I got an e-mail (4 times from 4 speperate people) about a virus “Life is Beautiful.pps” and it said to “E-mail to everyone I know!” This made it suspect, so I spent 30 seconds with google and found a refutation from McAfee, proving it was a hoax. I hit reply to all, pasted the link in there, and wrote “I have getten this 4 times, and am sick of it. Here’s the link. It’s a hoax.” Then I sent it.
It sent it to about 30 people. Now I have gotten 8 E-mails telling me how rude I was to do that, and that I made the person that sent it to everyone in the first place feel stupid, and how I have really done it this time, and how I was mean, and was just out to prove someone wrong.
So, I was wondering, do you think that I overstepped my bounds? Should I have done it? Was I right to do my part in the fight against ignorance, at the expense of the friend who sent it to me in the first place? Help me out dopers… I feel guilty.
No, you didn’t overdo it. I consider it a public service. I mean, I already put up with unsolicited junk mail from people trying to sell me stuff; why would I be upset at getting an email from a friend trying to warn me about a virus?
Anyway, I was under the impression that some of these viruses send themselves on, so it really wasn’t at your friend’s expense, since he/she probably didn’t voluntarily send the thing.
I think it was a sensible thing to do. Virus hoaxes waste our time and resources, just as real viruses and spam do. There are even some nasty hoaxes that say “if <name of an essential system file> exists on your computer, it’s a virus, delete it at once.”
Straight up, not only did you do the right thing, I think you are free to make fun of these eight people for the rest of their lives.
Let’s see, worst case scenario you are rude in your attempt to spread some info and save people the time and energy they would spend tracking down the hoax (I don’t think your reply was rude, I am just saying worst case).
If that is as bad as it gets for the “complaining eight” send them to Afghanistan, or Israel, or East St. Louis. There they will see what things that are worth complaining about really look like.
Speaking of which, the reason I am even responding to this is that I am a pathetic lifeless dork with nothing better to do (not that that applies to the other responders, I think they just had your back because they are down like that).
You tried to help out and they just crapped all over you, see, this is why I hate people.
I once did a “reply all” through HOAXKILL which went to almost 200 email addresses - my dumb brother who was forwarding me all this crap wasn’t even smart enough to remove all the headers from the previous forwards (but then, he was an AOL user…).
Your first and foremost task in this world is to stomp out ignorance. You did your duty, and if the uninitiated fail to appreciate that, well, tough shit! You made Uncle Cecil proud today.
DOPERS! ERADICATORS OF IGNORANCE WHEREVER WE FIND IT. We will fight them on the emails, we will fight them on the messageboards. Though we may be called “rude”, we shall know in our hearts that we fight for the betterment of humanity. Though we grow weary with those who are ungrateful WE SHALL NOT REST. We shall call out hoaxes, cry “URBAN LEGEND!” and ceaselessly work to halt this terrible, awful, midless spread of disinformation that so befalls the internet. Together, my friends, we shall fight. Faced with trolls, we will fight on. Faced with the most gullible people on earth, we will fight on. Faced with people who have never heard of Snopes, we will fight on. It may take longer than we thought, BUT THE FIGHT WILL GO ON.
Go, be strong in your hearts. Know that you are a doper. Reply to all.
I finally snapped at my sister (she sent me the rat urine on cola cans one) to check out snopes.com before she sent me any more urban legends. I told her this one was also a hoax.
Well, saying “I’m sick of it” might have been a bit much, but I’ve done the same thing, replying to all with a link proving it’s a hoax. We gotta fight ignorance any way we can. If people don’t like being shown their ignorance, that’s their problem.
Chekmate, you did the right thing. I always send links to Snopes or whatever, but it doesn’t always work.
My wife has an uncle who is the spam king of Oregon. After he sent me yet another virus hoax, I tried to tell him that it was a hoax and by forwarding it without checking if genuine or not he was just wasting bandwidth.
I don’t think he understood me though because now he spams me with hoax virus warnings and ‘Ignore this hoax virus warning’ warnings - doubling the amout of bandwidth wasted. :rolleyes:
I don’t think what you did was wrong. People seriously need to stop wasting othe people’s time with e-mails like that. If it asks you to send it to everyone you know, you may as well delete the thing right then. If someone has something to say themselves, then fine, but forwards and e-mails that claim to be something great for nothing, and offered to everyone… well those are rediculous, and you need to inform your friends that you do not wish to have that stuff sent to you. Plain and simple.
Whatever way you do it, is up to you.
You could do what I do. Tell people that your email address is for work, and you don’t want your email address exposed to all those people who get the CC: email (for spam and privacy purposes). I also lie a bit. I tell people I can’t get forwards at work, so please don’t send them to me. (In reality, while both of my primary email addresses are supplied by work, one is actually for my own personal use. Sometimes it’s easier to stretch the truth than to have explain all your reasonings behind your request) If they still send me forwards that pass on some sort of UL, I immediately fire back with a Snopes URL, and ask again that they not send me forwards.
I’ll go to great lengths to avoid forwards. They really grate on my nerves
anyone, friend, family, whoever, that sends me a forwarded message that was not specifically written FOR ME gets one warning reply. Basically I tell them that if they ever send me such a message again, I will create a filter to automatically put their messages in the trash before I even see them. (And I’ve done it.)
