urban mythology

Posted by Luke Williams on May 11, 2005 in general thoughts | 1 comment

GGGRRRRR!!!!! Warning today’s entry is a rant…

If you get an email about the “latest urgent virus warning” / “female steralizing rape drug” / “Conspiracy theory 101” please treat it with the same level of skeptisim as “world war in 2012 – says John Titor, time traveller”.

They’re all rubbish!!!! (well except maybe the time travel one, see here to make your mind up :D) and I have real issue with people blindly sending them on…

let me explain.

1. It wastes bandwidth pointlessly sending these messages round and round the internet – minor gripe.
2. If it was “SO” important, don’t you think at least one of the news sites, who check the facts properly, would be covering the story??
3. “It does no harm to be aware of the general issue, even if this one is rubbish” – YES IT DOES!!! Would you tell everyone the world was coming to an end if someone told you so in an email??? NO? …so why add worry/confusion/paranoia to an already confusing and stressful world. It’s a sliding scale people… the cut off point is FACT

Please, for my sanity, if nothing else… should you get one of these “urgent warnings” just take 2 secs to check on any search engine, hoax or anti virus site… and then bin it.

Urban Myths: Snopes
Virus Hoaxes: Symantec Hoax info
General (ie Both + more): Vmyths

If you find a real one, I’ll eat my hat. (as long as I can cover it in chocolate, caramel and fudge first)

on a slight tangent, please beware of SMS.ac a “free” sms website, which actually is free to send… it’s just they charge you to receive… I get about 1 invite a week from well meaning associates, don’t use them.

that will be all on the soapbox for now.