a piece of misinformation circulated as a deliberate prank; common on the Internet. ( Compare meme virus. Hoaxes usually arrive in email messages that say "mail this to all your friends" - that is, the hoaxer does not want you to post the message in a public forum where knowledgeable people might debunk it. The most common Internet hoaxes are the following:
- "A dying child (or maybe a charity) wants a gigantic number of postcards or a gigantic amount of e-mail." Nobody wants a gigantic amount of e-mail; e-mail costs money to receive.
One young cancer victim, Craig Shergold, did appeal for postcards in 1989; his story is told in the Guinness Book of World Records, and his family is begging for the flood of postcards to stop. Unfortunately, his story is still circulating, often with altered names and addresses.
- "Some branch of government, such as the FCC, is about to do something outlandish."
Sometimes these warnings come from well-meaning activists; more often they are pranks. In the 1970s a disgruntled license applicant started a rumor that the FCC was about to ban all religious broadcasting; the story is still circulating and the FCC can't afford to answer the flood of correspondence that it has generated. Newer hoaxes include a "modem tax" or bans on various uses of the Internet.
- "If you get e-mail titled 'Good times' (or 'Happy birthday' or 'Deeyenda' or something else), it will erase your hard disk (or do other great harm)."
Any file attached to e-mail could easily contain a virus or destructive program; do not open such files unless you are sure of their origin. However, the viruses described in these particular hoaxes apparently do not exist.
Any piece of e-mail that is designed to spur you to immediate action is likely to be a hoax; before passing it on, you should check it out with your system administrator, your local computer security team, or another knowledgeable person. Better yet, do a web search to see what you can find out about it. The web site www.snopes.comspecializes in debunking hoaxes and revealing the real facts. See also FOAF; pyramid scheme. Compare urban legend.
