I want to clarify something I said below. I didn't mean to call Rick computer-illiterate. I meant to say something like I didn't expect the computer-savvy people here to fall for such a hoax.

Keep this in mind when reading your e-mail.
1) Real virus warnings do not come in e-mail chain-letter form. EVER.
2) Any e-mail asking/demanding that you forward it to everyone you know is highly suspect.
3) If you think there's any possibility that you are being warned of something real in an e-mail message, try to verify any of the sources cited in it, if there are any.
4) Any e-mail asking/demanding that you forward it to everyone you know is highly suspect.
5) Read the message carefully. Look for warnings of consequences which seem impossible or highly unlikely. Look for claimed benefits of forwarding which seem impossible or unlikely. There are several chain letters which say something to the effect of: "we're tracking how many people this e-mail goes to, and if certain numbers are reached something will happen." Tracking how many people an internet e-mail goes to is not possible.
6) Any e-mail asking/demanding that you forward it to everyone you know is highly suspect.

On a tangent here: there's one particularly malicious chain-e-mail which isn't a virus hoax warning. It tells of a young child dying of cancer, and claims that for each person the message is forwarded to, the American Cancer Society will donate US$0.03 to her care or recovery or research or some such thing. As mentioned above, there's no way for the American Cancer Society to know who the message has been forwarded to. The message says you're a sick person if you don't cooperate with the plan. I say it's a pretty sick person who originated the letter.

Again, please check out the CIAC web site I cited below, and or any of the MANY other web sites devoted to debunking Internet Virus Hoaxes. (All the major anti-virus vendors have a hoax page somewhere on there site.)

>I don't believe it. Not bad enough my computer-illiterate relatives send me e-mail virus hoax messages, now they're posted on UT too!
>
>This is a pet peeve of mine, sorry.
>
>Please look at the web site: http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/ciachoaxes.html for information about this specific hoax, and the long list of other known internet virus warning, and other internet e-mail hoaxes. There's also a link from http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/ to a list of chain-letter hoaxes.
>
>>I just received this Virus alert from my boss.
>>
>>Rick
>>
>>[hoax snipped]