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Subject: A FOR REAL VIRUS WARNING TO ALL RE: PRETTY PARK -- and more
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 18:02:12 EDT

In all my years on-line, I have encountered so many virus scares and warnings
that it is beyond the realm of estimating. Add to that all the
junk/scare/please help e-mail chain letter scams and you approach infinity.

It has always amazed me at how folks are so easily fooled by these
Cyber-Legends. None of the chain letters work or are legit. It is rare any of
the virus scares have any merit. Just taking a moment to stop and think about
most of them -- before hitting that forward button -- should easily reveal
their falsity, by the nonsense they involve or state. It seems no one fully
reads them and simply forwards them by habit.

This e-mail is to mount a campaign to stop such things. I know one person
that has become so paranoid from reading such e-mails, that she refuses to do
anything but read e-mail (no download, no upload, no surfing, etc.). Next
time you get such an e-mail, consider sending the "generic paranoia" at the
end of this e-mail, to the sender. It is a tongue-in-cheek compilation of
many of the more common chain e-mail scares and -- to me -- is a good and
humorous way to make the point.

This e-mail is also to do 2 more things.

1) Advise you of a web site called ABOUT.COM.

This web site is about such e-mails. All the scams, please help, forward for
luck, free beer, free vacation, etc., chain mails are here. You can find ALL
of these scams on this site -- or at least a variant of them (yes -- folks
change them and recirculate them). You can read how false they are or if they
have any merit at all.

You can also look up virus scares.

The next time you get a chain letter/warning e-mail -- go to this site before
you forward ANYTHING. Use the search engine to look for the "keyword" and
read about whatever topic for which you just got an e-mail about. The URL is:

http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/library/blhoax.htm


2) After all these years, I have actually encountered a virus. A REAL VIRUS.
I have received it from no less than 5 people, so far. The virus is called
PRETTY PARK.EXE.

If you get an e-mail with this attached -- do not download and run it -- no
matter who it appears to be from.

The virus works by spreading itself via e-mail. If someone sends you an
e-mail, the virus also sends you an e-mail (a second one in most cases) with
a copy of itself attached. The second e-mail came from the noted senders
computer -- but they are unaware this has happened. TELL THEM!

Go to the site named in #1 above, and search for PRETTY PARK and read about
how to get rid of this thing.

In closing, the generic scare response, promised above:

>I was on my way to the post office to pick up my case of free M&M's,
>(sent to me because I forwarded their e-mail to five other people,
>celebrating the fact that the year 2000 is "MM" in Roman numerals), when
>I ran into a friend whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering
>from having been served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken -
>which is predictable, since as everyone knows, there's no actual chicken
>in Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is why the government made them change
>their name to KFC.
>Anyway, one day this guy went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his
>bathtub and it was full of ice and he was sore all over and when he got
>out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEYS HAD BEEN STOLEN. He saw a
>note on his mirror that said "Call 911!" but he was afraid to use his
>phone because it was connected to his computer, and there was a virus on
>his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened e-mail entitled
>"Join the crew!" He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a
>computer programmer who was working on software to prevent a global
>disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute the
>$250.00 Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill Gates.
>(It's true - I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES
>HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and
>$5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.) The poor man
>then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys,
>but a voice on the line first asked him to press #90, which unwittingly
>gave the bandit full access to the phone line at the guy's expense. Then
>reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected
>needle around which was wrapped around a note that said, "Welcome to the
>world of AIDS," Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital - the one
>where that little boy who is dying of cancer is, the one whose last wish is
>for
>everyone in the world to send him an e-mail and the American Cancer
>Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every e-mail he receives.
>I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of X's and O's in
>the shape of an angel (if you get it and forward it to more than 10
>people, you will have good luck but for 10 people you will only have OK
>luck and if you send it to fewer than 10 people you will have BAD
>LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS). So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to
>the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving without
>its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights at him and was
>promptly shot as part of a gang initiation. Send THIS to all the
>friends who send you their junk mail and you will receive 4 green m&ms,
>but if you don't the owner of Proctor and Gamble will report you to
>their Satanist friends and you will have more bad luck: you will get
>cancer from the Sodium Laureth Sulfate in your shampoo, your wife
>will develop breast cancer from using the antiperspirant which clogs
>the pores under your arms, and the government will put a tax on your
>e-mails forever. I know this is all true 'cause I read it on the Internet.

Terry Lunsford

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