♥ Sunday, May 31, 2009Chain mails, aka hoaxes.I've received way too much chain hoaxes~ An estimate of 50% of my mailbox? (Ha ha btw i've already typed less than halfway through, and i have to warn that this post is very text-heavy. Very!) - Those friendship, "cute pictures", "amazing graphics", jokes and etc mails are generally not categorized as chain-hoaxes, unless they contain bullshit like "parents will die if you don't forward this to 20 people", "bad luck for 3 years if you break the chain", "you will encounter your true love tomorrow night" and the EPIC "make a wish... ****** your wish will come true if you pass this to 50 people". Second disclaimer: I do not certify that my information has 100% accuracy. Thank you (lols). - Introduction. Hoaxes are meant to mislead email users with untrue information and pointless forwarding. They also flood mailboxes, slowing down the worldwide internet traffic by occupying more space. It may also make one looks silly. Such mails normally can get passed around the internet for at least ten years, often with modifications in some text gradually. A hoax is identifiable when it agrees to give you free product/money with no effort other than to forward, contains petition with long list of names (email petition is virtually *pun* ineffective, i'll explain that later below), appeals you to forward some ill baby's photo by making use of your sympathy, contains photoshopped images to scare, promotes terror in certain food, drug, product or false medical condition, provides information on non-existence virus, or requests help to find a lost person. There are real cases that may be misidentified as hoaxes. However, the chances are very very very low. How do you check if a mail is a hoax? There is a very simple way. Just copy a small part of key text in the mail, paste it into a search engine's box, and tadah~ If results appeared to be mainly blogs, forums and equivalent, the mail is likely to be a hoax. If results appeared to be filled with reputable sites like bbc and such, the mail might contain truth. Another way to check, is through reading anti-hoax websites (i will provide some links later below). Normally, the mail contains unverified/unsupported claims on its own. This is a very obvious sign. And also do note the poor language (grammar errors and typos) used in mails claimed to be from reputable companies. - The first example (which doesn't fall into any of my categories on "how to identify a chain hoax"). The ultimate epic hoax of all trades... MSN HOTMAIL IS CHARGING YOU MONEY SOON, IF YOU DON'T FORWARD THIS MAIL TO PROOF THAT YOU ARE A VALID USER BLAHBLAH YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AFTER FORWARDING... (IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE, IT'S IN THE BBC PAGE!) (Lols of course i'm lazy to quote the whole exact content, this is what i rephrased it to.) Msn's hotmail has major competitors like yahoo's ymail/rocketmail and google's gmail. They are kind of fighting to provide cuter interface, larger space and other free services in order to attract users. So what do they gain from providing free services? Such companies mainly earn from advertisers. If you have more members on hand, it shows that you have a higher market value for advertising (more targets/traffic to advertise to). So, mail providers are likely to remain free for long (yes they do have the premium paid accounts if you want better service) for their market value. Second point, there is totally no need for a chain letter to know if your are an active user. Why? They easily know that by checking your statuses on their servers, to see if you have been logging in. And also, they could have easily sent an official mail through their admin account. Third point, emails are generally comprised of very cheap html. Sending a mail, has no ability to change your icon to blue or what. How very creative. Last point, that bbc link as so-called evidence.  