Email virus alert a hoax

[loesch@viper.eh.doe.gov (Robert M. Loesch)]

The following was posted on the RISK listserv and is provided to put to
rest a recent posting.

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A posting to the Risk Forum suggests that the virus alert was a hoax.

The following message comes from:

RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest  Tuesday 6 December 1994  Volume 16 : Issue 61

FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS ACM Committee 
on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator [PGN]

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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 10:14:47 +0200
From: Yehuda Berlinger <yehuda@jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il> Subject: Virus 
alert virus alert

I have been inundated with virus alerts. Somehow, this virus alert has been 
propagating out of control. It must be a virus in the virus alert. (Note:I 
don't mean to belittle the alert, but there must be some way of controlling 
its propagation. I have received it 4 times now from different sources.)

>I have just received this message and been asked to take it >seriously: 
>There is a virus on America Online being sent by E-Mail.  If you get 
>anything called "Good Times", DON'T read it or download it.  It is a >virus 
that will erase your hard drive.  Forward this to all your >friends.
>It may help them alot.

[I suppose you are lucky you only got 4 copies. But it appears to be a 
complete hoax, as suspected by Rob Furr <rfurr@jazz.ncren.net>, who was 
amused at the close timing of the AOL message and Michael Slavitch's item in 
RISKS-16.60, and who added
There are idiots in the world who think it's awfully funny to cry "Wolf" as 
soon as someone else notices that it's theoretically possible that wolves 
exist.  Rob F.
PGN]

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* Robert M. Loesch                                   *
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