Hoax Report: Back on the Chain Gang
By Nancy McPoland
(April 15, 2001)
This department was set up to highlight the current crop of nonsense, hoaxes, scams and misinformation we find forwarded to us by well-meaning friends and online acquaintances. We're campaigning for everyone to Break the Chain and just say no to passing along these dire warnings of catastrophe and calls to outrages. Most are completely untrue, the rest are fraught with misinformation and misinterpretation, and the few that are true are likely to be on subjects that don't apply to one-one hundredth of a percent of the people they are forwarded to.
Meanwhile, precious (and expensive) bandwidth is being wasted in the transmittal of these e-mails, and our e-mail addresses are being exposed for any spam-meister or address harvester to capture, resulting in even more inbox trash.
Remember, we post the e-mail first and our comments afterward in this lovely editorial font and color. If it's in regular font, it is not our work.
If you've got a suspicious multi-forwarded gem you haven't seen covered here, send it along to us at hoax@net4tv.com and we'll check it out.
Free for All, Free for None
Subject: Free Computer Equipment!!!
Hey, I just wanted to let you guys know about this great new PC I just got from IBM!
Hewlett-Packard and Gateway have just merged to form the biggest computer supplier in the world! Bigger than Dell, bigger than IBM, bigger than them all! In response to this amazing merger, IBM has set aside 250,000 free computers to reward and keep it's most loyal and trusted customers! I've already got mine, read on to see how you can get yours!!!
This email has a special encoding which will let IBM know every time you send it to one of your friends or relatives. The first 250,000 people who send this to at least 15 of their friends will receive a brand new IBM computer! After you send this to your friends, and qualify, IBM will contact you via email, and get your shipping address.
Send them your address, and in a couple of days, a brand new computer, complete with printer, and 19" monitor is sitting on your doorstep! You must hurry, because this offer ends July 31 of this year!
Here's the catch, though. Each of your friends must send this to at least 5 people or you won't be eligible, so choose your friends wisely! Remember, a true friend will send this along for you! That's all it takes, no strings attached! No purchase necessary!!! You don't even have to have previously purchased a computer from IBM! They want to earn or keep your future business, and they're willing to pay for it!!! Take Care, and let's get some new computers!!!
We thought we'd found a new variation on ye old e-mail tracking hoax, but this one actually turns out to be one of the first variations, either still circulating or hauled out again to try to catch some new blood. In any event, it wasn't true back in 1999 when it originally started circulating, and it's not true now.
For those of you just coming in, there is no such thing as a "special encoding" or other device to track how many people you forward a message to. Yes, you may have read a story in the Internet media (including Net4TV Voice) about a dastardly bit of JavaScript that could be used for that purpose, but trust us, it's not going to be. The JavaScript "e-mail wiretap," as it is called, can be attached to an e-mail, and then sends a copy of the forwarded e-mail, along with comments (and those heavyweight HTML stationary and signatures) to the "bugger" EVERY TIME IT'S FORWARDED.
Do the math. We've got a copy of the "It Takes Guts to Say Jesus" hoax virus warning sitting in our Hoax Inbox right now. The attachments, some of which are plain text, weigh 12.5 Kb and contain 68 e-mail addresses. (Yes, we counted, anything for our readers.) Which would mean if this had been "bugged," 68 copies would have arrived in our bugger's Inbox weighing up to 12.5 Kb EACH. And that's just from this one e-mail, if each of those 68 people sends it on, another copy is sent and so forth. You can see that the bandwidth and storage required would quickly become astronomical, and the giveaway becomes orders of magnitude more expensive.
If you're not impressed by math, how about a bit of logic? Why would IBM be giving away new computers to "loyal customers," when the forwarding/tracking process doesn't even ask if you ARE an IBM customer? And how come we have to find out Hewlett-Packard and Gateway are merging through a multi-forwarded e-mail? Don't we have media for that? Why haven't we seen news stories about this historic merger?
Bottom line, if the e-mail says you'll get something for nothing by forwarding it, you can safely assume that nothing (except annoying your friends) is exactly what you'll get.
C'est Faux, Malheuruesment
Subject: Champagne!
To all you Champagne Lovers.... Send this on to 10 people and cc to champagne@veuve-clicquot.fr and Veuve Clicquot France will contact you directly for your address and ship you a case of free champagne in 3 weeks. Obviously building up their databases, but what have you got to lose?
Enjoy!
Poor Veuve Clicquot has had to install a pop-up message on its website disclaiming all knowledge of this variation of the same hoax, which has been circulating in France since last August and has now been translated into English to further harrass them. We hope to goodness that the e-mail address was a phony, because it's probably crushed under a massive weight of cc:'s by now.
Top Hoaxes We're Receiving Now
Based strictly on our admittedly unscientific survey (i.e. we counted our e-mail) these are the most popular of the currently circulating hoaxes, with links to our previous coverage.
Remember, you can also find previous Hoax Report articles by going to the Net4TV Voice Archive/Search page and searching on the terms you're interested in, such as "Klingerman" or "809".
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