As a general rule, real alerts will just point you to URLs. One day, this will backfire, as the example I have in my presentation about getting people to sites that have exploits. But the main reason real alerts will just point to URLs stems from organizations that always have a secondary motive of driving up their site hit counts. (I reinforce what Crispin says also.) Jimmy -----Original Message----- From: Crispin Cowan To: HORN Dan E Cc: CRIME (E-mail) Sent: 10/15/01 11:57 AM Subject: Re: True or False? HORN Dan E wrote: > I was sent the following email and was wondering if anyone knew if it > were true or just another hoax? It sounds fishy to me: > Anything that says "Forward to all you know" and does NOT have a DATE in the text (headers don't count) is a hoax. Even if it was well-intentioned when posted, the combination of "forward me" and no-date means that it is an infectious human-borne virus (especially virulent among the gullible, naive, and generally stupid :-) that will circulate on the net more-or-less forever. Never, ever forward anything that says "forward me" and no-date, no matter how credible it seems. If you think it is legitimate, then demand primary sources from the person that sent it to you, and get them to put a date in the text. Make sure the date includes the year. Crispin, surfing the Internet since 1986 > Subject: Warning - Do Not Open Blue Envelopes in your U.S. Mail > ONCE YOU HAVE READ THIS PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL YOU KNOW. > > This is from Schwab corporate headquarters-so it's no joke. Very > scary > -- Crispin Cowan, Ph.D. Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com Security Hardened Linux Distribution: http://immunix.org Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html
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