IMD 2.0

 Internet hoaxes hurt. Sometimes when real worms hit, so much e-mail traffic is generated from warning people to avoid the worm that the well-intentioned watchdogs do more damage than the worm itself! Strange but true.

Do yourself a favor. (And your friends, too.) If somebody sends you a message that contains any of the following examples, just delete it, eh?

• A horrible virus is going to bring down the Internet.
• Send a copy of this message to ten of your best friends, and for every copy that’s forwarded, [pick your favorite charity] gets $10.
• Your eyelids will fall off if you don’t forward this message.
• Microsoft (Intel, McAfee, Norton, Compaq, whatever) says you need to download something, not download something, go to a specific place, avoid a specific place, and on and on.

If you think you’ve stumbled on the world’s most important virus alert, via your uncle’s sister-in-law’s roommate’s hairdresser’s soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, keep these three important points in mind:

• Chances are very good that you’re looking at a half-baked hoax that’s documented on Symantec’s hoax page [ http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_response/threatexplorer/risks/hoaxes.jsp ] or McAfee’s hoax page [ http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp ]. Check it out before you click the Forward button.
• If it’s a real virus, all the major news agencies will carry reports that (even if they’re inaccurate!) are far, far more reliable than anything you get through e-mail. Check out CNN [ http://www.cnn.com ] or your favorite news site before you go way off the deep end.
• If the Internet world is about to collapse, clogged with gazillions of e-mail worms, the worst possible way to notify friends and family is via e-mail. D’oh! Pick up the phone, walk over to the water cooler, send out a carrier pigeon, instead.

Try hard to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And if a friend forwards you a virus warning in an e-mail, do everyone a big favor. Shoot him a copy of the preceding bullet points, ask him to tape it to the side of his computer, and beg him to refer to it the next time he gets the forwarding urge.