---------------------------------------------------------------------- Email Facts of Life 1. Before you forward any message that sounds too good to be true, or any warning of something horrible, look for it on http://tafkac.org/ http://urbanlegends.about.com/ and http://snopes.com/ -- A few common Urban Legends are addressed here: a. There is no such thing as an email tracking program, and big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill Gates is not giving you $1000, and Disney is not giving you a free vacation. There is no baby food company issuing class-action checks, MTV will not give you backstage passes if you forward something to the most people, and The American Cancer Society will not donate three cents towards cancer research for every person that gets forwarded a chain letter. Their own web site plainly says this is a fraud. (http://www.cancer.org/ - search for 'chain letter') Similarly, the Red Cross does not donate money to anybody for email forwards. The "Make a Wish" foundation is a real organization doing fine work, but they have had to establish a special toll free hotline 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. Nothing "magical" will happen if you forward an email. No pop-up windows or taco dogs will appear. You will not see any singing/dancing/waving colorful flowers or characters, or hear any music. You won't receive a mysterious phone call. No gift certificates, money, discounts, or special software will be delivered to you. The list goes on. b. 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 hellbent on believing the kidney-theft ring stories, please see: http://urbanlegends.about.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. (That page has since changed, but http://www.kidney.org/general/eleckid/myths.cfm still has the plea.) c. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe, and even if they do, we all have it. If you don't, you can get a copy at: http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html Then, if you make the recipe and decide the cookies are that awesome, feel free to pass on the recipe. But don't claim it's a $200 recipe. d. Craig Shergold in England is not dying of cancer or anything else at this time, and he would like everyone to stop sending him their business cards. He's also no longer a "little boy". e. There is no bill pending before Congress that will allow long distance companies to charge you for long distance when using the Internet, and the post office isn't going to charge postage on email. f. Even if the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) did contain plutonium that went to particulate over the eastern seaboard, do you really think this information would reach the public via an AOL chain-letter? g. There is no "Good Times" virus. You can't get a virus from a flashing AOL IM or from an ICQ message or from allowing someone to add you or adding someone to your contact list. You have to actually download a file and run it. In fact, you should never, ever forward any email or instant message containing any virus warning unless you first confirm it at an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with viruses. Try: http://www.norton.com/ And even then don't forward it as we've probably seen it in the media countless times already. 2. Never pass along anything that claims something bad will happen to you, you'll lose your friends, or bad luck will follow you if you don't. You won't be any better off, and people will probably resent you for it. Furthermore, we don't need to see "You have two choices, you can pretend you don't care, or you can pass this along." or anything questioning our belief in God if if we don't forward the message. That's just using guilt instead of fear as a tool for manipulation. 3. If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your message, you're doing something wrong. Set up a mailing list (there are several free mailing list servers available now), and let people decide whether they want to participate. 4. We all know all 500 ways to drive your roommates crazy, irritate coworkers, and creep out people on an elevator. We also know exactly how many engineers, college students, Usenet posters, each variety of animal, and people from each and every world ethnicity it takes to change a light bulb. 5. 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. If it has been forwarded so many times that it's difficult to read, fix it, or forget it. Besides, if it has gone around that many times - I've probably already seen it. 6. If you're using Outlook, IE, Netscape, or any HTML capable mail program to write email, turn off the "HTML encoding." Those of us on Unix shells often can't read it, and don't care enough to save the attachment and then view it with a web browser, since you're probably forwarding us a copy of the Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway. There are even valid security reasons not to read or even accept HTML email. Besides, it's bad netiquette to send anybody HTML email without knowing for sure they can read it and don't mind getting it in that format. Even though the capabilities have been extended with MIME, email was meant to be a text-only medium, and it still primarily is. Don't abuse it. (See http://expita.com/nomime.html for reasons to disable HTML and instructions on how to do so in many mailers.) You can relax; there is no need to pass it on "just in case it's true". Furthermore, just because someone said in the message, four generations back, "we checked it out and it's legit" does not actually make it true. Bottom Line: Composing Email or posting something on the Internet is as easy as writing on the walls of a public rest room. Don't automatically believe it unless it's proven false, assume it's false unless there is proof that it's true. ----------------------------------------------------------------------