The Virus Is Us

Those emails that promise us or warn us about something by sending out the very same emails to everyone on our list are becoming known as voluntary viruses, or viramail, because all a virus wants to do is spread, and we’re the suckers actually sending them out to people, with our full knowledge.

You’ll see offers, like the one for Outback Steakhouse, the one about Old Navy, Microsoft, AOL, Disney, Make-a-wish, The American Cancer Society, poor Timmy and his dying plea, and what have you. These email usually claim that: either someone from a named, oft-respected, company is testing something out, and all participants in this test will get a reward; or a supposed expert, who “was skeptical at first,” but now believes the offer, wants to send out to all well meaning people this amazing deal; or maybe it’ll tug at our emotions by simply saying, “Isn’t forwarding this email to ten of your friends the least you can do to show that you care?”

They’re all bogus. Every one. There is no way to track chain email. Simply put, if every person sent out one of these letters to ten others, by the tenth round of forwarding, it would reach 10 billion people. Since there are only around six billion people, who, I’m sure, don’t all have email addresses, and we don’t have enough computing power to put all these people on a single list, we’ll have to assume that, somewhere, these offers break under their own lack of logic. Those two-cent offers from some charitable organization would cost 2 hundred million dollars in short order. Does the $20 coupon to our favorite national chain store make any sense? These company’s would lose millions of dollars just trying to track every forwarded message.

The subjects abound. Email warnings about viruses. Email warnings about catching AIDS from phone booths or losing kidneys to beautiful women. Email that ask you to send out heart-warming messages to your closest friends. Email telling you to send out this amazing email you just received so you can watch something pop up on your screen. Email offering gift certificates. They are all fakes. And in one day, I received each one of these warnings from different, well-meaning friends. But every time we forward them, we contribute to their life cycle, spreading them around. We are the carriers and disseminators of viramail.

There is plenty of documentation on all of this. Check out About.com’s excellent Urban Myths page, at http://urbanlegends.about.com/. As for virus warnings, ignore everything in these email except the supposed name of the virus, and go to Symantec’s Anti-virus page at http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/, to check it out yourself.