About Chain mails

Danish version

People are distributing chain mails across the Internet more than ever. It is probably done with the best of intentions, but in the end this phenomenon could end up slowing down all mail-distribution on the Internet. The most commonly known form is that of warnings against some virus:

"If you receive a mail containing the subject "...", don't open it!!! It contains a very dangerous virus, etc... Please forward this mail to everyone in your adress book!"

And so, people do exactly that. The only problem is that 99,9% of these mails are not true. They are called hoaxes, and their only purpose is to fill the mailboxes of Internet-users around the world.

These kind of hoaxes are pretty easy to figure out. There are some excellent sites on the Internet describing every known hoax, expressivly asking people not to forward it. One of the best, in my opinion, is: www.f-secure.com

A slightly more annoying version, are mails that at first sight has a really good purpose, but in reality are only designed for the same destructive purpose and effect as that of the hoaxes mentioned above. Recently, I received a mail involving a subject that will certainly get the attention of a lot of christians. There are sites approximately descibing this mail, so I won't repeat it. For reference, look at hoaxinfo.com.

There are mainly two problems with either type of hoax. Firstly, it is somewhat annoying to be using your time on this matter, once you realise it's being a fraud. Secondly, imagine what happens if everyone with an email-adress start sending mails to everyone in their adress books simultaneously. Think about it for a minute. If the average email-user has 20 adresses in their adress book, it is very self-enhancing and soon the mailservers will be using every second of the day, sending people's chain mails back and forth. For a slight perspective on the potential effect, one can observe how the recent plague of the virus Klez has slowed the email-service of several ISP's significantly (ironically, this virus sends mails to everyone in the affected users adress book).

So, how can you tell a hoax from the real thing (assuming that there is such a thing as a constructive chain mail)? The common factor is the lack of information and references to well-known sources. Looking at the example of the virus-hoaxes, they typically start out: "Some big company has just issued a warning...", without any references to this company, what so ever. Here, the alarmbells should really be ringing. If a large computer-company really took this threat seriously, it should be possible to include a reference to their site, where they would certainly have adressed the matter.

It's the same with the other hoax I recently received (the one mentioned above): A total lack of information and references, only a few phrases designed to get peoples attention and reaction, and it works! It took 2 minutes to enter www.google.com and find the information revealing this mail as a hoax, only by searching for some very specific words in the mail. So, if you must forward mails like this one, couldn't you at least use 2 minutes on verifying the authenticity of what you're sending?

The question might arise as to what you should do, if you find out (for instance by looking at sites such as this one) that you've been forwarding a hoax without knowing? I want to encourage everyone to look seriously into the matter, and then write a mail in which you, in a well-documented fashion, explain about the situation and its inconsistency (or merely referr to a site adressing the subject). This mail should be sent to everyone you've forwarded the hoax, to prevent it from spreading further. Then, a similar mail should be sent to the person who sent you the hoax, so that person will become aware of the situation, and maybe send out a mail of his/her own to the persons he/she has been in contact with. One could argue that this will only start a new round of chain-mailing. Yes, it probably will. But hopefully, it will be the last to go past the people reading it...