Re: Hoax (Re: [Fwd: Fwd: Fw: [Fwd: FW: New Virus Alert]])

[leslie bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

Yo Intl. wrote:
>
> "Good Times" never dies, it just gets recycled with a new name.
> Makes one wonder about the internet and its collective wisdom,
> doesn't it.
>

Rene,

It certainly _does_ make you wonder!

There are things I love about the Internet--placing orders for books and
CDs, and accessing library catalogs for bibliographical information, and
learning more about XyWrite from our Wise Persons being chief among
them. However, the downside is the infobabble. But then, this is the age
of infobabble. Or should I say just babble. I have seen people punching
up numbers on cell phones while crossing the street. While jaywalking
across the street in fact. I have been bumped into by pedestrians
cellphoning to tell Whoever they are right around the corner. I have
seen baseball fans sitting in the seats just behind home plate, where
they are seen on the standard shot camera from Center Field cellphoning
away instead of watching the game. And of course we have e-mail. Click
and send. Don't think.

I first saw "Good Times" in 1993 or 1994 (I think) and to be honest with
you I was about to forward it. Then I thought, "whoa! Wait a minute.
This doesn't make sense. I looked at the text before me, and I used "ze
leetle grey cells"--just as I do here in this "deconstruction."

Behold: The text, as posted to this list yesterday:

> >Subject:  New Virus
> >>
> >> WARNING: If you receive an email with a file called "California", do
> not
> >> open the file. The file contains the WOBBLER virus.

> >> This information was announced yesterday morning from IBM.

This is, of course, designed to scare you, as doubtless the two ninth
graders who found the old Good Times virus text somewhere realized. Wow!
IBM. Big stuff. But is IBM in the virus detection business? Anyway, if
IBM announced it yesterday morning, it would have been in the papers and
on radio and TV by now, eh?

>>> AOL states
> that
> >> this is a very dangerous virus, much worse than "Melissa", and that
> there
> >is
> >> NO remedy for it at this time.
> >>

And the other heavy hitter, du jour. Good old AOL. If they found such a
virus and knew of no rememdy one would assume that they would have
immediately shut down the system, and that the news would have been all
over the place. And notice how they got that reference to "Melissa" in.

> >> Some very sick individual has succeeded in using the reformat function
> >from
> >> Norton Utilities causing it to completely erase all documents on the
> hard
> >> drive.


Ah. The Ninth Graders have added a bit of their own cleverness here.
While the IBM and AOL references are designed to curl Old Aunt Bea's
hennaed hair, this sentence is designed to suck in the knowledgeable. I
salute the Ninth Graders for their try, but again, a moment's thought
would again alert one to realize that if bad things were happening chez
Symantic, they would have immediately issued their own alert.

>>> It has been designed to work with Netscape Navigator and
> Microsoft
> >> Internet Explorer.
> >>

Back to scaring Aunt Bea. No doubt she has one or the other (although
she probably doesn't know which one--Uncle Max installed something for
her and she just points and clicks).

[oh excuse me--I didn't mean to sound sexist. Sometimes the
knowledgeable Amanda installs software for newbie Jason. I know this. I
promise to be cheering like hell for the U.S. Women's Soccer Team today!
;-)]

> >> It destroys Macintosh and IBM compatible computers.
> >>

And it makes your cat throw up hairballs for a solid hour, reformats
your cable system so that all you receive is CSPAN, and causes every
auto alarm on your block to go off simultaneously. I mean, really, if
you've believed everything you've read in the warning to know, this
should be the clincher. How does it destroy the computer. Do they blow
up? Do they burst into flames? Or what?


> >> This is a new, very malicious virus and not many people know about it.
> >>

Ah, well. Considering how fast non-news travels over the Internet in the
age of Matt Drudge, how could it possibly be that not many people know
about it? This, too, is part of the original Good Times Text. Our kids
were getting bored and just cut and pasted again.


> >> Pass this warning along to EVERYONE in your address book and please
> share
> >it
> >> with all your online friends ASAP so that this threat may be stopped.
> >>
> >

And of course this is exactly what the kids wanted you to do.

What can you do? I'm still getting the chain letter about the FCC
charging for e-mails, and the one about NEA funding, and there are still
those who think it was Kurt Vonnegut who made that non-commencement
speech.

Salud!

--

Leslie Bialler
Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx

"When you're building your own creation, nothing's better than real but
a real imitation."
--Aimee Mann