Sara Barakat 
SLM 521

Hoaxes, Myths and Legends

My experiences with Internet hoaxes started off in college. Viruses were running rampant through all of the email accounts which would shutdown the college’s network. It was easy to pick up a virus because all the students had access to each other’s email address and the students would receive emails that just said “hi”. Assuming that it was someone from the class, they would open it and infect their computer along with every address they have in their sent mailbox. One of the most popular ones was the Snow White virus. If this email were opened, a large black spiral would appear on the screen and not disappear. Other viruses going around made the designated home page on the computer an adult site. I was lucky and my computer never was infected until my senior year. I picked up a virus from a friend’s email and it made my computer crash. It wasn’t a sudden occurrence though. I found that when I was on the Internet checking mail or researching I would get a large amount of pop-ups. Eventually I was getting around 100 pop ups and my computer finally quit.

Some hoaxes that I dealt with were mostly chain letters. After the September 11^th attacks, many chain letters were going around with prayers on them. My friends wondered why I didn’t open them but they soon figured it out once they had viruses. Other hoaxes I’ve dealt with were just emails about winning money which I just erase. Most are just SPAM mail, which I report and it eases up a bit.

I have recently found out that hoaxes can be picked up from surfing the web but it is a bit scary. I was doing work for this class and surfing a lot of Internet sites. I was getting random instant messages from bots, a program that randomly messages. I was puzzled at first when I received a message about a dating service then I found out what it was. I followed the instructions on the message to stop it and I have been free from it for months now.

I think its really important to be aware of what you are opening in your email because there are so many viruses and hoaxes out there that one can not be too safe. Everyone that is using the computer a lot, such as college students, should also realize that viruses could be picked up while surfing the net. Some servers also track surfers and may automatically put spy ware on the computer. This has happened to me before also. It’s important to know that viruses, hoaxes, and spy ware can be fixed or prevented. I’ve learned my lesson and my advice is to always save important work or information and be prepared for the worst.