Whats wrong with forwarding virus alerts and petitions?
99% of them are hoaxes. And people who forward these things often do a mass mailing using the TO: or CC: lines thus exposing the addresses of their friends to everybody else. People have been known to use the addresses for their own unrelated purposes or even sell them to spammers. If you cannot resist forwarding a message that appears important, save yourself some embarrassment and check out the message first. There are two great sites to check the validity of the virus alerts and petitions: For virus hoaxes, http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html For petitions and stories about pesticides on soda cans, missing kidneys, Tommy Hilflinger, etc., http://urbanlegends.about.com/ Q: I’m receiving notices that messages I’ve sent are infected with a virus but I never sent the message nor do I know the recipient. What gives? A: The latest viruses (SoBig, BugBear, etc.) mask the real sender as part of their nefarious scheme to take over the world. For example, say John Ashcroft’s computer b
