June, 2002      Diablo Blue     Page 11

In last month’s Diablo Blue newsletter Rod Ream of the Pasadena IBM Users Group wrote about e-mail hoaxes and how to spot them. I suspect that you, like me, subscribe to a number of services, such as Symantec or McAfee, that keep you informed by e-mail of the latest in bugs traveling through the Internet. But there are no services that I am aware of that provide e-mail alerts on the latest hoaxes that are in vogue. And as Mr. Ream points out, who needs viruses if a cracker can get a potential victim to do their work via a hoax.

I receive one or two e-mail hoaxes a month (and hoaxes take many forms — not just warnings relating to viruses!). Most times it is a hoax that I am already aware of and have responded to in the past. And, yes, I feel obligated to respond least my silence be presumed by the sender to be my acknowledgement of the validity of the alert.

Much has been written as to how to tell a hoax. Certainly two factors that can lead to a successful hoax are technical sounding language and credibility by association. Have you seen the !0000 hoax that offers a solution to prevent or stop mass-mailing e-mail viruses by adding a dummy !0000 e-mail contact in your address book? I sure was tempted to bite on that one. Quite honestly I can’t tell a hoax just by reading it. But I can sure be suspect.

Whenever I receive a warning or something that smells of a chain letter or a message that smacks of myth or urban legend I go to my Favorites list in my browser under a folder that I have titled Viruses and Myths and conduct a search at one (usually more than one) of the links I have listed there. And I note that I have yet to find a single link that provides information on both known viruses and known hoaxes.

My list for hoaxes, myths and urban legends include the following: www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html, vil.nai.com/VIL/hoaxes.asp, www.hoaxkill.com/index2.shtml, www.datafellows.com/news/hoax/, www.urbanlegends.com/, www.vmyths.com/, hoaxbusters.ciac.org/, and www.snopes2.com/. While you have this list in front of you, go online and check each of these links out. Add those you like to your Favorites list or Bookmark them as appropriate.

Next time you receive a suspect warning from a friend, check it out at one of these sites. Highlight and copy applicable comments from the site, if you find them, and paste those comments into a return e-mail to your friend, along with the URL for the site as well as some of your other favorite hoax sites listed here. Suggest that your friend check the site(s) out next time before forwarding on a bogus warning. Also be sure to tell your friend to inform all the people he/she sent the e-mail warning to that their original message was in fact a hoax.

As for sites to check for a known virus or worm, my two favorites are: www.symantec.com/avcenter/ and vil.nai.com/vil/default.asp.

{Unearthed by Chris Kaminski}

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