[4180] in WWW Security List Archive
DON'T DO THIS! (please!) Re: i'm sorry :)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Harmon)
Wed Jan 29 13:48:02 1997
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 10:41:07 -0500
From: Jim Harmon <jim@telecnnct.com>
To: Justin Robbins <jmr@rmisp.com>
Cc: www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu, Firewalls@GreatCircle.COM
Errors-To: owner-www-security@ns2.rutgers.edu
#1! Chainletters are Illegal (snailmail) in the United States. Why
should they be legal on the Internet?
My standard reply to folks who send these stupid virus and chainletter
e-mails:
Someone has sent out a message in the form of a Chain Letter, called
"Good Times". It promises that if you send 20 copies out, you will
enjoy "good times" in your life, but that if you DON'T send out AT LEAST
20 copies, you'll reap disaster... everything from Cancer to disk-drive
deletion. Someone caught on to the Chain-Letter idea, and decided to
WARN EVERYONE about the danger of this "virus".
Trouble is that everyone who resends the WARNING is doing EXACTLY what
the Good Times message (now "penpal?") was TRYING to do... increase
E-MAIL VOLUME.
Here's how:
1 person e-mails 20
21 mail 20 each or 420
421 mail 20 each or 8,420
8,421 mail 20 each or 168,420
168,421 mail 20 each or 3,368,420
3,368,421 mail 20 each or 67,368,420
67,368,421 mail 20 each or 1,347,368,420
Since there are only 30-50 million people on the Internet, this "virus"
scare is intended to generate enough mail to stuff millions of mailboxes
with mail, mostly mail "warning against the deadly Goodtimes Virus".
If ENOUGH mail is being sent at the same time, NO MAIL WILL GET THROUGH,
theoretically. That's what "denial of service" means.
Justin Robbins wrote:
>
> >Return-Path: <casper@netnitco.net>
> >X-Sender: casper@netnitco.net
> >Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 16:25:38 -0600
> >To: bigal@netnitco.net, val@netnitco.net, ngibson@athena.valpo.edu,
> > primeaub@netnitco.net, osiris@netnitco.net, moonie@netnitco.net,
> > skellogg@netnitco.net, stevea@netnitco.net, jmr@netnitco.net,
> > des@netnitco.net
> >From: Mike <casper@netnitco.net>
> >Subject: i'm sorry :)
> >
> >>Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 16:15:26 -0600 (CST)
> >>X-Sender: bsherman@netnitco.net
> >>To: (Recipient list suppressed)
> >>From: Bill Sherman <bsherman@netnitco.net>
> >>Subject: i'm sorry :)
> >>
(over 2000 forward messages deleted)
--
Jim Harmon The Telephone Connection
jim@telecnnct.com Rockville, Maryland
