Mail Viruses - True or false? ("J OIN THE CREW" message)

[Andrew Mace]

On Thu, 19 Feb 1998, Jeremiah Cruit-Salzberg wrote:

> I keep seeing these don't open this or that message or your computer
> will spontaneously melt or whatever.  What I have always told everyone
> is that mail messages are in ASCII (or HTML) and that they can't hurt.
> That the only way you can be damaged by email is through attachments and
> that you should never open any you receive (except from friends and only
> after virus scanning)...Or if you
> can tell me how I might be wrong I would like to know so I can inform my
> customers appropriately....

One of the definitive sources of information on e-mail hoaxes is: 
<http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html>, the U.S. Department of
Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability site. They, among others,
seem to do a very thorough job of "debunking" JOIN THE CREW, GOOD TIMES
and the other "classic" hoaxes.

Hope that helps!

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  * Andrew Mace                         e-mail: amace at unix2.nysed.gov *
  * New York State Library              phone: (518) 474-8541 (voice) *
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