Hoaxes vs. Reality

With the advent of the Internet, our whole way of communicating has changed. And with it, a new vehicle to publish and distribute hoaxes and urban legends has grown up. Even whole businesses designed to profit from the general public's fears, ignorance and self-doubts stalk the web. Because computers appear so complex (they are nothing more than over-grown adding machines, after all), and because the way computers function can seem magical at first, folks tend to allow themselves to believe the most ridiculous statements propagated on the 'net.

This website is to help you educate yourself into becoming more self-reliant with your Macintosh -- and part of that self-reliance is the development of critical thinking skills we have woefully abandoned in the last several decades. Mac users are generally quite independently-minded, and rail against the herd mentality that is society today. It is true that many, many other computer users (Unix-based and Windows) share that independent streak. But many more folks around the world are constantly fooled into believing the most ludicrous of claims, simply because it came as a forwarded email from a friend or was posted on a website in an authoritative manner. We invite you to begin to think critically again. Save yourself from the onslaught of dumb email chain letters, or propagating misleading or inaccurate information.

How? Start here. Educate yourself about hoaxes, hogwash, and SPAM (unwanted email). We've collected some links below to help you discover for yourself whether that email forward will magically gain you millions, or if that virus that hit your Windows friends poses any threat to you.

Perhaps it is the nature of our company, but on a daily basis, we are asked if Macs are more expensive than Windows computers. The answer is NO. In fact, the reasons why may surprise you. On the bottom of every web page on our site, we have a THINK box. Selecting the box with a click takes you to our page comparing Macs to Windows, a collection of mind exercises and summaries from a variety of sources to back up our position that owning a Macintosh costs far, far less than any Windows-based computer. Click HERE for more information.
Viruses are a reality in the computing world. However, every week, some well-meaning soul sends out an alert that a virus is posed to collapse the Internet, or will shut down all of the computers running electric utilities at midnight. Well, if you take some time to think about how viruses work, you'll realize that Macintosh computers cannot be affected by the large majority of Windows-based viruses. Macs running OS 9 or earlier have about 40 known viruses (there are no known viri for Mac OS X) whereas Windows systems face several tens of thousands. Because Macs use a completely different chip to run their calculations (There is no Intel Inside warning label on a Mac), Windows viruses cannot affect a Mac.

There are exceptions to this -- most notably from Microsoft's Macro feature in MS Word and Excel... these are cross-platform and "macro-viruses only" affect those applications. But if your gullible acquaintance sends your Mac a DOS executable file and claims it is a virus, do not panic. Politely remind them that it is poor computing etiquette to send a file attachment without prior permission. Politely remind them that you have a Macintosh and .exe files aren't of interest to you. And politely suggest that they read this web page for more information. If they are alerting you (and hundreds of others via a mass emailing) to the latest scare of the week, this is also impolite as it wastes your time. Before bothering hundreds of folks with SPAM, they might be wise to visit one of the anti-virus sites to confirm that their topic is indeed legit. Many are not. Selections from two of the anti-virus companies for the Mac offer sound resources for researching viruses:

Symantec (SAM and NAM): http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
Network Associates (Virex): http://www.nai.com/asp_set/anti_virus/library/hoaxes.asp
Hoaxes: Anything Free Isn't. A broader class of hoaxes on the Internet include free copies of commercial software (it is illegal to download unlicensed copies of Excel, System 8, FileMaker, Quicken or Myst -- this is called WAREZ and is a form of pirating or theft), for-pay Internet services for free (AOL4FREE, as opposed to truly free services such as found on some search engine sites), Geeks Bearing Gifts, free Beer, free airline tickets and so forth. Because these hoaxes waste so much computer time and steal the resources of companies worldwide, the U.S. Department of Energy has posted a site to list many of the common hoaxes: http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html

