From crispen@INTERNIC.NET Wed Dec 3 22:47:29 1997
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 17:41:29 -0500
From: crispen@INTERNIC.NET
Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: TOURBUS -- 27 NOVEMBER 1997 -- SPAM!
This post contains inline ASCII graphics which look best in a monospace
font like Courier. Text-to-speech readers should turn off punctuation now.
_________ ____________ ________ __________ _____________ ___ _
/ | / | | / | \
| | CHOCLETHOUSE | / | \
|__________|__________/__________|__________|___________/ | \
/ /______|----\
| Santa Says... The most mouthwatering chocolates on |//////| |
| the Web and sugar-free chocolates you cannot believe |//////| |
| are at ChocletHouse. Order now online or by phone. |//////| |
| Sent fresh anywhere in the USA now or in December. |//////| |
| Get 10% discount on chocolates. |//////| |
| Visit http:/www.Choclethouse.com OR |//////| |
| Dial 1-800-246-2538 |//////| |
\________________________________________________________|______|____|
/ \ / \ / \
\___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S): THE THIRD "FIRST ANNUAL SPAM POST"
TODAY'S ADDRESSES: ummm ...
Howdy, y'all!
By now, everyone should be well aware that my beloved Crimson Tide football
team lost last weekend to the Blathering Heathens of "Cow Poly" (better
known as AU@WO -- Auburn University at West Opelika). Seriously, though, I
want to congratulate Auburn for the win, and (as much as I hate to admit
this) I will be rooting for them in the upcoming Southeastern Conference
finals.
With that said, let's pay a few bills (by the way, don't forget to take a
look at today's bus logo).
+---------------------------- SAVE MONEY! ---------------------------+
Refill your inkjet printer. Black ink: $21.95/pint.
Color: $23.95/pint. Call 1-888-728-2465
or visit our website
+-------------- --------------+
And now, on with the third "First Annual TOURBUS Thanksgiving Spam" post. :)
Happy Turkey Day, y'all! (For those bus riders not in the United States,
every fourth Thursday in November is Thanksgiving, a holiday where we
celebrate the one day in history that we were nice to the Native Americans.
We celebrate Thanksgiving by consuming vast quantities of turkey -- my
parents plan to cook a 20 pound bird to feed our family of four -- followed
by the ritualistic watching of football (by the men) and the final approval
of tactical war plans for the Christmas shopping season (by the women)).
It is customary for the turkey growers of America to give the President of
the United States a free, live turkey. It is also customary for the
President to grant the turkey a Presidential pardon and to place the turkey
in a petting zoo. This year, as in the past two years that I have made
this same joke, while President Clinton was making up his mind about the
pardon and the Republicans in the House were debating a continuing
resolution to override the President's pardon and to condemn the President
for being soft on poultry (and while the Republicans were also asking for
the Attorney General's resignation for her failure to appoint a special
prosecutor to investigate the "Turkeygate" scandal), the turkey died of old
age.
Anyway, since today is "turkey day," I think it would be appropriate to
take a few moments to talk about the _REAL_ turkeys of the Internet: the
"spammers." On the Internet, the word "spam" has two meanings:
1. A canned luncheon meat with the shelf life of gravel; and
2. Inappropriate e-mail letters, oftentimes advertisements, that
are sent to hundreds of thousands of people on the Internet.
If you want a good overview of the second definition, I recommend that you
take a look at ROADMAP96 workshop lesson 9 ("Spamming and Urban Legends").
You can retrieve this lesson for free by sending an e-mail letter to
LISTSERV@UA1VM.UA.EDU
(that's "you-ay-won-vee-em") with the command
GET MAP09 LESSON F=MAIL
in the body of your e-mail letter. Lesson 9 gives you a little longer
definition of what a spam is, and it also tells you what you should do if
you ever see a spam.
Most people make the distinction between "spams" and "urban legends." I
don't. In my mind, there are deliberate spams which are mostly
advertisements that are posted to thousands of LISTSERV lists and Usenet
newsgroups, and inadvertent spams which are e-mail letters that sound true
and which readers decide to forward to all of their friends. The end
effect of both is identical.
The inadvertent spams are the hardest to spot, because they seem to be
legitimate. Here are some of the most prevalent inadvertent spams on the
Net today:
THE "SICK" KID
--------------
MYTH:
A child that you have never met is dying of some rare form of brain
disease/cancer/scurvy. The child's desperate last plea is that you:
1. Send him business cards/get well cards/vitamin C enriched
fruit so that the dying child can make it into some book of
records for having the most business cards/get well
cards/nectarines.
