We're Awesome, just ask us, we'll tell you
...of course, our modesty is our better quality. 

Support Home

Wireless

Attacks

Tips

Hoaxes

Utilities

Awesome Computing Home

 

 

Hoaxes

The consequences of getting hit with a virus can range from annoying to devastating. Sometimes, though, what you think is a virus isn't one at all. Often users will mistake unexpected computer behavior for the presence of a virus. The so-called Beethoven Virus is a good example. Every once in a while, a client will call or a stranger will e-mail, sure that his or her computer has an annoying virus, because it won't stop playing Beethoven's Für Elise. As it turns out, this tune is coming from the system's bios; it's played as a warning by motherboards manufactured by Diamond Flower International to indicate that the computer is overheating or the power supply voltage is too high or too low.

Another kind of "virus that isn't" is even more annoying: hoax viruses. They don't bear code that can be executed by a computer; instead they stimulate human beings to copy and send them far and wide. In a sense, you might say that these messages are viruses that infect the human brain rather than the computer.

All hoax viruses are essentially chain letters. (For an excellent treatise on chain letters, their histories, and the tactics they use to encourage people to forward them, see www .silcom. com/ ~barnowl/ clevo/start.htm.) Many contain pleas to the recipient to help locate missing children, save National Public Radio, call one's representatives in congress to forestall a per-message tax on e-mail, or fulfill a dying child's last wish.

Ironically, many of the most common hoax viruses claim to contain information about other viruses. One recent example bears a dire warning about the nonexistent A.I.D.S. Virus:

There is a virus out now being sent to people via e-mail.... It is called the A.I.D.S. Virus. It will destroy your memory, sound card, speakers, and hard drive, and it will infect your mouse or pointing device, as well as your keyboard, making what you type not able to register on the screen. It self-terminates only after it eats 5MB of hard drive space and will delete all programs. It will come via e-mail called "open: very cool! :)". Delete it immediately!! It will basically render your computer useless. pass it on quickly and to as many people as possible! thanks!! :-) >>

Internet chain letters and hoax viruses are resource-wasting nuisances. Here are some of the telltale signs of Internet hoaxes:

1. A request that the message be passed on to a large number of people.

2. Failure to cite authoritative sources, or vague appeals to authority (for example, "aol says that this is a really nasty virus!").

3. Bogus claims that every copy that is re-sent will somehow be tallied (for example, a statement that for each copy you pass on, some amount of money will be donated to a worthy cause).

4. Improbable statements about technology, such as the claim above that the A.I.D.S. virus could infect your mouse.

5. A petition claiming you can sign it by adding your name and passing the message on. (No government or politician has ever taken seriously a petition that was not signed in ink.)

Interestingly, some hoax viruses started as well-intentioned pleas for help that got out of hand. For example, the Save npr petition started as an earnest attempt by two students at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley to campaign against funding cuts for public radio. Another widely circulated message, urging recipients to hunt for a lost little girl, was apparently sent by parents who briefly could not locate their daughter. Both have circulated for years since they were first unleashed and have mutated to make it difficult to tell that they are obsolete.



Urban Legends

Urban Legends, like Hoaxes, are warnings or a stories about various topics designed like campfire ghost stories to scare people. Some legends are based on fact, then elaborated to the typical "tall tales" now passed around in Email circles. Have you received an Email advising you NOT to flash your headlights at cars with theirs turned off after dark, only to have an initiating gang member turn around and chase you in order to shoot you?

 Here are a couple of sites that elaborate on the validity of some of the more popular Urban Legends, whether they be true, based on truth or totally false. You decide.

 McAfee The San Fernando Valley Folklore Society's Urban Legends Reference Pages

 McAfee Vmyths.com Homepage

 The AFU and Uban Legend Archive

 

By the way, no NERDS here!

© Copyright Awesome Computing