Well, probably not what you expected, but I’m passing along what I just received, from a reliable source, in my e-mail.
Hmmm…now we have viruses that we can get just by opening an e-mail?
What a great name for a virus e-mail, anyway. Cute.
I’m very lucky. The only time I was ever up shit creek, I just happened to have a paddle with me.
–George Carlin
It is actually a fairly old hoax. I believe that http://www.icsa.net/services/consortia/anti-virus/lab.shtml carries a brief on this one, as well as on ‘Good Times’. For the most part, virus’s can not be transmitted via email that only needs to be read to infect. However, I believe that some older versions of Outlook, and Netscapes email programs could fall victim to an overflow attack, and there by be infected in that manner, but most email programs now know how to detect that form of assult.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
—The dragon observes
Oh, and it does take guts to say Jesus…you just try it without lungs or diaphram. 
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
—The dragon observes
It would seem it’s a hoax. For more info:
http://www.stiller.com/guts.htm
courtesy of Dr. Fidelius, via GQ. If only all problems had such simple solutions…
Ummm…
Bullshit? This sounds like a hoax to me. You can’t get a virus through a text based e mail. Now, if there are any .exe or .doc(I think) files attached to the email, that’s a different story.
Any techs in the SDMB: Feel free to correct my statements. I suppose there might be some kind of evil genius who figured out a way to hide a virus in a text file.
You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.
It’s great when the only authority speaking out about a dangerous new e-mail virus is AOL. That alone should clue people in that it’s a hoax.
Probably even the line about AOL is false, too; it’s just there to give the warning weight.
Some of my favorite anti-hoax sites are:
CIAC: US Dept. of Energy
Computer Virus Myths Treatise
DataFellows
IBM Hype Alerts
Plus snopes
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Oh, phooey 
I screwed the code for the last two up. Lemme try again:
Hope this works better
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
I give up, I’m going to do it the simple way. Hope I don’t screw up the thread:
http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/HypeAlert/
http://www.datafellows.fi/news/hoax.htm
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
If I was going to write an e-mail virus, I’d entitle it “Important virus warning- READ IMMEDIATELY!”. When you open it, it would say “If you recieve an e-mail entitled ‘Important virus warning- READ IMMEDIATELY!’, do not open it. Oh, wait! You just did!” Then your computer would crash.
I have an adult in my scout troop who is a partner in a high-tech firm called Hypersystems Inc. He claimed that he could find the e-mail address of anyone who visited his WWW site although I doubt his claim. I realize that mybe through an Active X control, a cookie, or something to the sort, but you COULD disable all of these and a WWW server could not automatically gather e-mail addresses without them, correct?
There is no safety for honest men but by believing all possible evil of evil men.
–Edmund Burke
My Aunt sent me that email a while back and when I informed her that it was a hoax she thought I was nuts. So I take it upon myself to remind her everytime i see her to say “It takes guts to say Jesus”
“I’m not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.”-- Calvin and Hobbes
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Threemae, If I recall the HTML protocol correctly (I don’t have any books handy at the moment.) part of when you first request content includes the sending of your email address as it is stored in the browser. If you setup your browser with an email address, this will be sent, along with the browser name/version number, and a few other things. The server can be told to save this for reference purposes.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
—The dragon observes