Cynthia
Vaskis
SLM521 – Spring 2004
Hoaxes
Elective
File: e3hoaxes.htm
Response to
Hoaxes topic on
Hi Jona,
It was interesting to read everyone else's responses to the Hoaxes literature.
I only recently got my Dell computer up on the Internet and for the last
several years, since email scams have been out there, I have been using my
husband's iMac. We never seemed to get much scam email. Maybe it is because we
don't surf too many different sites and we don't email many people. In fact,
the only chain letters I have seen have been from my step mom and an old
neighbor from
The idea of being on the Internet and receiving these strange messages, or
urban legends, reminds me of the old times when people used to sit out on their
porches and tell a “yarn” (fictitious or exaggerated story) to each other to
see what the reaction would be and who would believe them. Instead of having an
actual physical porch, it is an ethereal mail box, and we’d all like to see
what our mysterious “pen pals” want to say to us.
Unfortunately, some of these "sobby",
emotional stories tug at our good nature, and “kindness” of heart, making us feel like ogres if we do not respond. Well, I’d rather be Shrek than a fool with a stolen identity.
Most of these messages appeal to our psychology in one or more of these areas:
1. Greed (“You’ve Won!” blinking message but first you need to give us all your
personal information before we can tell you what you’ve won, a “gift card” to a
restaurant in another state),
2. Pride (the quick online IQ test says that you’re almost a genius so send
money now for your full evaluation report and diploma),
3. Envy (when you are offered a free vacation if you call now or we’ll give it
to someone else and you wouldn’t want them to have what could be yours),
4. Hate (those criminals who steal little children so help us fight back and
send money now),
5. Fear (of terrorists and where they may strike next), or
6. Mankind’s better qualities such as generosity,
kindness, caring for others where if you do not participate you must not truly
possess these desirable traits.
If you can be overcome by one of the “evil” traits or feel it necessary to
display one of the “good” traits to total strangers in order to keep your self
esteem in tact, you may fall victim to identity theft, credit card fraud or
have strangers show up on your doorstep when you are not home (if you’ve given
them your phone number and address).
I also tried a site that claims to know your heritage and please send money for
a full report on your ancestry which appeals to “family pride”.
I was glad to know that there are sites where you can "check things
out" to see if the messages you have gotten are truthful. The CDC (Center
for Disease and Control and Prevention) was useful to see if any human virus, alledged food supply tampering as noted by the FDA (Federal
Drug Administration), or infectious disease threats are real. The DOE
(Department of Energy's) CIAC Hoax buster site was good to find out if the
latest rumors about computer viruses were true and whether chain letters were
real situations.
The urban legends site was fun to see what stories have been going around for
years. I actually heard the one about an older woman blowing up her dog in the
microwave (trying to dry it off) when it first came out in Silicon Valley
(where I worked then) in the late 1970's except I heard that the woman died of
a heart attack when she realized what she had done.
Also, I looked at Coca-Cola's web site and the rumor about something being
dissolved if you leave it soaking over night in a glass of coke was never
openly denied by the company. What they said was that the acid in coca-cola was
a lot less strong than the acid in your stomach (which is true) and that no one
holds the drink in their mouth long enough to do any damage and the saliva
dilutes it as well. My son has soaked a penny in it overnight and it did not
look that much cleaner in the morning.
I think the best thing to do if you suspect that something is not true is to
not take any action in that direction like sign up for something (giving out
personal information). Then go check it out at one of the related sites.
The hoax buster sites warned to look for certain things in a hoax such as
technical sounding information and/or them claiming credibility by association
with some reputable company or person. It also warned against messages that
want you to let all your friends know about that message either so that you can
keep them just as informed as you. The hoax may come with a threat that if you
don't pass it on then something bad will befall you.
The urban rumors appear to be so plausible and presented in a story telling
manner with some punch line at the end that even if you don't believe it, you
get a good laugh out of it. So people sometimes pass the story along because
they consider it a good joke to tell their friends and keep the laughs coming.
The more serious rumors that can affect people's lives or companies really
should be checked out and stopped or reported to be posted on the hoax busting
web sites. My motto is to not believe what I see on the web in the form of
pop-up messages or email I didn't ask for or sign up for. It is better to not
take any action on unsolicited email or messages. Don't get involved unless you
initiated the communication via email or internet inquires. Unfortunately,
there may be valid groups out there who really do need help but if they are
real then there should be more than one way to substantiate their claim for
needing finances or support. There should be an address, company name, persons
you can call or email associated with the plea for help.
