|
|
Hoaxes, Myths and Urban Legends
Email Phishing
Internet Fraud
Identity Theft
Privacy
Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act
Critical Thinking and Evaluation Skills
The following content is from 1999. Links may or not still work. This material is being retained for archival purposes.
Ted Burton borrowing from others, reworked and added to this useful and informative list of websites that debunk and demystify a lot of urban legends on hoaxes on the Internet. The links also include website that can help you understand a lot of terms used on the Internet, find answers to problems on the net, and more. If anything the message is an example of how something can pass through the net and grow as each person adds a bit or tinkers with it trying to help others. Our thanks to Ted!
-----Original Message-----
From: Scouts-L Youth Group List [mailto:Scouts-L@LISTSERV.TCU.EDU] On
Behalf Of Ted
Burton
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 1999 6:53 PM
To:
SCOUTS-L@LISTSERV.TCU.EDU
Subject: Urban Legends, Virus Alerts,
etc.
Folks, from time to time you get one of those
messages urging you to
"tell all your friends immediately before
the [insert name here]
virus erases their hard drive, sterilizes their
children, and
defrosts their freezer". From time to time you
get a message saying
that Little Orphan Annie is going to have a great
blessing bestowed
on her if only you would e-mail ten thousand friends
with a request.
Almost always, these messages are a fraud, designed to
snarl up the
Internet with a huge volume of messages.
Here is a rather full list of Internet resources to help you sort
truth
from hoax, which I urge you to look over every time you get one
of those
messages -- BEFORE you tell everyone immediately.
------
"E-mail Virus alerts & other chain
letters:"
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html
http://www.mit.edu/people/dryfoo/Info/shergold.html
http://www.datafellows.com/news/hoax.htm
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html
http://kumite.com/myths/
http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/HypeAlert/
http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/VirusAlert/
http://www.mcafee.com/support/hoax.asp
http://www.mcafee.com/support/techdocs/vinfo/default.asp
http://www.drsolomons.com/vircen/hoax.html
http://www.urbanlegends.com
http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1401/urbanlegends.html
http://www.xnet.com/~warinner/
http://www.snopes.com
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACChainLetters.html
Specifically for the "Win a Holiday" Hoax:
http://www.stiller.com/holiday.htm
http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/HypeAlert/Holiday/
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/data/win.a.holiday.html
AOL has an entire section on this hoax and others similar to
it. Go to
Keyword: "virus." Your own Internet service providers
may have
info, as well.
If you are concerned about alerts of any kind
from Microsoft,
check their website or sign up for their free
newsletter, and be
the first to know: http://www.microsoft.com/
"E-mail
Virus" and Other Kinds of Hoaxes:
http://www.quality.org/html/important.html
A
light-hearted treatment of hoaxes:
http://www.mirabilis.com/virus.html
Some good
material on evaluating sources:
* Evaluating Internet Research
Sources at
http://www.sccu.edu/faculty/R_Harris/evalu8it.htm
* Evaluation of Information Sources at
http://www.vuw.ac.nz/~agsmith/evaln/evaln.htm
* Bibliography on Evaluating Internet Resources
at
http://refserver.lib.vt.edu/libinst/critTHINK.HTM
It *is* possible to design responsible alerts for people to
circulate on
the Internet. Here is a how-to that draws positive
conclusions from long
experience with badly designed alerts:
* Designing Effective
Action Alerts for the Internet at
http://weber.ucsd.edu/~pagre/alerts.html
Please check with reliable hoax-busters before forwarding
material such
as a "virus" e-mail message, to *anyone,* please.
Now that you
know, you needn't ever again fall victim or
victimize others in
spreading groundless fears or "urban
legends." It's *so easy
to check.* Spread the good word.
Netiquette & E-mail usage
for beginners:
http://www.webfoot.com/advice/email.top.html
Netiquette Guidelines for & beyond beginners (RFC 1855; FYI 28)
<ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1855.txt
<ftp://venera.isi.edu/in-notes/fyi/fyi28.txt
This document provides a minimum set of guidelines for
Network
Etiquette
(Netiquette) which organizations may take and
adapt
for their own
use. As such, it is deliberately written in
a
bulleted format to
make adaptation easier and to make
any
particular item easy
(or easier) to find. It also
functions
as a minimum
set of guidelines for individuals, both users
and
administrators. This memo is the product of the
Responsible
Use of the
Network (RUN*1) Working Group of the
Internet
Engineering
Task Force (IETF*2).
Ethics and the Internet (RFC 1087)
<ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1087.txt
This memo is a statement of policy by the
Internet
Architectures
Board (IAB*3) at the Internet Engineering
Task
Force (IETF*2)
concerning the proper use of the resources
of
the
Internet.
Guidelines for Conduct on and Use of Internet
<http://www.isoc.org/proceedings/conduct/cerf-Aug-draft.html
Draft document written and maintained by Vint
Cerf,
President of
Internet Society (ISOC*4).
The Net: User guidelines and
Netiquette
<http://www.fau.edu/netiquette/net/index.html
The guidelines by Ms Arlene H. Rinardy of Florida
Atlantic
University
(FAU*5).
Netiquette <http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/index.html
The WWW version of the book "Netiquette" by Virginia
Shea,
published by
Albion Books*6.
Copyright:
http://www.nolo.com/nn197.html
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/
Flaming:
http://www.windweaver.com/email.htm
SPAM:
http://com.primenet.com/spamking/
http://www.cauce.org/
Privacy
on-line:
http://165.123.33.33/yr1997/dec/prof_971208.html
http://www.nasw.org/privacy.htm
Why 30 hyphens
or a line of asterisks is a no-no in
list messages (they are part of the
digest format
and having them in messages, messes things
up):
http://www.alternic.net/rfcs/1100/rfc1153.txt.html
Thank you for listening. Ted Burton, Inland Northwest 611, Es
Kaielgu
311
Alappiechsu Wiechcheu I
<<<=-=<I=-=<<< I Talks-Fast Wolf
been there, done that: CC, DC, CA, CM, SA, SM, MC, CR, NJ
SA
------ SA T162
& "a good ol' Fox too"
-------
at home in North Central Idaho, used to be Alaska
e- mailto:scouter@valint.net
Ne molesti te deprimant ...
resist the Redmondian Borg! Semper Mac!
|
|
