Quote from Forum Archives on May 31, 2001, 5:07 pm

Posted by: masinick <masinick@...>

Dear friends,

This message comes from one of the other mailing list owners at
Associate.com where the 1Corinthians7@welovegod.org mailing list
is located - the one many of you subscribe to. There has been a
lot of noise on the Internet in the past day or so, this time
about another Internet hoax. The message that follows offers
good advice (and some useful links) for dealing with this kind of
stuff. Please tuck this information away and refer to it
whenever someone sends you form letters, Virus hoaxes, chain
letters, get rich quick schemes, or anything that you might
question in any way.

I hope this information will be useful, and in the long run, save
you time and energy.

Your brother in Christ,
Brian

=================================================
Hello moderators, Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

First, let me comment that we have all had occasion to be afraid of viruses,
or to be hoaxed one way or another. So what I say here is not at all
intended to give offense to anyone, just to pass along some good
information.

I subscribe to a very good Windows technical info email list called,
LangaList. The guy who writes it used to be main editor for Windows
Magazine, is extremely knowledgable, and the information is well written,
current, and intended for ordinary people, like you and me, not necesarily
for techies. Every recommendation I ever took from the Langa List worked,
and worked well, so I recommend it to everybody. You can see a link at the
bottom if you want to receive it yourself. I take the free version, but you
can get even more info in a pay version if you want.

It so happens that yesterday I received a notice all about the "SULFNBK.EXE"
hoax, and about internet hoaxes in general, of which there are more than you
can shake a stick at!

Here below is the notice which came to me from that Windows technical
information email list I'm on. This is a very long post, but I think
everybody on this Associate list could benefit from reading the whole thing.
A few
parts of it are even funny.

Read it if you have time. But if not, the point is that you should almost
never pass along a virus warning. I'm just passing this along to try to
help us all.

😉

Best Regards to all!
And, love in Jesus,
Tim

**************************************************
Just For Grins

For context, please see the Item about SULFNBK.EXE at the bottom:

Here, from a variety of sources, a meta-debunking of all hoax emails:

1. Big companies don't do business via chain letters and there are no
computer programs that track how many times an e-mail is forwarded, let
alone by whom. Bill Gates is not giving you $1000, Disney is not giving
you a free vacation, and Nokia is not giving away free cell phones to
those who email the most messages. There also is no baby food company
issuing class action checks to emailers.

2. Proctor and Gamble is not part of a satanic cult or scheme, and its
logo is not satanic.

3. MTV will not give you backstage passes if you forward something to
the most people.

4. The Gap is not giving away free clothes. You can relax; there is no
need to pass it on "just in case it's true."

5. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in
a bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened
to their cousin. If you are hell bent on believing the kidney theft ring
stories, see urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm
And I quote "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued
requests for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward and tell
their stories." None have. That's "none" as in "zero." Not even your
friend's cousin.

6. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And even if
they do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can get a copy at
www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html Then, if you make the recipe,
decide the cookies are that awesome, feel free to pass the recipe on.

7. If the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain plutonium that
spread radioactive particulates over the eastern seaboard, do you REALLY
think this information would reach the public via an AOL chain letter?

8. There is no "Good Times" or "It Takes Guts To Say Jesus" or any
number of other similar supposed viruses. In fact, you should never,
ever, ever forward any email containing any virus warning unless you
first confirm it at an actual site of an actual company that actually
deals with actual viruses. AOL, for example, is not in the antivirus
business. (Some would say AOL itself is a virus, but that's another
story.) The fact that someone says "AOL confirmed the existence of this
virus!" is meaningless. Try www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html
And even if the virus IS real, don't forward the warning. We don't care;
we keep our antivirus scanner up to date, and know better than to open
unknown file attachments.

9. There is no gang initiation plot to murder any motorist who flashes
headlights at another car driving at night with out lights.

10. If you still absolutely MUST forward that 10th-generation message
from a friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight miles of
headers showing everyone else who's received it over the last 6 months.
It sure wouldn't hurt to get rid of all the ".." that begin each line
either. Besides, if it has gone around that many times we've probably
already seen it.

11. Craig Shergold (or Sherwood, or Sherman, etc.) in England is not
dying of cancer or anything else at this time and would like everyone to
stop sending him their business cards. He apparently is no longer a
"little boy" either.

12. The "Make a Wish" foundation is a real organization doing fine work,
but they have had to establish a special toll free hot line in response
to the large number of Internet hoaxes using their good name and
reputation. It is distracting them from the important work they do.
Also, the American Cancer Society does not give 3 cents for each person
you forward e-mail to. They ask for you to *donate* money, money, they
don't *give* it; and, besides, how could they know how many e-mails you
sent out? Sheesh.

13. If you are one of those insufferable idiots who forwards anything
that promises something bad will happen "if you don't forward it" to X
people or within X timeframe, then something bad *will* happen to *you*
if I ever meet you in a dark alley.

