[gui-talk] important alert.

Tue Mar 3 20:44:02 UTC 2009

I'd like to add to what Joel advises here.  Usually you don't need to even go to Snopes but only check for a couple of things to figure out if a warning is real or not.

If a warning tells you to "send it to everyone you know," you should be suspicious.  Most reasonable people would trust you to know to whom you should send such 
a warning.

When generic terms like "this morning" without day or date are used, it should strike you that this could have been written three years ago and would still sound just 
as urgent.  There should be a specific date given.

If it mentions companies without any contact names, again be suspicious.

In this case, if it says "norton" instead of Symantec, the company that produces it, that should be a pretty good sign that somebody is misleading you.

Finally, the important thing isn't who forwarded it to any of us, but whether we can tell who wrote the original note.  We have all forwarded things like this when we 
were starting out so the person who forwarded this to Ken is probably very reliable.  If you don't know the name of the person who wrote the original note, though, be 
suspicious.  There is always some point where the forward list stops so you can't tell who wrote the note and they never claim credit in the body of the note.  The 
forwarder may be reliable, but the original author is into hiding and thinking about the millions of copies of his or here warning are going all over the world.  

Definitely check with Snopes or something before forwarding warnings as Joel suggests, but if any of the above are true, I don't even bother with that any longer.

Best regards,

Steve Jacobson

On Tue, 3 Mar 2009 11:35:11 -0800, Joel Deutsch wrote:

>Hi,

>before freaking out about this supposed current virus threat, it would be 
>informative to read the information about it at Snopes.com, which 
>investigates, explains and evaluates such warnings. This one originated in 
>the fall of 2006, and much about it is interesting to read. here's the URL 
>of the Snopes page about this virus warning. if the link takes up two lines 
>in your eamail, as it does in mine, first note where the line break is, then 
>copy and paste the entire URL into your browser's address bar, but then look 
>for the place where the line break was and make sure there's no space there 
>to break up the URL, by deleting a space if you find one.

> http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=mail+server+report&sp-a=00062d45-sp00000000&sp-advanced=1&sp-p=all&sp-w-control=1&sp-w=alike&sp-date-range=-1
&sp-x=any&sp-c=100&sp-m=1&sp-s=0----- Original Message -----From: <Kenlawrence124 at aol.com>To: <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>Cc: <napub at nfbnet.org>Sent: 
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 10:46 AMSubject: [gui-talk] important alert.Hi list members I can confirm that what I'm posting below is real and thesorce is credible This 
was forwarded to me by a music contact please payattention.          >  URGENT> >> >> > THIS IS VERY SERIOUS, PLEASE  SENDTO EVERYONE ON YOUR> 
E-MAIL LIST!!> >> >  Anyone-using Internet mail such as Yahoo , Hotmail ,> > AOL and so  on.> >> > This information arrived this morning,>  > Direct from both 
Microsoft and Norton> >> > Please send  it to everybody you know who has> > Access to the Internet.>  >> > You may receive an apparently harmless e-mail titled>  
'Mail Server Report'> >> > If you open either file, a  message will appear on your> screen saying: 'It is> too late now,  your life is no longer beautiful.'> >> > 
Subsequently you  will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC,> > And the person who sent it to you  will gain access to> your> > Name, e-mail and password.>  >> > 
This is a new virus which started to circulate on>  Saturday afternoon.> > AOLhas  already confirmed the seve rity,  and the anti> virus software's are> not capable 
of destroying  it.> >> > The virus has been created by a hacker who  calls> himself> > 'life owner'.> >> >  PLEASE SEND A COPY OF THIS E-MAIL> > TO ALL 
YOUR FRIENDS, And ask them  to> > PASS IT ON IMMEDIATELY!> >> > THIS HAS BEEN  CONFIRMED BY SNOPES.> >> > 
_http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/mailserver.asp_(http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/mailserver.asp)Block quote endI pledge to  participate actively 
in the efforts of the national federationof the blind to  achieve equality, opportunity, and security for the blind;tosupport the  policies and programs of the federation; 
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