Hoax Email Virus Alerts and other things that peeve….

One of my biggest online pet peeves is junk mail - not just regular junk mail like - the ones that offer to enlarge your breasts or other body parts, or that offer you a green card to work in the states. I’m talking about ones that are forwarded around the net.. the scams, hoax virus alerts, the sick cancer girl poem etc. One of the worse things you can do it take part in these - by forwarding these on - you are just as guilty as the one who created them. I have someone in my contact list who must be addicted to them. She has been on the internet as long as I have - perhaps a year longer. So I know she’s aware of what they are - and how to check to see if one is a hoax or a scam.

I think you’d be pretty hard pressed to find someone who enjoys getting those forwards.. ESPECIALLY … if you add the entire contact list of your mail program to it! What you are doing is basically sharing everyones email addresses around - and potentially exposing them to more crap unwanted emails. I find this particularly distressing, since I have one email address that I use to sign up for various forums etc around the net - and a private on that I ONLY use for close friends or heaven forbid - family. My contact who enjoys this crap - likes to email me these forwards on both of my addresses.. I feel a bit violated.. well, my privacy anyway! My private email address is no longer private when this happens.

Besides being a royal pain in the arse - some people may have restricted bandwidth or may be short on time in general - and can’t spend 4 hours muddling through forwarded hoax/scam emails to find the 2 or 3 real ones.

To make matters a whole lot worse - I’ve told this person about it before.. In fact - we had quite a blue after the poor cancer girl poem she sent me. I didn’t seem to get it through to her, as I got another one a few days ago. This time - I replied to all.. I was so angry. The email was about a new virus … supposedly.. called the POSTCARD virus. Anyone who has been on the new 2+ years should know this email is a hoax - intent on causing fear and panic amongst people who believe in it. It’s sad.. and it’s even more pathetic to pass it on.. The email goes on to tell me that she knows its a real threat because she’s checked it out at Snopes dot com personally.. Um.. thats an Urban Legend website. If she had taken a few extra seconds to read the website she would have noticed what kind of site it was..

As if that wasn’t enough - at the bottom of the email she added another personal note - that she had actually spoken to someone at Nortons Antivirus - and that they were gearing up to fight this deadly virus that ‘burns’ your entire SECTOR ZERO.. OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! not the dreaded Sector Zero BURN… Zomg! Also - that it was said on CNN and Microsoft to be the most deadliest virus to ever hit the net. lol Sector what? yeah, thats what I thought too.

Anyway. This is my rant for the week.

STOP SENDING FORWARDS AROUND THE NET PEOPLE.