14. Women really are suffering in Afghanistan, but forwarding an e-mail
won't help their cause in the least. If you want to help, contact your
local legislative representative, or get in touch with Amnesty
International or the Red Cross.

15. As a general rule, e-mail "signatures" and "From:" lines are easily
faked and mean nothing.

16. KFC really does use real chickens with feathers and beaks and feet
and everything. No, they really do. Why did they change their name? In
this health conscious world, what was KFC's name? Kentucky FRIED
Chicken. FRIED is not healthy. So with the help of a focus group, they
changed the name to KFC. It's short, doesn't offend dieters and it's
easy to remember.

17. Another thing, just because someone said in a message, four
generations back, that "we checked it out and it's legit," or "we know a
lawyer who says it must be true or [Disney/Nokia/AOL/Microsoft/etc.]
will be sued!" does not actually make it true.

PS: There is no bill pending before Congress that will allow the Post
Office to charge you for sending email.

Bottom Line...

Composing e-mail or posting something on the Net is as easy as writing
on the walls of a public rest room, and about as likely a source of truth.
Don't automatically believe anything...ASSUME it's false, unless there
is real proof (and not just someone's unverified claim) that it's true.

Now copy, paste, and send this to everyone you know or the program this
message just covertly put on your hard drive will open up your CD-ROM
tray and reach out and slap you upside the head.
*****************************************

The "SULFNBK" June 1st Virus Hoax

I've gotten many notes from readers who forwarded a chain letter to me
(usually along with 500 other unlucky recipients) that went something
like this:

Do you believe that a friend of mine sent me an alert and the
procedure that we have to follow for the possible infection of
SULFNBK.EXE. And I had checked, just to make sure.
An then... the file was there, hidden even of McAfee and
Norton, maybe waiting something to start work....

The original recipients of this note checked their systems and were
alarmed when they find SULFNBK.EXE there. Well, SULFNBK.EXE
file is a normal part of Windows that's used in managing long
file names (the file is usually found in in your C:WindowsCommand
folder). Antivirus routines don't detect the file because it's not a
virus. The "virus" warning is a complete hoax.

There is a worm that can arrive as an email attachment named SULFNBK.EXE,
but that has nothing to do with the current hoax. All the
major AV tools know how to handle that worm; and by now everyone should
know that you should never, ever---- EVER--- click on any email
attachment, no matter what it's named or whom it's from, without first
at least running it through an AV scanner. And in any case, the use of
the name SULFNBK.EXE is coincidental. The worm could have
been called any Windows file; there's nothing special about SULFNBK.EXE.

What's more, virus chain letters are almost always hoaxes: A good rule
of thumb is NEVER to forward any email just because it says "Urgent:
Pass this on to everyone!" or comes from a buddy. In fact, anytime you
get any email with a "pass this on to everyone!" in it, or a letter that
has been forwarded dozens of times, it's almost always (99.99999% of the
time) a hoax or scam designed solely to generate a chain letter--- that
is, to trick the gullible into perpetrating the hoax.

Don't be taken in! It only takes *literally* a minute to find out about
if any email about:

--supposed virus alerts (even if the email says they're "confirmed by
IBM, Microsoft, AOL and Oracle" or some such)
--pending legislation, including email surcharges and taxes
--sick/dying/missing children who need email or prayers
--body part theft rings
--free vacation giveaways
--free money or products from Bill Gates (or Disney or AOL or Nokia
or....) to those who forward the most emails
--foreign government workers who will pay you to let them move large
sums of money through your bank account
--or any of hundreds of similar chain letters.

These are ALL almost always pure, utter hoaxes and scams.

You can make yourself chain-letter-proof by taking literally about a
minute to check up on any claims made in chain letters. There are any
number of resources you can use, including:

Symantec Anti Virus Research Center at
www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html

McAfee Associates Virus Hoax List at vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp?

Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability at
ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html

Debunking online and email hoaxes: www.kumite.com/myths/

The Urban Legends Web Site at www.urbanlegends.com

Urban Legends Reference Pages at www.snopes.com

Datafellows Hoax Warnings at
www.Europe.Datafellows.com/news/hoax.htm

ALWAYS take a few seconds to verify the truth of any chain email like
this, and then tell your friends ONLY if it proves true. Otherwise,
you're not doing your friends any favors, and in fact, you're just
helping the hoaxers to waste people's time and bandwidth.

Additional resources to strengthen your BS detectors:

How To Evaluate Internet Research Sources at
www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm

How To Evaluate Information Sources at
www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/evaln.htm

***************************************
The entire post above comes from the free Windows technical info email list
which is called the LangaList, and you can find it here, if you are
interested in receiving it yourself for free:

www.langa.com

--
To unsubscribe, send ANY message to <moderator-unsubscribe@welovegod.org>

=====
--
Brian Masinick, "The Mas", mailto:masinick@yahoo.com
Home page: www.geocities.com/masinick/
The Rules Have Changed...Get Paid to Surf the Web!
www.alladvantage.com/home.asp?refid=BKU-690

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