# New Virus?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-virus/35384>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 2, 2000, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-virus/35384 "2000-10-02T19:38:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-virus/35384/1 "2000-10-02T19:38:21Z")

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“If you recive an email titled ‘It Takes Guts to Say Jesus’ DON"T open it. it will earse all documents on your hard drive. there is no remedy for it&nbsp; at this time.&nbsp; It uses the reformat function from Norton Utilites to do it’s work. the announced from IBM and AOL.”

The message is dated 27 Sep.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but this seems rather impossible given current email technology. Using any web-based email, the URL of the email would either have to be identical to that of the file (that is, an URL for two separate things), or the email program would have to have two URLs hyperlinked together. Also not in the programming.

So is this possible? My feeling is that it’s not. However, I don’t want to take this lightly.

Thoughts?

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**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-virus/35384/2 "2000-10-02T20:22:39Z")

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New? Hardly! See [Guts to Say Jesus Hoax](http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/jesus-hoax.html) dated May 6, 1999.

You should bookmark [Snopes](http://www.snopes.com) I found the above by using their search.

If I ever receive an e-mail where the subject is “It takes guts to say Jesus” I would trash it without reading it because it is junk, not because I am afraid of a virus.

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**Author:** ![Ankh\_Too](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ab097/32.png) [@Ankh\_Too](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ankh_Too)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-virus/35384/3 "2000-10-02T20:25:40Z")

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Hoax.

In the [Symantex Virus Hoax Write-up](http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/jesus-hoax.html) for this, the date is give as April 21 and was supposedly from IBM.

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**Author:** ![Ankh\_Too](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ab097/32.png) [@Ankh\_Too](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ankh_Too)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2000, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-virus/35384/4 "2000-10-02T20:26:53Z")

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~sighs~

day late and a dollar short

Story of my life.