Don't look for love in e-mails
By Phillip Robinson
Knight Ridder News Service
Watch out for Valentine's Day viruses.
Advertiser library photo
The holiday is a favorite day of the year for virus makers. They know that right now people are more likely to open e-mails and e-mail-attachments with subject lines such as "I love you" or "Lovebug" or "Missing you."
Arlena Boxton, network administrator at Versata Corp., looks at the e-mail list on her computer screen that was flooded by the "I Love You" virus.
Don't fall for this fake come-on. In this Valentine's season, make sure you're protected with anti-virus software, and steel yourself to refuse any e-mail attachments unless you know specifically what they are.
(And that doesn't mean that you just know who sent them. Viruses often hijack someone's e-mail address to send themselves, so they look like they're coming from a familiar source.)
Sorry: You're not about to get rich and be loved by strangers, at least not via e-mail.
And on the "Microsoft giving money away" offer, here's the quick summary: They aren't.
A helpful member of my Internet service OpenMinds.us just forwarded me a chain e-mail. After reading it and cracking up, I mentioned it to a friend who said her father had seen the same e-mail the day before.
So it's time to squash this one.
The note is a bit garbled, suggesting that AOL and Microsoft and Intel are somehow planning to merge, but first want to test their latest e-mail software. If you'll just join this "beta" test by forwarding the chain mail, they'll somehow monitor how many forwards you make and reward you with, oh, $151 or $243 per forward. (I wonder if the odd amounts are supposed to make this seem more realistic?) And they'll pay you nearly as much when the people you forward to join the chain and send the mail on some more.
As with any chain-mail, there are testimonials, both "I'm an attorney and this is legit" and "My sister/daughter/mom just got a check for $12,437."
Yeah, right.
First, they can't track your e-mail forwarding like that.
Second, no one is going to pay you $250 per click — and that's all e-mail forwarding takes. The funniest part of this mail is invoking Bill Gates' billions to make such incredible payments more believable, as evidence that paying hundreds of dollars for nothing is something he could and therefore would do. As my friend quipped — echoing one of my favorite "The Simpsons" episodes — "He didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks."
This hoax has been around before, though in a thriftier version. Supposedly Microsoft or some other big firm will track an e-mail and donate a few cents or dollars to some kid in a hospital. It's never true. But maybe this one is making the rounds entirely because the lie is so big: Who wants to pass up even a 1-in-1000 chance that it's true?
