Cohousing-L Mailing List: Fw: NEW Virus Warnings NOV 97

[stanifor (stanifor]

> > > > >> Subject: Fwd: FW: NEW VIRUS WARNING (fwd)
> > > > >>
> > > > >> If you receive an e-mail titled "JOIN THE CREW" DO NOT open it!
> > > > >> It will erase EVERYTHING on your hard drive! Send this letter
> > > > >> out

Yada, yada, yada.  Another stupid Internet virus hoax.

This has nothing to do with cohousing, but let me waste a little more of  
your time in the hope of saving some of it in the future.

As a rule of thumb, any time you receive an urgent message from a friend  
or via a mailing list about some threat to computer security, it's  
probably safe to assume it's a hoax.  In particular *DO* *NOT* send it on  
to other people or mailing lists unless you are technically qualified to  
assess whether it is likely to be a hoax or not, or have gone to some  
trouble to verify its accuracy  (A good place to start would be the web  
site of the Computer Emergency Response Team http://www.cert.org/).

It is *particularly* cause for suspicion if the message instructs you to  
tell your friends or "anyone that might access the Internet."   
Unfortunately, some idiots get their kicks from creating these fake  
messages about viruses and then seeing how widely inexperienced Internet  
users will propagate them.  This has been an ongoing nuisance for several  
years.  An advisory from a real security alert service will *never* ask  
you to propagate it to your friends.  If something ever happens that you  
really need to know about, you can probably rely on the information  
reaching you from your ISP.

Stuart Staniford-Chen
Cohousing Network Webweaver

AND

Assistant Adjunct Professor,
Computer Security Laboratory,
UC Davis.