Fake virus warnings

[DJDarknez]

In case you got an e-mail like this:

______________________________________


This No Joke!



Two virus alerts..No Joke!

Subject: VERY IMPORTANT WARNING - Virus Alert



VERY IMPORTANT WARNING

Please Be Extremely Careful especially if using internet mail such as
Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and so on.

This information arrived this morning from Microsoft and Norton.

Please send it to everybody you know who accesses the Internet.

You may receive an apparently harmless email with a Power Point
presentation "Life is beautiful. pps".

If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and
delete it immediately.

if you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying:
"It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful", subsequently
you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you
gain access to your name, e-mail and password.

This is a new virus which started to circulate on Saturday afternoon.

WE NEED TO DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO STOP THIS VIRUS.

AOL has already confirmed the severity, and the antivirus Software's
are not capable of destroying it.

The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself "life owner".




PLEASE MAKE A COPY OF THIS EMAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS and PASS IT ON
IMMEDIATELY

During the next several weeks be VERY cautious about opening or
launching any e-mails that refer to the World Trade Center or 9/11 in
any way, regardless of who sent it. PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS
AND FAMILY. FOR THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW, "WTC" STANDS FOR THE WORLD TRADE
CENTER. REALLY DANGEROUS BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL OPEN IT RIGHT AWAY,
THINKING ITS A STORY RELATING TO 9/11!

BIGGGG TROUBLE !!!! DO NOT OPEN "WTC Survivor" It is a virus that will
erase your whole "C" drive.. It will come to you in the form of an
E-Mail from a familiar person. I repeat, a friend sent it to me, but
called and warned me before I opened it. He was not so lucky and now he
can't even start his computer!

Forward this to everyone in your address book. I would rather receive
this 25 times than not at all. So, if you receive an email called "WTC
Survivor", do not open it. Delete it right away! This virus removes all
dynamic link libraries (.dll files) from your computer.


PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE!

[DJDarknez]

It's Bullshit!

Life is Beautiful (http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/life.asp)

WTC Survivor (http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/wtc.htm)

Includes links to the official Symantec & McAfee pages that denoucne it as false.

[ChicagoJay]

One should ALWAYS check with Snopes for ANY of these kinds of "Alerts". In fact, any email that asks you to forward it to all your friends IS a virus and YOU (if you forward it out) are the faulty software that allows it to spread.

[CajunGuy]

I don't forward any of that shit, I delete it without opening it up. I hate when people forward me crap, especially freaking chain letters!!!

The below is not directed toward any specific person, just computer geeks in general:

But at the same time, not everyone is into computers and knows everything about them so it might be more beneficial to try and educate people (the less technical like myself) instead of trying to tear them down or passively aggressively berate them just because they aren't as computer savvy like a minority of technical "geeks" who deal with computers on a daily basis and get a hardon when they see a Bill Gates article on Yahoo! Technical news. To call people, "faulty software" I think is a little harsh, especially if they think they are doing a good thing by alerting their friends about a potential virus. I for one get kind of annoyed when techies talk down to me just because I don't spend every waking hour on my computer trying to figure out every aspect of it or because I didn't check out a particular website that out of all the computer users in the world, only a handful know about. Usually, my educational level supersedes theirs anyway. Just because you received some microsoft certificate at Community College R Us and you can fix my computer doesn't make you god. Besides, I can always buy another one and screw up that one even more.

The question should not be, "Did this person go to miscellaneous website.com to check to see if this is a hoax?" Rather, you should ask yourself what have YOU done (aside from mocking and acting holier than thou) to help alleviate these issues? Have you tried to educate the public in a non-derrogatory way? Have you reached out your hand to help the ordinary masses in the plight to stop these viruses from spreading aside from posting negative comments on random internet message boards? If the answer is "no" then I would say this is akin to not voting, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN, go back to killing trolls on EverQuest and let people who actually care about assisting others in their dilemmas have an opinion. We all know that your new level 12 fire power would be better appreciated on the Dungeons and Dragons message board than for the rest of us who have lives.

Sorry if this was brash but in my occupation I am the buffer between techies and regular people and I am tired of this elitist attitude techies have. If you aren't going to try to find a positive outcome then YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Ok, I think I got that all out of my system LOL

[DJDarknez]

hahaha

Damn Caj!

Actually, I did respond to all with the following message:

_____

Sadly, everyone has been hoaxed.

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/life.asp

Now, please pass on the truth!

_____

And there was a shitload of people that went to. The person who sent it to me must have sent it to like 70 people.

[ChicagoJay]

This is a "geeks" forum, Cajun. I would never be so terse to a non-techie. I don't consider them stupid, so please don't consider techies to be elitist. Mind your surrounding, bub - this is a TECHIE forum.

I deal with non-technical people every day. I deal with this very issue about once a month because instead of publicly humiliating someone who sends out an email like this to everyone in the district, I privately ask them not to forward them out because they are usually hoaxes.

[CajunGuy]

sorry guys, LOL, I've been dealing with techies for 2 weeks in trying to ugrade my ArcView software at work, it seriously was my general bitching because these a$$holes acted like I was a moron when in actuality I was asking them questions they couldn't answer because I knew more about the technicalities of the software than they do!

Wasn't trying to offend!

[DJDarknez]

yes you were! don't lie! :D

I try not to look down on people who don't know as much about computers as I do. It's not fair to them. I've been using computers virtually every day for the past 7 or 8 years, if not more. Because of that, I know more than the average user, but not as much as CJ, who actually has a degree in it.

That being said, this kind of thing isn't so much technical as it is a gullibilty issue. 99.9999999% of the time, these virus warnings sent via e-mail are fake. Why people still fall for them, I'll never understand.

Let's face it. If there was a REAL virus warning to be sent, you'd hear about it from some news outlet, whether it be TV (seen a few on TV locally) or on yahoo, msn, cnn, etc. Websites that people do go to for any number of reasons.

[ChicagoJay]

I don't know if a certification qualifies as a degree, but I have a few certifications, but no degree (too busy getting high to finish college). :)

But DJD is 100% right on it's more of a gullability issue. I know not to diagnose medical problems because the most medical training I've had is watching too many episodes of ER and Grey's Anatomy and MASH.

Therefore, non-techies should refrain from spreading "alerts" and leave it to us techie-types. The smartest of our non-techies emails ME with the alert before forwarding them out. I check it against my sources then heap praise upon them for having up-to-date wetware that prevent the hoax from spreading virally.

Anyway, many of these hoaxes are totally non-technical. eg: Don't buy gas on May whatever came around last week - it's bullshit. http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/nogas.asp

[CajunGuy]

I didn't know about this snopes website today until yall mentioned it. Whenever someone sends me a virus alert I usually delete it because I know better than to download something from an unsolicited e-mail. Plus, my e-mail service is pretty good about warning me whether or not something contains a virus. It does really matter my computer is crap anyway LOL