Becky Worley is a Tech Live contributor and the author of "TechTV's Security Alert: Stories of Real People Protecting Themselves from Identity Theft, Viruses, and Scams." Tonight, Worley visits "The Screen Savers" to share real-life stories of hacking victims, people who have been victimized by online scams and hoaxes, and other technology horror stories. The following is an excerpt from Worley's book, in which she discusses common Internet hoaxes and tells you how you can report them if you're a target.
Don't fall for Web pranks
Bananas shipped from Costa Rica are infected with flesh-eating bacteria. A sick child desperately needs your help. The government wants to tax email service. Your computer has been infected with a virus that will erase your hard drive and the hard drives of everyone in your address book. There are millions of dollars waiting, unclaimed, in a foreign bank account, and your signature is all that's needed to claim them.
Sound startling? These warnings and promises would be, if they were true. But they're not; they are actually email hoaxes -- digital messages passed from person to person that warn readers about everything from fatal illnesses to computer viruses to what will happen to you if you don't immediately forward the message to 10 friends. They are supposed to startle you; this is a trickster or scammer's way of luring you in.
Hoax emails are the ingrown toenails on the stinky foot of the Web. They are the Web's version of prank phone calls, only more damaging, and sometimes truly dangerous. Forwarded by gullible newbies and even more gullible teenagers, a quality email hoax can spread across the globe in days and linger for years. They can tie up ISPs or convince people to purge their computers of fake viruses. In the very worst cases, people have died because they fell for Internet hoaxes perpetuated by true criminals.
The hoax writer is trying to target an unsuspecting audience. Why? He thinks he's smarter than you. The classic hoaxes are urban legends, threats of looming government action, requests for prayers offered up on behalf of a sick child, or the lure of free money if you "just forward this email to everyone you know." They're dumb jokes perpetuated by malicious practical jokers. Virus hoaxes fall into a similar category: they're the emails that claim that something terrible is attacking our computer. When we forward those letters, we waste our friends' time and slow down our companies' networks. And truly dangerous hoaxes are scams: attempts to bilk you out of money. For example, the Nigerian letter hoax promises extreme wealth but has led gullible victims to kidnapping, torture, and even death.
Most of us associate hoaxes with email, but not all hoaxes come direct to your inbox: some live on websites. One that threw even the FBI for a loop was BonsaiKitten.com. The site claims to be "dedicated to preserving the long lost art of body modification in house pets." It shows pictures of kittens squeezed into glass containers. Never mind that the photos were massively altered in Photoshop. The descriptions of how to prevent the animal from spoiling the pristine glass environment with its bodily waste were scientifically impossible, not to mention utterly ridiculous. However, the intended humor in the site's inane premise was lost on many of the millions of people who flocked to the page. A clever invention by an anonymous MIT student, the site made the Sophos security firm's top five list of hoaxes in early 2003. I heard the morning DJ's on one San Francisco radio station going berserk over the injustice and the cruelty. People called in ready to go to war over the kitty abuse, but it was all a ruse.
Unfortunately, this site -- however implausible it was -- became a hoax when presumably well-meaning writers wrote letters warning of the horror of science and giving the link. The incensed user, full of righteous indignation, links on -- sees kitties in jars and then forwards the original message to all of his kitty loving friends. Lo and behold, an email hoax is born.
Before you panic and forward any emails or believe outrageous websites, check the following websites to debunk hoaxes and online scams:
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TechTV's Security Alert: Stories of Real People Protecting Themselves from Identity Theft, Viruses, and Scams
