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The Web in Focus Internet Hoaxes Internet hoaxes come in a number of flavors. One flavor, the chain mail email, is a direct descendent of the old snail-mail chain letter. Within chain mail hoaxes, there are different kinds. Here are two of the most popular. 1. Some poor child is sick or dying. (I'm going to trash these kinds of letters, but please remember that there are plenty of children around the world who are suffering from terrible illnesses. Unfortunately, these hoaxes do nothing to help them.) A few of these are real, but the vast, vast majority are just some sicko's idea of a joke. These emails seem to follow a similar pattern. They try to sound legitimate by using the name of a real charitible organization, like the American Cancer Society or the Make-a-Wish Foundataion. But even an official sounding, but totally bogus, name will do. The emails often mention some worthy organization donating money for every email sent to it -- or even better, for every email sent to anyone, period. (Now, who is really going to keep track of all the emails sent? The NSA maybe, but not some charitable organization.) Of course, the emails pull on our heartstrings by mentioning the sad plight of the poor child, sometimes with pitiful details. The hoaxes play our desires to be helpful and do some good, but merely serve to waste network bandwidth on useless junk. Here is an example, that gets creative by including a tender poem before the sad tale. It is about a little girl dying of cancer. The poem begins with: Slow Dance Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round? Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground? Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight? Or gazed at the sun into the fading night? and the letter contains the following, with my editorial comments in red brackets []. PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO HELP THIS LITTLE GIRL ALL FORWARDED EMAILS ARE TRACKED TO OBTAIN THE TOTAL COUNT. [Yeah, right.] Dear All, Please pass this mail on to everybody you know [THE hallmark of the chain mail hoax. Yes! We must inundate everyone we know with this!]. It is the request of a special little girl who will soon leave this world as she has cancer. Thank you for your effort, this isn't a chain letter [an attempt to allay our suspicions], but a choice [Don't you mean "chance"?] for all of us to save [playing on our desires to be helpful] a little girl that's dying of a serious and fatal form of cancer. Please send this to everyone you know... or don't know [How can I send this to someone I don't know?]. This little girl has 6 months left to live, and as her dying wish, she wanted to send a letter telling everyone to live their life to the fullest, since she never will. She'll never make it to a prom or graduate from a high school, or get married and have a family of her own [Here's the pull on our heartstrings with the sad, sad plight]. By you sending this to as many people as possible, you can give her and her family a little hope, because with every name that this is sent to, The American Cancer Society [Here's the legitimate organization] will donate 3 cents [$$$] per name to her treatment and recovery plan. One guy sent this to 500 people!!!! [How does the person who wrote this letter know that someone sent 500 copies -- after all, when the letter is being written it hasn't been sent yet, duh!!] So,I know that we can send - it to at least 5 or 6 [This hoaxer just doesn't give up!]. Just think it could be you one day. It's not even your money, just your time!!! Occasionally one of these will be legitimate. One such example dates from the late 1980's (the pre-pre web days). A little boy in England wanted to break the world record for receiving the most get-well cards. He received millions, broke the record, had an operation and was cured. Yet his story and the appeal lived on. The story changed -- the name changed, the location changed, the appeal changed from get-well cards to business cards, but the story made the rounds. I remember that I got an email some years ago asking to send a business card to the poor little boy dying of cancer. (This was a good 5 years after the original appeal and the child had long since recovered.) This situation points out that a real story can evolve into a hoax. Moral of the story: If you get a letter that says to forward an email to some organization or to send something to a child, don't do it, and don't forward the email to all your friends. If you really want to do something helpful, contact a legitimate charitable organization and send a donation. At the very least, check some of the hoax-buster pages I list at the end to see if the request is a known hoax. Page 2

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