On Mon, 25 Aug 1997 19:58:20 -0400, "Howard J. Brown" posted a couple of hundred lines (mostly headers) including dire warnings about email messages with the titles "JOIN THE CREW" and "PENPAL GREETINGS!". Do *NOT* forward this kind of stuff. Instead refer to http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/ and in particular http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html which begins: Internet Hoaxes Hoaxes described on this page: PKZ300, Irina, Good Times, Good Times Spoof, Deeyenda, Ghost , PENPAL GREETINGS!, Make Money Fast, NaughtyRobot, AOL4FREE, Join the Crew Last modified: Tuesday, 05-Aug-97 12:12:00 PDT You are the 324952nd visitor to this page. For information on Internet Chain Letters, check the New CIAC web page located at http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACChainLetters.html The Internet is constantly being flooded with information about computer viruses and Trojans. However, interspersed among real virus notices are computer virus hoaxes. While these hoaxes do not infect systems, they are still time consuming and costly to handle. At CIAC, we find that we are spending much more time de-bunking hoaxes than handling real virus incidents. This page describes many of the hoax warnings that are found on the Internet today. We will also address some of the history of hoaxes on the Internet, how to identify a new hoax warning, how to identify a validated warning and what to do if you think a message is a hoax. Users are requested to please not spread unconfirmed warnings about viruses and Trojans. If you receive an unvalidated warning, don't pass it to all your friends, pass it to your computer security manager to validate first. Validated warnings from the incident response teams and antivirus vendors have valid return addresses and are usually PGP signed with the organization's key. -- Jeff Woods [log in to unmask] at Unison Software [log in to unmask] at home [PGP key available here via finger] "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book." -- Ronald Reagan