2. Forward an e-mail letter to all of your friends, and some
foundation will donate 5 cents/10 cents/1 large grapefruit to
some unnamed "let's find a cure for this kid's disease" group.
3. Forward an e-mail letter around the Net forever, so that the
kid's memory will live on in the e-mail boxes of cyberspace.
TRUTH:
All of these stories are well-known hoaxes. In fact, we've talked about
all of these before (most recently in my TOURBUS post of July 3rd).
Remember, not only are these stories untrue, they also hurt legitimate
organizations that are trying to help children who really are sick.
VIRUSES IN E-MAILS
------------------
MYTH:
E-mail letters containing the subject line Good Times, Deeyenda, Irina,
AOL4FREE, Join The Crew, or Penpal Greetings contain viruses.
TRUTH:
Here is my standard reply (which you are free to steal):
Regular, plain-text e-mail letters -- the plain old vanilla e-mail letters
(like this one) that you receive every day -- can *NOT* contain viruses or
trojan horses. Period. It does not matter what you may have heard from
your friends, co-workers, newspaper, government, or religious leaders.
Plain e-mail letters can not contain viruses or trojan horses. It does
not matter WHAT the subject line of the letter is -- "Good Times," "Penpal
Greetings," "Deeyenda," "Irina," "AOL4FREE," "JOIN THE CREW," "I AM A
REALLY MEAN VIRUS AND I AM GOING TO EAT YOUR HARD DRIVE" -- plain text
e-mail letters simply can not contain viruses or trojan horses. If anyone
tells you otherwise, they are either lying or are badly misinformed.
Files that are attached to e-mail letters -- like Lotus or Excel
spreadsheet files and *especially* Microsoft Word files -- can, and
probably do, contain viruses and trojan horses. How can you protect
yourself? VIRUS CHECK EVERY SINGLE ATTACHMENT THAT YOU RECEIVE THROUGH
E-MAIL (AND EVERY SINGLE FILE THAT YOU DOWNLOAD FROM THE INTERNET). If
your boss, best friend, worst enemy, family pet, significant other,
insignificant other, teacher, tribal member, or political leader sends you
a file attached to an e-mail document, VIRUS CHECK THAT FILE. It does not
matter what the subject line of the e-mail letter to which that file is
attached is called. VIRUS CHECK THAT FILE!
THE $250 COOKIE RECIPE
----------------------
MYTH:
A person is charged "two-fifty" for a cookie recipe, he thinks that
"two-fifty" is $2.50, and he decides to get revenge by sending the recipe
to everyone he can.
TRUTH:
It is a lie, and the cookies really aren't all that great. You can find a
MUCH better cookie recipe (mine) at
.
GERBER REBATE
-------------
MYTH:
Gerber (the baby food company) lost a class action suit for overcharging
its customers. As a result, Gerber is giving a $500
savings bond to every child born between 1985 and 1997.
TRUTH:
As much as McCuaughey's can use $3,500 in savings bonds (they're the family
that recently gave birth to septuplets), the story about Gerber giving out
savings bonds simply is not true. Gerber was not part of any price-fixing
litigation. For more information, check out
.
That's it for this turkey day. Have a great and safe weekend!
--------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY
--------------------------------
COAL (noun). A common sickness.
Usage: "I aint coming to work ... I has a coal."
(Special thanks to Dr. Franklin Drucker today's wurd)
YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN WORD
HOMEPAGE AT http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/word.html
=--------------------------------------------------------------------=
For info on my book "Atlas for the Information Superhighway"
Visit http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/atlas.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------
=====================[ TOURBUS Rider Information ]===================
The Internet TOURBUS - U.S. Library of Congress ISSN #1094-2238
Copyright 1995-97, Rankin & Crispen - All rights reserved
Archives on the Web at http://www.TOURBUS.com
Join: Send SUBSCRIBE TOURBUS Your Name to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Leave: Send SIGNOFF TOURBUS to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
PROMOTE your business on the Internet TOURBUS. Reach over 80,000
people in a Net-friendly way. Our sponsors say "It works!"
Make it work for you - contact BobRankin@MHV.net for details.
Editors: Reprint TOURBUS in your publication for free - Ask me how.
Send this copy to 3 friends and tell them to hop on the Bus!
=====================================================================
.~~~. ))
(\__/) .' ) )) Patrick Douglas Crispen
/o o \/ .~ Network Solutions Inc. / The InterNIC
{o_, \ { Business E-mail: crispen@internic.net
/ , , ) \ Personal E-mail: crispen@brigadoon.com
`~ '-' \ } )) http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/
_( ( )_.'
'---..{____} Warning: squirrels.
