Email Abuse

Hoaxes by Email

Many hoaxes are being transmitted by email. Have you ever received a warning about something or other, with a note telling you to forward the email to as many people as possible? The warning was more likely than not: a) a fake, and b) an old old one that people have seen a dozen times already. Here are some of the more common ones:

• There's a virus in an email message that will kill your computer when you read the message. YOU MUST TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT --NOW!!
• The government (usually American) is going to pass a law charging for Internet use, or restricting its use somehow or other. You must protest this unacceptable government action. YOU MUST TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT --NOW!!
• Some poor boy is dying of cancer and wants as many postcards as possible sent to him. Or someone or other is dying and needs to find some special doctor or other... YOU MUST TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT --NOW!!
• Some company or other will make a donation or something nice like that, if everyone floods them with email. YOU MUST TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT --NOW!!

... and the list goes on.

So what?

What's wrong with fowarding email like that to many people? If it's not true, then they can just delete it, right?

It's important to realize how quickly email multiplies. Let's say you forward an email to three friends, and they each forward it to three friends. Let's say everyone checks his/her email once a day, on average. If everyone spread the hoax, it would only take 3 weeks to generate one copy of the message for every man, woman and child on this planet. In one month, on average every person on this planet (including all the starving children in India) would have received over two thousand copies of this email.

Naturally, in real life the number is much less because not everyone passes the message on. Nevertheless, even if the email exists for only a fleeting moment before it is deleted, it is enough to place a significant load on Internet traffic. Think about that the next time you wonder why it takes so long to retrieve a graphic on a Web page.

Here are several more reasons why it's important to stop email hoaxes:

1. Many people don't realize the email is a hoax. At best, a successful hoax causes needless worry. At worst, it can make people take action, such as flooding City Hall with phone calls, etc.
2. Email like this multiplies so rapidly that it puts a strain on Internet traffic.
3. Email like this multiplies so quickly that some users' emailboxes can overflow, preventing legitimate email from being received.
4. People will refuse to trust email as a source of information. (Which they shouldn't, but not to that extent.)

What can I do?

How can you tell if an email like this is true or not? Here are some simple steps to follow:

1. Don't react right away. Once you forward the email to several friends, it's too late to retract it.
2. Think for a moment to see if the information is plausible and reliable. Is there a way to verify it? What is the original source of the information? If you can't tell the source of the information, delete the email --it's worthless. (Conversely, if you spread a true announcement, make sure you give a verifiable source, such as a newspaper article or something.)
3. When is the information dated? Some people are still forwarding warnings about a virus that will activate Real Soon Now, warnings that I had already seen five years ago. (And if you forward something, give a date, too!) Don't forward stuff that's more than a month old.
4. If you have time, check some of the Web sites below and learn to recognize the more common hoaxes.

Web sites about hoaxes

Here are some links to Web sites about hoaxes.

• Here is a link to the Washington Post's article about Bad Information.
• Here is a link to the Don't Spread That Hoax! Web page about how to recognize and deal with hoaxes.
• Here is a Web site specifically dealing with virus myths.
• Here is some information on hoaxes that have been perpetrated.

Email junk mail

Sometimes the email message does not contain false information, only useless information. These include jokes, cute drawings using text characters, etc. While it's nice to share these with friends, the problem is that some people, like me, have received copies of the same email over and over and over . Please, make sure there's a date on the message, and don't send them more than a month after!