Several other fine anti-hoax and myth-busting sites are available on the web, such as: http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/hoax.html and
http://kumite.com/myths (this is an excellent site, 'though you may not like what you read)

and for special mention, the most annoying hoax is the internet taxation bill still making circles, http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/Folklore/Hoaxes/1999_bill_602p.hoax
Chain letters are another form of hoaxes. These are more wasteful than most other hoaxes because they choke your email in box, and waste your personal time (or company time) dealing with them. For some reason -- the Bill Gates class of hoaxes fall into this category frequently, where he will send you money or donate money to some worthwhile charity in your name if you SPAM a dozen friends with junk email. Folks, stew on this: why would Gates want to send you money? And while we all have rational and irrational fears about Big Brother Government and the capabilities of computers, there is no technology today that will record everywhere a chain letter goes, nor is there an organization on the planet that will give you money for nothing. Let me put it another way: are you willing to send me money if I simply ask you to in an email? If so, please, email me privately (and quite quickly, too). Otherwise, as my sixth grade teacher Mrs. Brookes would say, "Did you forget to think again?" Check out the DOE's chain letter site here: http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACChainLetters.html
Urban Legends. (This has little to do with computers). An acquaintance swears a Friend of a Friend (FOAF) had actually seen Elvis (Presley) at a frat party at Virginia Tech in the early 90's. All the statements that Elvis was probably quite dead at the time would not dissuade the guy. Now, I've seen a lot of things at VPI frat parties, so I don't want to completely discount the extremely remote possibility that Elvis was indeed partying in spirit in Blacksburg, perhaps with Jim Morrison and Ms. Monroe, but really now... Yet, thousands of folks honestly believe this stuff, along with hundreds of other stories presented with sincerity by the teller, with some facts thrown in to try to legitimize the tale, but ultimately this stuff is a load of male cow manure: Does buying a product contribute money to Satan? Is a preschooler's TV character GAY? Is the HIV virus the product of a class war?

Frankly, this nonsense needs to stay inside the Washington DC beltline where we isolate many of the nation's leading idiots (don't you feel sorry for the people who actually live there?). Yet this stupidity is propagated by people who claim to be leaders of our political and religious landscape. Why we don't banish them to enemy countries I'll never know. Perhaps Saddam made a secret deal to behave if we didn't send certain Senators or Ministers his way -- international politics is complicated. Nonetheless, several fine books such as the "Choking Doberman" have been published on the topic of urban legends, along with some good websites: http://urbanlegends.about.com/ -- none are true, but they do make great stories to tell!
Pointers for helping to reduce SPAM and Hoaxes:
- Don't forward Urgent notices, jokes, attachments, virus warnings, or the latest gossip without prior permission of the recipient. If you do have permission, be polite and trim off all of the headers and non-essential information from the notice.
- No dying children need email as a last wish to save their lives. This is just cruel.
- Question the source of your information. Heck, question me ! Many, many folks who have computers think they are now experts -- or that what applies to them applies to all. Nonexpert opinion is often presented as fact. One website refers to this as the False Authority Syndrome. Even computer sales personnel and technicians are frequently misinformed about computers, viruses, and hoaxes.
- Reading an email will not infect your Macintosh, but downloading and opening an attachment may. [Note: there are some Windows email messages that can replicate themselves if Windows patches to the software is not regularly patched and repaired.]
- You will NOT get rich sending email, (or signing others up for Multilevel Marketing or Pyramid Schemes)
- The sun will rise on January 1, and the prophets of doom will revise their story yet again.
- No corporation is giving away goods that required them to spend money to produce. Don't let someone sell you greed.
- This should be obvious, but: NEVER reveal your on-line passwords or IDs to anyone via email. Nor should you give out your credit card, bank account, social security number or any personal information unless you initiated the transaction (eCommerce) -- and this should always be done on a secure site (SSL), not by open email. If someone comes to you for that information, they are likely not legit and should probably be introduced to your local law enforcement agency. Obviously, if you called an ISP or company for technical support or to place an order, this information may be legitimately required for them to offer you assistance -- only if you called them.
- No government agency is planning on taxing modems or banning the free speech of political or religious organizations on the web. However, local phone companies would love to find a way to surcharge your internet use for profit, so it behooves you to pay attention to your phone bill and be civically active in rate proposals by your utilities. Ignorance and apathy causes more harm than attentiveness.
- And if you really want to fight SPAM, the U. S. Federal Trade Commission would love your help. Visit their website for information on notifying them of corporate spammers: http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/complaint.htm. They have a complaint form set up for you.

Web links are subject to change without notification. If one of the above links fails, please tell us so we can correct or eliminate the broken link: webmaster@afterhoursconsulting.org