One of the most annoying things for anyone is getting a hoax e-mail. Most of them are harmless, and say things like, “You will get a kiss at midnight from your crush if you forward this to seven people,” but some of them are viruses that can wipe out your entire operating system.
More recently, an e-mail with the subject line “Badtimes” has been circling the Web.
This virus will wipe out your entire hard drive if opened, Dr. Robert Banis, teaching professor of logistics and operating management, said.
These viruses are sent out in masses to millions of people, but how? “There is computer software you can buy that can search the internet for e-mail addresses,” said Banis.
“If you put your e-mail address on a Web site, then the software can be used to search on the Web for anything that has a formatted e-mail address.”
Dr. Banis suggests writing your e-mail address like student(at)umsl.edu instead of student@umsl.edu to avoid your e-mail being picked up with the e-mail search.
Then there are e-mail urban legends. Most all are harmless, but the e-mails suggest forwarding, oftentimes by guilt.
“When I get those e-mails [that say] ‘forward this to 30 people to save this child’s life’ I say to myself ‘Oh I’m a bad person if I don’t forward,’” Angela Williams, junior, business administration, said.
An e-mail urban legend going around for a few years now is about a little girl named Kylie who is dying of a heart defect.
The e-mail even has a picture of the child, and encourages readers to forward by saying that billionaire Bill Gates will donate $1 every time the e-mail is forwarded.
“Students can find out what is true or not by visiting http://www.snopes.com,” Banis said. Snopes.com is a site that will dispel any e-mail hoax, virus rumor, or urban legend, like the one about Kylie.
Some hoaxes are fraudulently coming from popular retailers like Abercrombie and Fitch, Gap, Whole Foods, and even the Japanese car maker Honda. E-mail recipients are encouraged to forward the e-mails for a “chance to win” gift certificates, prizes and even cash, Snopes.com said.
E-mail recipients can avoid all the confusion and forwarding woes by simply moving their cursor over any links in the e-mail and checking the status bar to see where the link leads to. “Most of the time it’s going to either Russia or China,” Banis said.
Beware of the e-mail hoaxes that say you must update your eBay or PayPal login information for security purposes.
“You automatically know that’s false because PayPal is not going to send you something like that,” Banis said. Another way to tell if the e-mail is a hoax is if it contains severely broken English and grammar.
The sender is most likely from another country, and is trying to gain money from the e-mail recipient.
“I tried to sell my laptop on Craigslist and I got this weird e-mail from this guy saying he will pay me triple the price [for the laptop] if I would mail it off to him immediately,” Williams said. “Then he asked for my bank account number so he could deposit the money. That’s when I knew something was up.”
Never give out personal account information through an e-mail, and keep your antivirus software up to date. There is no way to avoid e-mail hoaxes, scams, and urban legends completely, but read the headline before you open it. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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