| Don’t believe everything you read.
That’s one piece of written advice you can believe. And a healthy dose of skepticism is the best antidote against rapidly-propagating internet hoaxes.
Consider this St. Patrick’s Day hoax which first started spreading its warning of the dreaded Irish Virus four years ago:
Top o' the mornin' to you. Bejesus! You have just received the "The St. Patrick's Virus". We don't have too much programming experience, so this virus works on the "honour" system. Please forward this email to everyone on your mailing list and then manually delete all the files on your hard drive. Thankin' you in anticipation for your co-operation. Paddy
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Internet security specialists at companies like Symantec maintain updated lists of hoaxes circulating the internet. For a current list, click here.
Those waging the good fight against viruses, worms and spyware don’t consider hoaxes to be as serious a threat. But like chain letters and spam, hoaxes do need to be recognized and deleted, and that takes valuable time.
Any time you receive an email advising you to “send this to everyone you know,” you have received a hoax. Stop it in its tracks by simply deleting the email.
So how many people, exactly, took Paddy’s advice and manually deleted all the files on their hard drive? To find out, victims would first have to fess up to being that gullible.
If you see any definitive statistics on internet hoax victims, be a little skeptical. The truth is, the world will never know. |
