[3705] in WWW Security List Archive
Just a rumor NOT a virus
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Albert Lunde)
Wed Dec 4 21:18:14 1996
To: www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 18:01:54 -0600 (CST)
In-Reply-To: <199612042029.JAA14271@nzls42.tssc.wlg.nec.co.jp> from "Hugh McNeill" at Dec 5, 96 09:29:25 am
Reply-To: Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu (Albert Lunde)
From: Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu (Albert Lunde)
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
Hugh McNeill wrote:
> > Is it authentic?
> Partially. The email scaryness and hype are all trash. The only way you can
No, the particular virus rumor that was quoted at the start of this
thread is not _in any way_ authentic. The resources that people
have already cited clearly state that it is a hoax.
Just because there is _some way_ to transmit a virus that
sounds somehow similar to a rumor does not mean the rumor is true
or "partially authentic". (I don't want to hear a technical
discussion of what can and can't be sent in e-mail, either,
that's also in the references from CIAC).
This fallacy caused confusion between the (real) word macro threat
and the (hoax) "Good Times" virus rumor and helped spread the
rumor further.
In several years on 50+ mailing lists I've hear all the virus
rumors cited in the CIAC blurb, but I've never heard one
such repeatedly forwarded warning that was both timely and true.
