From: CHARLES HYMES Sent: Friday, January 31, 1997 11:21 AM To: PENNY HUBBARD; CHARLES HYMES Subject: Washington Post Article on my website Hi Penny, The fowwlowing is a Washington Post writeup of my web site. I think this will be of general use to HP people as well, and worth including in CSO Today. The HP internal URL is http://hf76560s.cup.hp.com/Charles_Hymes/Hoaxes/Think.html Thanks! Charles Hymes ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Casting a Skeptical Eye on Online Hoaxes = Washington Post Author: BART CODDINGTON at HP-Cupertino,om7 Date: 1/30/97 11:35 PM Casting a Skeptical Eye on Online Hoaxes By Linton Weeks (c) 1997, The Washington Post One of the newest hoaxes on the Internet is the Deeyenda Virus. Warnings tell folks not to open any e-mail or messages containing the word ``deeyenda'' or their computers will implode. The alert claims to be from the Federal Communications Commission. The truth is, the FCC doesn't issue virus alerts, the Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University does, and computers cannot be felled by simple e-mail, only by downloaded files. Gullible people, on the other hand, can be hornswoggled by anything. That's why Charles Hymes, 31, a designer at Hewlett-Packard, has a Web site called Don't Spread That Hoax! He lists a handful of false virus alerts and urban myths. An old hand at the Internet, Hymes said, ``I've seen so many of these hoaxes and legends go around; 10 years ago I saw the Neiman Marcus cookie story.'' He's referring to the popular Net myth about a woman who allegedly was charged $250 by the Dallas-based store for a cookie recipe. Out of revenge, supposedly, she e-mailed the recipe to any and everyone. The cookies are delicious; the story is not to be swallowed. Those sort of online shaggy-dog stories don't concern hoaxbuster Hymes too much. But the kidney harvesting story, he said, goes too far. The tale: A business traveler meets a seductive woman in a hotel bar. They return to his room. He passes out. When he wakes he discovers that he's in the bathtub, packed with ice. Taped to the wall is a note instructing him to call 911 and to be careful of the tube extruding from his lower back because his ``kidneys have been harvested.'' Last Friday, Hymes said, his Web site received hundreds of hits as the kidney-harvesting hoax flared up again among the recipients were MCI employees and scientists at the National Institutes of Health. This particular yarn, Hymes said, ``is insidious. The fact is: There is a terrible shortage of organ donations. This kind of thing makes donations seem so gruesome.'' Mary Ann Wirtz of the Richmond-based United Network for Organ Sharing, a clearinghouse for organ donations, said, ``This story clearly is untrue. In reality, there is a great shortage of donated organs, but organ donation is a careful, well-documented medical procedure. The truth that one donor can help as many as 25 people is more interesting than this fiction.'' But all the warnings and disclaimers in the world won't keep a good lie down. ``It is only a matter of time,'' Hymes writes, ``before someone's reputation, career or bank account is ruined by some out of control e-mail message.'' Once an untruth is posted, it's immediately multiplied a gazillion times. That not only ensures overnight notoriety, but credibility (especially when forwarded by reputable folks) and permanence. The Net, thought to be a perishable medium, is proving to be everlasting. One idea, as Mao Zedong said, lets a hundred flowers blossom. Or more apropos, one bird splat spreads forevermore. Thank goodness for the debunkers like Hymes who ferret out the frauds and expose the poseurs. But even Hymes has his blind spots. To wit, in another popular Net hoax, a ``hominid skull'' is sent to the Smithsonian as ``conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County 2 million years ago.'' In the clever reply, which is plastered all over the Internet, curator ``Harvey Rowe'' identifies the skull as the plastic head of a ``Malibu Barbie.'' When asked about the Smithsonian letter, Hymes laughed. ``According to my understanding of it,'' Hymes said, ``that really happened.'' It didn't. Randall Kremer, spokesman for the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, said, ``We don't have a paleo-anthropology division. And there's no curator named Harvey Rowe.'' According to folklorists, the myths and legends of the Internet can be traced back to fax machines, letters and traveling salesmen. In other words, the dangers of the Internet are as old as cave paintings. So are the proper responses: Use common sense. Don't talk to, or about, strangers. Don't believe everything you read. And, above all, remember the first rule of reporting: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. -0- GETTING THERE: Computer Emergency Response Team at http://www.cert.org ; Don't Spread That Hoax! at http://crew.umich.edu/(tilde)hymes/Hoaxes/Think.html and the alt.folklore.urban newsgroup, at http://www.urbanlegends.com where urban legends are discussed and skewered. LWviaNewsEDGE :SUBJECT: LIFE Copyright (c) 1997 The Los Angeles Times - Washington Post News Service Received by NewsEDGE/LAN: 1/31/97 2:14 AM