Hoaxes, Hoaxes and Chain Letters.

In the multitude of messages that fill your inbox, there are some that promptly warn you of the danger of new devastating viruses, Trojans that destroy your computer. hardware system, malicious software that can steal the information on your desktop, hackers that 'see' what you are doing, etc…
Added to these are various messages relating to earning quick and easy money, children in difficulty and other articles that encourage you to 'pass' the message itself to all those you know and have memorized in yours. address book.
Most of these are 'hoaxes' or chain letters or email-chains, up to their own organized scams that go far beyond the joke and border on actual illegality. While Viruses or Trojans directly damage the Internet system, Hoaxes use the good faith of the users themselves to create damage, inefficiencies, clog up mail servers or simply to waste useless time (isn't this also a damage?) One or two messages are not a problem, but imagine if everyone, or a good part of the surfers, forwarded these messages to all the addresses in their address book! Recognizing a 'chain' letter Chain letters and most hoax messages have a similar pattern. From the oldest printed letters to the latest computer style, they are almost all structured into three easily recognizable parts: A hook.
A threat.
A request.
The Hook First, there is a 'hook', which piques your interest and convinces you to read the rest of the letter. The hooks usually used promise to 'make money fast' or 'get rich' or similar, i.e. make money with little or no work. Electronic 'chain' letters, in addition to using the promise of quick profits as a hook, have recently broadened their range of action by adding warnings such as: 'danger!' and 'watch out for the virus' or 'a very sweet little girl is dying of a very rare disease'. They play on our fear for the survival of our computers or on our compassion for a certain very poor and unfortunate person. Therefore, verify its veracity thoroughly. The Threat Once you have been hooked, you move on to the threat. Most of the threats used warn you of terrible disasters that will happen if you break the chain. However, others play on solidarity or compassion to convince you to continue 'passing' the letter. The threat often contains formality, high-sounding tone and technical language to convince you to believe it is real. The Request To conclude, the request. Some of the older 'chain' letters ask you to mail a dollar to the first ten names in the letter and so on, asking you to add vs to the bottom of the list. Other requests simply ask to 'distribute this letter to as many people as possible', so that the 'sick' beneficiary receives a very small sum due to the email traffic generated (it is not possible to carry out these counts). Other requests may push you to delete a certain file that resides on your device. computer, passing it off as a virus (when in fact it is an indispensable system file).
'Chain' letters usually do not have the name and details of the original sender so that it is impossible to verify their authenticity. Legitimate warnings and requests will always have complete contact information from the person transmitting the message and will often also be signed with a cryptographic signature. Many new 'chain letters' name a person or organization and add fictitious contact information, but that person doesn't actually exist or exists but has nothing to do with the hoax message. As mentioned in the previous section, you need to use other means of verification if you want to contact the person directly to find out if the message is real. Check any telephone numbers or website of the individual, company or person; Furthermore, there are several websites to check whether messages have already been officially declared hoax, spam or not.
Why are Hoaxes created? The reason behind a person creating a hoax or chain letter is not always clear and usually only the original creator knows the real reason, but some possibilities are: - To see how far a letter will go.
- To clog up mail servers.
- To damage the operations of another person or company (an email address is included and everyone is asked to send a copy by post: the classic example of the unfortunate Mrs Jessica Mydek).
- For money: the classic pyramid system.
- To damage the reputation of an organization or person completely unrelated to the matter.
- For a bad joke: 'if the xyz.xyz file is present in your hard disk, delete it immediately!!!'. Try restarting your computer and you will see that it was better not to do so...
- To collect thousands of real email addresses for free and effortlessly and sell them to companies that deal with web marketing (a good archive of real email addresses can also be sold for several thousand dollars - even USD.0.50 for each single verified address)
Here is a short list of Hoaxes that 'go around' with a certain frequency: Virus in cell phones with Nyk written on 3/02/2003
Microsoft Internet Explorer 01/16/2003
Jews as X-Files 01/27/2003
Petition Un 1/13/2003
2002 What if you could seduce women? 12/15/2002
Chinese Precept 06/10/02
Multilevel Italian System - Gentile Marketing 25 June 2002
last wishes of a little girl suffering from cancer 9/04/2002
Life is beautiful.pps or life is beautifoul.pps 04/7/2002
BONE Marrow DONOR WANTED (updated March 11, 2002)
For Lucia Brandini (updated March 7, 2002)
Leukemia subject - aol and zdnet (updated 3/3/2002)
The WTC Survivor Virus Hoax (updated February 7, 2002)
last wishes of a little girl suffering from cancer 9/04/2002
Life is beautiful.pps or life is beautifoul.pps 04/7/2002
BONE Marrow DONOR WANTED (updated March 11, 2002)
For Lucia Brandini (updated March 7, 2002)
Leukemia subject - aol and zdnet (updated 3/3/2002)
The WTC Survivor Virus Hoax (updated February 7, 2002) Chain letters - sodium laureth 2001
The World Trade Center (Nostradamus prophesy) Hoax (updated September 18, 2001)
The Worst Ever Virus (CNN) Hoax (updated August 30, 2001)
AnnaKournikova (Here you Have) Worm not a hoax (updated February 16, 2001)
The Atheist (Touched by an Angel) Hoax (updated November 7, 2001)
Family Pictures Hoax (updated April 17, 2001)
The Pictures of Family (Family Pictures) Hoax (updated April 14, 2001)
The Virtual Card for You Virus (Worst Ever Virus) Hoax (updated August 30, 2001)
The O'hare Atheist (Touched by an Angel) Hoax (updated November 9, 2001)
The SULFNBK.EXE Virus Hoax (updated June 5, 2001)
The 'Touched by an Angel' Hoax (updated November 9, 2001)
The Halloween Mall Threat Hoax (updated October 10, 2001)
'Here you Have Worm' not a hoax (updated February 14, 2001)
The Internet Flower (Worst Ever Virus) Hoax (updated August 30, 2001)
Kournikova (Here you Have) Worm not a hoax (updated February 15, 2001)
The Mall (Halloween terrorist) Threat Hoax (updated October 10, 2001)
The Nostradamus (World Trade Center) Hoax (updated September 16, 2001)
2000

source: edited by Andrea Stefanato