Well, I may seem like an uninvolved citizen as far as helping others but my
husband has given me a way out when I get those telephone calls asking for
financial support. I just say that we only give to our church right now (which
we do) and then they usually hang up.
I enjoyed the Snopes.com site looking for all types of urban legends where
everything was well organized into topics.
I hope I never have to suffer the consequences of a hoax but I guess I can
protect myself by not getting involved. Just call me an Internet hermit when it
comes to unsolicited mail.
Reply to
Charles on
Hi Charles,
I liked the comment you made about the content of the hoax emails. My husband
has an iMac and I usually look on that account for any email. I only recently
got my own computer (a Dell) up on the net and haven't had any strange emails
there yet. On the iMac account recently we've been getting a slew of
"unmentionable" (or pornographic topics) emails and neither my
husband nor I have ever visited any web site like that. It is embarrassing to
check out what the message is about and before you can delete it, there's the
yucky content in your email window.
My husband signed up for the telephone lines list of people who do not want
telemarketers calling at dinner time hours but how do you sign up to be taken
off the scam lists? I am not sure how to make them stop sending this kind of
stuff. If you have any suggestions, or if anyone else reading this message
does, please let me know in a reply here.
I enjoyed reading the urban legends hoaxes. In particular, there was one about
Bill Gates being the Anti christ.
My husband is an avid iMac (Apple Computer) fan and detests Microsoft's control
over the PC market. He thought that hoax was great. I thought that anyone can
make something out of nothing if they try really hard. It used to be people
thought Henry Kissinger was the AntiChrist and then
some even said Ronald Reagan was but look at his unfortunate condition now
(hardly able to function let alone lead a world rebellion against believers). I
think people who believe these hoaxes must not be too informed in general about
the "evils" of society. Well, it was enlightening to find out that
there are places to go check out these falsehoods.
One site I think I will revisit more is the CDC Department of Health's National
Immunization Program (NIP) because they have a list of disease descriptions and
the current
Well, this assignment has been informative and fun. Hope to find out more
interesting things as this class progresses.
Reply to
Billy on
Hello Billy,
I enjoyed reading your Hoaxes evaluation. I have not received any hoaxes yet on
my two new email accounts but my husband has gotten plenty on his email account
that we've had for years. I think as you interact with people on the net and
your email address goes out, somehow the email scammers are able to intercept
those addresses. Maybe the people emailing you have your address on a
distribution list and they forget to take you off when they write to some
advertisement. Then the advertisement sees you on the distribution list and
adds your email to their sending list.
I guess the Web is really a tangled web that we weave by all of our email
sending and receiving. The government sites seem to be fairly thorough in
catching the latest hoaxes and displaying them for all to be aware.
I saw an interesting story about a three headed frog on the TV evening news
about a week ago and they showed the frog who seemed to be perfectly happy with
three heads. I can see how someone seeing something strange like that could
pass that information along and it soon becomes an urban legend by changing a
few things.
I guess my motto is "Don't know 'em, don't open
'em." meaning if I don't know who sent me the
email, then I just get rid of it.
Well, happy emailing to you,
Second
Response to Hoaxes Topic on
Hi Jona,
I was just reading an article from Dredged Report dated
http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/
http://www.scambusters.org/legends.html
http://www.snopes.com/
are controlled by the government to deceive the public. They state that the
only way they could find out who was behind this was
to access a "freely-available but relatively-unknown" database of all
the Internet domain names and respective owners. The entry for http://www.urbanlegends.com is
registered to the United States Central Intelligence Agency and a retired
military officer and employee of the CIA runs it. I am including the article's
address if you'd like to see it.
(http://www.urbanlegends.com/people/dredged.html) This whole article claims
that the government lists real situations as hoaxes in order to avoid
embarrassing or incriminating situations for the government. So the article is
saying the government is telling the public that real events are hoaxes and this
guy is saying that the web sites themselves are hoaxes.
My opinion is that these authors of the dredge report article may be a hoax
about a hoax since they say at the end "PLEASE SEND THIS MESSAGE TO
EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!". Who can you believe these
days?
Talk to you later,