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Re: Watch viruses

To: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Watch viruses
From: Dave Barlow <thed@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 28 Nov 1997 09:11:07 -0000
Mmdf-warning: Parse error in original version of preceding line at post.mail.demon.net
Priority: low
Reply-to: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

From: Edy Van Asch <EVanAsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 28 November 1997 08:00
Subject: Watch viruses

>Dear list,
>
>Today I heard from IBM some brand new viruses have shown up.
>If anybody should receive an E-mail with subject 'JOIN THE CREW' or 'PENPAL
>GREETING', don't open it. If you do, it destroys everything on your hard
disk.
>The last mail contains a virus called 'Trojan horse', the first has no name
yet.
>The Trojan horse seems to mail itself to all addresses it can find in your
>post-offices.
>
>No solution is found yet to destroy any of them, nor is any virus-scanner
>watching them.
>Please be careful, I am not joking.

I would just like to assure everyone that the above is an example of an
Urban Legend. It is impossible to carry a virus in a plain text mail
message, though you can carry macro viruses in MS word attachments or
executables attached to mails. The pen pal greeting and Join the Crew virus
warnings have been in circulation for over a year, any virus scanner would
know be able to detect and sterilise them. The real virus is that these
messages scare people into thinking any mail may contain a virus.

For more information on this type of "virus" please go and see,
http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/good_times_virus_faq.html and
http://www.snopes.com or
http://x2.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?recnum=4207550&server=db96q5&CONTEXT=880707
911.625475980&hitnum=14 for a thorough debunking of this myth. Also look
around news:alt.folklore.urban  where these myths have already been
thoroughly debunked.

Edy, as a folklore debunker myself I would like to know who in IBM told you
this. They are acting in a way to panic people are passing on uninformed
information that is well know to be false.

Dave "just trying to help and quash old information" Barlow

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