Anyone else rant at their friends for hoax virus warnings???

[Pert_UK]

I feel bad because I know that they're just trying to be helpful, but SERIOUSLY.....

"My friend's neighbour got a note saying that Microsoft and Norton and AOL this morning all sent out a warning about this new virus....don't open the Powerpoint attachment if you get this mail.......it will delete your hard-drive, steal your car and shag your wife.............it will pass on your credit card details to a troop of rabid baboons........make sure you send this mail to everyone you know...."

Gaaaaah!

Look....if there is no DATE in the mail it's probably not genuine because then you could tell that it's been going around since 1954. If there are no links to Microsoft or Norton's websites, then the odds are that they haven't said anything about it because it's a hoax!

The WHOLE POINT of these hoax mails is that they tie up the internet and your time by getting you to forward it to your friends, who forward it to their friends, who forward it to their friends who forward it BACK TO YOU!!!

I sent a reply back to a friend of mine who "warned" me about the "Beautiful life" virus, politely explaining why it was a hoax, and how you could check it out at reputable sites like f-secure or www.snopes.com.

I got ANOTHER reply from them this morning (cc all their friends) explaining that it was true because Norton said it was true - I visited Norton's website, which said "Don't warn about this virus, it's a hoax".

This friend of mine is lovely, and it's not like I'm ungrateful, but it's just SO frustrating to keep getting these things from lots of people..........

Anyone else? Am I just an asshole?

P.

[short bus president]

1. I almost always reply-to-all with a SARC or snopes debunking

when one is available.

It's not even a matter of "trying to be helpful." It's like taking a car out on the interstate without benefit of driving lessons.

[Blue_State_Elitist]

2. Hell Yes

This happens all the time. I just wanna scream that they shouldn't open any attachments unless the person sending has told them to get it in advance. GEESE LOO FUCKING EASE. No more virus warning emails.

[celestia671]

3. No, you're not...

those emails are annoying as hell!

[Melsky]

4. Yes!

I send people links to the virus hoax being exposed.

The thing that bugs me is people sending that stupid email that says bill gates has a new email tracking system, and will give a certain amount of money for each person you forward this email to. I have gotten this from otherwise smart people I think should know better.

http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/microsoft.html

[Pert_UK]

5. Email turns intelligent people into morans (sic)

Seriously...You get really intelligent, reasonably techie people dropping you notes saying "Send this to 10 people, hold down CTRL, F4 and your right testicle and an amusing message will appear".

No it won't.

Also, I hate the "It's better to be safe than sorry" excuse - the WHOLE F*CKING POINT of that email was that it ties up your system, my system and the internet by being forwarded round forever. So sending it is the only way that you can perpetuate this crap, and NOT SENDING IT is the only way that you can stop it continuing forever.

And anyway, if you're stupid enough to open unsolicited email attachments (especially without scanning them first) then you deserve everything you get.

P.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

6. I used to, but gave up

Now I just sigh and remember how many years ago I saw the same crap on email... I am with the same address now for 10 years.

[Bossy Monkey]

7. No, I ridicule them mercilessly

Not really, but I do tend to explain reeeeeeal patiently, like you would to a 3-year-old, that stuff you get in the Inbox isn't necessarily true, and you can go to your antivirus program's website and they'll tell you whether there's really such a virus going around and what to do about it, which is NEVER to delete some random file from Windows. Of course, now I can just cut and paste the text from what I sent out the last time it happened.

[KCDem]

8. I don't get much of them anymore

Maybe because I harsh on anyone who sends them to me.

WBW, I was in grad school, and there actually was a rule against forwarding spam. So, I told all of my friends that I couldn't receive their crap. Guess that worked.

[SOteric]

9. You're not alone in this.

I mean the asshole thing isn't mutually exclusive with ranting at your friends for their hoax-loving ways, so that's still an option.

But yes, I have been known to send back tersely worded missives with links and arrows and short shrift on the foolishness of buying into these things without taking the 13.4 seconds to check into them.

On one occasion it cost me a friendship, and I still feel bad about that.

Most often these days I tend to just ignore them.

[mreilly]

10. Hell, yes!

I administer the network at a small company and am in charge of the e-mail server. We got so many hysterical hoaxes concerning the "jdbmgr.exe virus" that I actually had to put in a rule to screen all mail and filter anything containing that phrase. On a weekly basis some imbecile would e-mail several people at my company and my phone would ring immediately with a user gasping "I found a virus on my system!"

So I put the content filter rule in, and I am able to see what mail has been screened out before I give the OK to delete it. This hoax still comes in weekly, sometimes several times a week. The last time the dope sending it claimed they CONFIRMED their system was infected by a virus using antivirus software. It took all my willpower not to reply with an anonymous e-mail stating "You are a fucking moron."

When this stupid hoax comes in, it always follows this pattern: someone will send out this announcement at, say, 8 am. Within two hours another message, this one quite sheepish and saying something along the lines of "I'm really sorry, guys, but it turns out this was bogus." will come in and get caught, too. I delete them all and my users never receive either the "warning" or the retraction. I always explain to people that hoaxes ARE the virus. They spread, they cause fear and panic, and they might dupe the really gullible into trashing their system. One day a virus hoax claiming "if you find NTLDR DELETE IT NOW!" will arise, mark my words.

[Pert_UK]

11. Riddle me this.....

If these people received an unsolicited letter from a vague acquaintance that said, "Bosch have announced that their refrigerators will sneak around in the middle of the night hiding your car keys. Please throw your refrigerator out the window and tell all your friends" would they do it?

No, of course not.

So why do it with computers?

Gaaaaa!

And whilst users ALWAYS seem happy to call the helpdesk / IT support to every time their printer runs out of ink, for some reason they assume that "their friend Dave" has access to better technical information than that dept, so instead of ringing IT to check, they'll just forward the mail to 100 people.

It's enough to make you chew your own foot off.

P.

[FireHeart]

12. Unfortunately...

I still get "Good Times" virus warnings from some folks I know. No matter how hard I try, they just won't believe it's a fraud.

Not to mention every OTHER warning they've sent me over the past years. :argh:

What really irks me and causes me to rant at them is that most of these losers have NEVER updated the AV program that came with their (at the time) new computers. No firewall, either.

Whaddya gonna do?

[OrdinaryTa]

13. Questions I Had to Answer

People have no idea what a computer virus is. They ask questions like, "Is it safe to put an infected floppy disk in the same box with uninfected disks?" Or "Do I need to use surgical gloves to handle them?"

I worked in a hospital, and the boss of one shop was an epidemiologist. She insisted that all the machines be disinfected simultaneously, to prevent reinfection, she said. I told her that was carrying the analogy way too far. Don't tell ME about viruses! she said.