(Virus Hoax) Re: FW: FWD>URGENT E-MAIL WARNING (fwd)

[Winston D. Neutel]

On Tue, 22 Apr 1997, Shemina Keshvani wrote:
>
> AOL virus alert -- real or not, good to know.
>

Well, not real.

It is actually rather important not to forward this type of message. The
way they multiply with each person who sends out a group of copies can
have them quickly hogging enormous amunts of bandwidth, disk space, mail
server time, etc. It can even bring down mail servers when they get
particularly hard-hit.

So it is actually the warning message itself which is the computer virus.
It is not possible to get a computer virus from reading or downloading an
email - you have to run a program (so perhaps someone could email you an
infected program as an attachment, but you would still have to choose to
run it).

Most universities and internet service providers prohibit their users from
forwarding such messages (i.e. the "please forward this to everyone you
know" type).

There are a number of internet sites which list all known email hoaxes
(there are quite a lot of them). Don't have the addresses on me, but if
you search Yahoo for "email hoax" you should find some.


Well, that turned into a bit of a lecture. Sorry about that.

Hope this is helpful
-Winston

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 Winston D. Neutel: Dramaturgy, Theatre Education, Consulting
 New York - wneutel at its.brooklyn.cuny.edu
  -MFA candidate in Dramaturgy at Brooklyn College
  -Dramaturgy Associate at Classic Stage Company
  -Computer Consultant to Theatres and Theatre Professionals
  -Webmaster, "The Dramaturgy Pages" http://silly.com/~neutel/dramaturgy/
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