How Do I Know It's A Hoax?

You've just received an email telling you that if you receive another email with the title "Good Times," you shouldn't read it, or a virus will destroy your computer. The message urges you to forward the warning to everyone you've ever met. What do you do?

First, keep your finger off the "Forward" button! The vast majority of such messages are pure hoaxes. Look carefully at the message. Does it have authentication of any kind? I received an email message a while back that looked very real. It made reference to a specific Senate bill that was supposedly pending. It included a bill number that contained both letters and numbers (the only letters in a Senate bill number are "SB," which stands for "Senate Bill"). A quick check on the Senate Web site showed that the two Senators they quoted didn't exist. The person who sent the message to me had forwarded it to over 50 people, believing it to be true, and it took only a couple of minutes to determine that it was a hoax.

If the message is a virus warning, you owe it to yourself (and all those people you're considering forwarding the message to) to do a little homework. I heartily recommend starting with the following list of Web sites. Generally, you'll find something pertinent by the time you check the first two or three sites on the list.

• Urban Legends Reference Pages
  www.snopes.com/
   
• CIAC Internet Hoaxes
  ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html
   
• Computer Virus Myths & Hoaxes
  www.Vmyths.com
   
• About.com Computer Virus Hoax Resources
  urbanlegends.about.com/culture/urbanlegends/msubvir.htm
   
• About.com Antivirus Software News Center
  antivirus.about.com/compute/antivirus/library/blnews.htm
   
• Widespread Virus Myths
  www.stiller.com/myths.htm
   
• Korova Multimedia Hoax du Jour
  korova.com/virus/hoax.htm
   
• Computer Viruses: Myth vs. Reality
  www.zdnet.com/pcmag/issues/1520/pcmg0032.htm
   

In addition, check the Web site for the antivirus software you use. All of the serious antivirus software vendors do research on real and imagined threats, and they may have encountered the message you received already.

If, indeed, the message is a hoax, send a polite message back to the person who forwarded it, explaining that it isn't real. You may want to send them a link to this article so that they know how to chase down the next one. As the quote in this page's margin points out, the CIAC and other organizations spend much more time chasing fraudulent virus alerts than dealing with real ones.

If the message is for real, then by all means tell your friends, but include your research data in the message. Give them links to online verification and/or telephone numbers and snail mail addresses. Don't make the next person in the chain repeat all your hard work.

The particular example with which I opened this article, the Good Times virus, was one of the earliest virus hoaxes to really run amok. It started in late 1994, and several varieties of the message came out. The one to receive the widest circulation read like this:

The FCC released a warning last Wednesday concerning a matter of major importance to any regular user of the InterNet. Apparently, a new computer virus has been engineered by a user of America Online that is unparalleled in its destructive capability. Other, more well-known viruses such as Stoned, Airwolf, and Michaelangelo pale in comparison to the prospects of this newest creation by a warped mentality.

What makes this virus so terrifying, said the FCC, is the fact that no program needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be infected. It can be spread through the existing e-mail systems of the InterNet. Once a computer is infected, one of several things can happen. If the computer contains a hard drive, that will most likely be destroyed. If the program is not stopped, the computer's processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop - which can severely damage the processor if left running that way too long. Unfortunately, most novice computer users will not realize what is happening until it is far too late.

No such virus as "Good Times" actually existed, and there's no such thing as an "nth-complexity infinite binary loop." People quickly grew sick of Good Times warnings, and similar hoaxes. About a year after the initial Good Times message appeared, Patrick J. Rothfuss sent out his own version, which left many of us howling with laughter. It was copied into the official CIAC archives, and has been sent out by at least one "Joke a day" mailing list. If you're going to circulate a warning, send this one, or the equally hilarious Strunkenwhite parody!

READ THIS:

Goodtimes will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your compu ter. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream goes melty. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, screw up the tracking on your television and use subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you try to play.

It will give your ex-girlfriend your new phone number. It will mix Kool-aid into your fishtank. It will drink all your beer and leave its socks out on the coffee table when there's company coming over. It will put a dead kitten in the back pocket of your good suit pants and hide your car keys when you are late for work.

Goodtimes will make you fall in love with a penguin. It will give you nightmares about circus midgets. It will pour sugar in your gas tank and shave off both your eyebrows while dating your girlfriend behind your back and billing the dinner and hotel room to your Discover card.

It will seduce your grandmother. It does not matter if she is dead, such is the power of Goodtimes, it reaches out beyond the grave to sully those things we hold most dear.

It moves your car randomly around parking lots so you can't find it. It will kick your dog. It will leave libidinous messages on your boss's voice mail in your voice! It is insidious and subtle. It is dangerous and terrifying to behold. It is also a rather interesting shade of mauve.

Goodtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of Methanphedime (sic) in your bathtub and then leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase gradeschoolers with your new snowblower.

Listen to me. Goodtimes does not exist.

It cannot do anything to you. But I can. I am sending this message to everyone in the world. Tell your friends, tell your family. If anyone else sends me another E-mail about this fake Goodtimes Virus, I will turn hating them into a religion. I will do things to them that would make a horsehead in your bed look like Easter Sunday brunch.

I guess Patrick had had just about enough!

Whenever dealing with virus warnings, remember that knowledge is indeed the best defense. You don't have to become a world-renowned virus expert, but you should have a feeling for what viruses can and can't do. Keep your virus-checking software up-to-date, and keep good backups of all of your data.

Safe computing!