Screenshot, click to go to the original page. Don't people realise that 'open and close brackets' often means sarcasm? Yup yup best location of a link ever, "Thousand fall for Hotmail prank" directly located in the face. - Free product/money, simply by forwarding. BILL GATES IS SHARING HIS FORTUNE. THERE IS A TRACKING SYSTEM TO KNOW HOW MUCH YOU HAVE FORWARDED THIS LETTER. Lols yes, we know he is rich. Firstly, he isn't a boliao person to give money in such a way (he'd rather donate them to charity i believe). Such marketing method do not work. Secondly, he might be broke if millions of people worldwide were to receive that huge amount of money. Lastly, if you look into the codes of the email, there is absolutely no tracking script of whatsoever (yes, plain text). SONY ERICSSON IS GIVING FREE LAPTOPS. THIS IS AN EFFORT TO PROMOTE THE BRAND BY WORD-OF-MOUTH. No comments. (Sony ericsson does not even produce laptops by the way. Only sony vaio does.) - Petition. Often requiring you to state your name and nationality. Btw, REAL PETITIONS require details. At least IC number i think that's the very minimum. And verification of identity is necessary. If not any cats and dogs can anyhow put their names? Or even my toiletbowl can sign the petition. And often, the nature of being an forwarded email, render the signature-count useless. How come? Let's say it requires the 100th person to submit. Wait, i shall abridge it in a simplified diagram.  Supposedly and logically, there should be 10 participants in total for the petition (10 is an example). But through a email chain petition, each email only has collected 3 signatures (by the end of 3rd person). This method of petition successfully reduces the efficiency by many times. Gg, good game. Another issue. There are fake petitions too. Lols one good example is the petition against the cruelty of bonsai kittens. Bonsai kittens are claimed to be kittens inserted into bottles to permanently alter their shape to act as a display ornament (just like we trim bonsai plant for ornamental purpose).  Well, well... Image of a 'bonsai kitten'. Btw this is a hoax. No such thing as bonsai kitten. LOLS sia.  A screenshot, i like the captions especially the grey one. - Photographs of ill, burnt and injured babies. No, i will not post any of those photos here, it's not a nice thing. *INSERT COMPANY NAME* WILL DONATE 20 CENTS FOR EVERY FORWARDED MAIL. No verification at all. Anybody could have just searched the internet news for some toddler with burnt skin, and made up a lie. There is no tracking device to note the number of mails forwarded. And remember the thing is that, mails can continue to get passed around for ten years? Probably the child is already ten years old now, and you're still looking at his 1st month photo... All for human sympathy. - Photoshopped/fabricated image... Mmm. Maybe not to scare, for false entertaining? Some references if you are interested: God's hands in the sky, dead wife preserved in a coffee table, fingertips rotting from using too much mouse and keyboard, female spirit caught in photograph, super large cat and shark behind divers (lols the shark has a very cute smile). A real one: Boy's nose impaled with a fork (the boy is kinda cute ha ha). - Untrue information, warning on products, food, health issues and others. Not true: Camel spiders are highly dangerous, eating shrimp and vitamin c causes death and so on. However, the case on some china hairbands made from condoms is true. -_- Wtf (unintentional pun). - Virus warnings, usually warn of fake viruses, or requesting you not to add a certain email on your messenger. Lost-people-notices which lack of details, are often hoaxes. - For more information if you are still interested (after reading so much loso words), you can visit those anti-hoaxes websites. There are many such sites. But i recommend snopes: urban legend and hoax-slayer at best. - I am very very sleepy already. This has killed my many hours, and my back as well (usual backache). It's like 7am now zzz. Time to sleep. 2:22 am
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我爱沈先生，since 15JAN07。 • KIM- • 05july1990 • twenty • bedok north secondary • nanyang academy of fine arts • muscle defect (dimple) Disenchanted Words • The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. • Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences. Long Long Ago• April 2007• May 2007 • June 2007 • July 2007 • August 2007 • September 2007 • October 2007 • November 2007 • December 2007 • January 2008 • February 2008 • March 2008 • April 2008 • May 2008 • June 2008 • July 2008 • August 2008 • September 2008 • October 2008 • November 2008 • December 2008 • January 2009 • February 2009 • March 2009 • April 2009 • May 2009 • June 2009 • July 2009 • August 2009 • September 2009 • October 2009 • November 2009 • December 2009 • May 2010 • June 2010 • July 2010 • September 2010 • December 2010 • May 2011 • June 2011 • July 2011 • August 2011 • December 2011 • January 2012 • February 2012 CrossroadAll links below open in a new window/tab.Jukeboxsilverbluez @ hotmail.com Copyright © 2008-2010. All rights reserved. Best viewed in Internet Explorer 7 and screen resolution of 1280 by 720, although Mozilla Firefox 3 will also do (with extremely small font size for headings). |
