high school, or get married and have a family of her own. By you sending this to as many people as possible, you can give her and her family a little hope, because with every name that this is sent to, the American Cancer Society will donate 3 cents per name to her treatment and recovery plan. One guy sent this Jessica Mydek THE DOCTORS HAVE GIVEN HER SIX MONTHS TO LIVE. AS PART OF HER DYING WISH, SHE WANTED TO START A CHAIN LETTER TO INFORM PEOPLE OF THIS CONDITION AND TO SEND PEOPLE THE MESSAGE TO LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST AND ENJOY EVERY MOMENT, A CHANCE THAT SHE WILL NEVER HAVE. FURTHERMORE, THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY AND SEVERAL CORPORATE SPONSORS HAVE AGREED TO DONATE THREE CENTS TOWARD CONTINUING CANCER RESEARCH FOR EVERY NEW PERSON THAT GETS FORWARDED THIS MESSAGE. PLEASE GIVE JESSICA AND ALL CANCER VICTIMS A CHANCE. PENPAL GREETINGS! Subject: Virus Alert If anyone receives mail entitled: PENPAL GREETINGS! please delete it WITHOUT reading it. Below is a little explanation of the message, and what it would do to your PC if you were to read the message. If you have any questions or ... DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY MESSAGE ENTITLED "PENPAL GREETINGS!" This message appears to be a friendly letter asking you if you are Bud Frogs Screen Saver THIS IS A NEW TWIST. SOME CREEPOID SCAM-ARTIST IS SENDING OUT A VERY DESIRABLE SCREEN-SAVER (THE BUD FROGS). BUT IF YOU DOWN-LOAD IT, YOU'LL LOSE EVERYTHING!!!!! YOUR HARD DRIVE WILL CRASH!! Tickle Me Elmo For every new person that this is passed on to The American Cancer Society will donate 3 cents to cancer research. Please help us. Forward this to everyone you know. "It's Not a Joke" "It's Not a Joke" Dear Friends, I wish to warn you about a new crime ring that is targeting business travelers. This ring is well organized, well funded, has very skilled personnel, and is currently in most major cities and recently very active in New Orleans. Make Money Fast Let me start by saying that I FINALLY FOUND IT! That's right!. found it! And I HATE GET RICH QUICK SCHEMES!! I hate those schemes like multi-level marketing, mail-order schemes, envelope stuffing Make Money Fast Warning What makes this virus DOUBLY DANGEROUS, is that it is disguised as a common chain letter. Chain letters have been passed across usenet almost since it's beginning. Lately, a common chain letter subject is MAKE MONEY FAST. Recognize any of them? We ask you not to forward these messages without careful examination. From the CIAC* website on chain letters (click here for the full text): The Internet community is constantly being bombarded with chain letters in the form of e-mail messages. They claim all manner of warnings and dire notices of doom and gloom for your computer systems or for some poor soul somewhere, all of which will be saved if you just send this message on to all of your friends. Enter the world of the Internet chain letter. In the years before computers, chain letters were common and were sent by U.S. mail and required a stamp. This limited the extent to which chain letters were passed on, because sending them involved a real, up front cost in time to type the letters and money for stamps. The fact that most chain letters asked you to send a dollar to the top ten people in the chain caused most people to ignore them. Today, with the click of a button, a message can be forwarded to hundreds of people at no apparent cost to the sender. If each of the so-called good Samaritans sends the letter on to only ten other people (most send to huge mailing lists), the ninth resending results in a billion e-mail messages, thereby, clogging the network and interfering with the receiving of legitimate e-mail messages. Factor in the time lost reading and deleting all these messages and you see a real cost to organizations and individuals from these seemingly innocuous messages. Not only are these messages time consuming and costly, they may also be damaging to a person's or organization's reputation as in the case of the Jessica Mydek and the American Cancer Society chain letters. Emphasis mine They are also illegal (See the US Postal Inspection Service information on chain letters) if they ask for money or anything else of value. Chain letters all have a similar pattern. From the older printed letters to the newer electronic kind, they all have three recognizable parts: A hook. A threat. A request.

What should you do?

If you receive a chain letter in your e-mail, either delete it or send it on to one person. That one person is your local security officer or system administrator, thereby allowing them to investigate and warn their users not to pass on the letter. Do not send it to your friends and relatives because you will be clogging up the network. In addition, you lend your and your company's reputation to the message, making it appear to be authentic even when that is not the case. Hit the delete button instead and put that message where it belongs.

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 savvy individuals, tend to believe the warning is real....

When we say credibility by association we are referring to who 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.