E-mail Chain Letters, Hoaxes and Urban Legends
They're familiar to anyone who has an e-mail account—stories, pleas, warnings, and promises from strangers as well as well-intentioned friends or family members. And they've evolved from a minor annoyance into a huge problem.
The most serious damage comes from chain letters that mask computer viruses, worms and other malicious code. But even the ones that seem harmless and maybe even helpful (such as warnings and prayer chains) may have negative repercussions if you forward them.
Why? First, because they consume bandwidth or space in the recipient's inbox. Some systems have limited capacity, and if a user's box fills up, legitimate e-mails may get bounced. Second, when you forward chain e-mails, you force people to take up their valuable time sifting through the messages and possibly even taking time to verify the information. Finally, you are spreading hype, and often untruths, unnecessary fear and paranoia.
There are two main types of chain letters: hoaxes and urban legends.
Hoaxes attempt to trick or defraud people in a variety of ways. One common e-mail hoax instructs users to delete a file necessary to their computer's operating system by claiming it's a virus. Other hoaxes are scams that try to get people to reveal personal information or to send money to bogus causes.
Urban legends usually warn users of a threat or claim to be notifying them of important or urgent information, and urge users to forward the message to others. Another common urban legend e-mail promises users monetary or other rewards for forwarding the message, or asks readers to add their names to the e-mail in petition format and forward it. Typically urban legends are a waste of time and bandwidth, but have no other significant negative effects.
How can you tell if it's a hoax or urban legend?
Some hoaxes and urban legends are easier to spot than others. Be suspicious of any e-mail with one or more of the following characteristics:
- it suggests tragic consequences for not performing some action;
- it promises money or gift certificates for taking a particular action;
- it offers instructions or attachments claiming to protect you from a virus that is undetected by anti-virus software;
- it claims it's not a hoax and/or appears to be from a highly-credentialed individual you don't know;
- it contains multiple spelling or grammatical errors, or the logic is faulty;
- it urges you to forward the message to substantial numbers of people—either promising that the more people you forward it to, the greater your reward will be, or simply asks you to forward it to everyone in your address book;
- it has already been forwarded multiple times, which will be evident from the trail of e-mail headers in the body of the message.
Keep in mind that not every hoax or urban legend has these characteristics, and some legitimate messages may have one or more of these attributes. Before you take action on any e-mail chain letter, verify that it is legitimate—and if it's not, delete it.
You can check the validity of an e-mail at these websites:
Urban Legends and Folklore - www.urbanlegends.about.com
Urban Legends Reference pages - www.snopes.com
Truth or Fiction - www.truthorfiction.com
The two leading anti-virus software makers also have pages on their sites that address e-mail hoaxes. Symantec's page is www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html and McAfee's page is http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp.
You can do your part to reduce the amount of junk e-mail by checking out chain letters before you forward them. |