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Click Here to Read some sample hoaxes
Anyone, Even a novice or newbie can learn to identify an email hoax!
Who knows why anyone would want to send out mass email with a focus on tricking or scaring the readers or worse, having them do something in response that could be harmful to themselves (medical hoaxes) or to their computer (virus hoaxes).
I suppose that outside of cyberville, this is the same person that loosens the lid on the salt shaker in the restaurant (annoying but harmless - mostly) or upscale (more like downscale) the person that thinks it's "funny" to put sugar in someone's gas tank.
No matter what the purpose we don't have to take it! Knowledge is power and power is not hitting the forward button every time you get a scary urban legend in your email box - even when you get a funny urban legend, it's no excuse to feed the spammers all those email addresses! Remember the rules for forwarding - remove all email addresses contained in the email, use the bcc field so you don't give your friend's email addresses to anyone and take out the lines that tell you to forward to everyone you know or "else"....
Look for clues to tell you if your email is a hoax
While there is no guarantee that the following tips will tell you with complete certainty if the email you just got is a hoax, there are some commonalities that can help you make up your mind.
The simplest way to determine the validity of your email is to search the web with some of the key phrases to see if you can find anyone who tells the same story and check some of the sites who maintain databases of hoaxes to see if your email has a starring role.
Clues
to look for to determine an email's validity
If
the email is telling you something "secret" or if you have
never heard even a little about it elsewhere
- |
Does
it tell you to forward it to everyone you know and
even those you don't??? |
Did the person who sent it to you write it? If not it's a clue. |
Is
there any reference to someone,
something, somewhere that verifies
the information? |
If you find yourself laughing, or even a smirk on your face while being told the product you use daily is causing cancer. it's a clue |
Is it information or an impassioned debate? If it sounds like it was written by the captain of the debate team. it's a clue |
Is it logical? Is any of it common sense? Are there things you know to be false? it's a clue |
If there are a lot of WORDS IN CAPITALS and lots and lots of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - it's a clue |
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