Internet Hoaxes

Raymond Realubit

Hoax
Ahoaxis a deliberately fabricated
falsehood made to masquerade as
truth.It is distinguishable from errors
in
observation
or
judgment,orrumours,
urban
legends,pseudoscienceorApril
Fools Day events that are passed
along in good faith by believers or as
jokes.

Hoax
The termhoaxis occasionally used in reference to urban
legends and rumours, but thefolklorist Jan Harold Brunvand
argues that most of them lack evidence of deliberate
creations of falsehood and are passed along in good faith by
believers or as jokes, so the term should be used for only
those with a probable conscious attempt to deceive.As for the
closely related termspractical joke andprank, Brunvand
states that although there are instances where they
overlap,hoaxtends to indicate "relatively complex and largescale fabrications" and includes deceptions that go beyond
the merely playful and "cause material loss or harm to the
victim".

Example of Hoax
"Black in Whitehouse, or"Black Muslim in
Whitehousewas another example of hoax. It
was a chain message and also acomputer virus
hoaxbeginning around 2006 or somewhere
around it, and still going today. It begins with
the message warning of acomputer virusthat
hides in an attachment labeled Black in
Whitehouse or something similar to it. It says
that if you open it, then it opens an Olympic
Torch that burns down the C disk.

 Hoaxes perpetrated by "scare tactics"

appealing to the audience's subjectively
rational belief that the expected cost of not
believing the hoax (the cost if its assertions
are true times the likelihood of their truth)
outweighs the expected cost of believing
the hoax (cost if false times likelihood of
falsity), such as claims that a non-malicious
but unfamiliar program on one's computer
ismalware.

 Computervirus hoaxesbecame widespread

asvirusesthemselves began to spread. A typical
hoax is anemailmessage warning recipients of a
non-existent threat, usually quoting spurious
authorities such asMicrosoftandIBM.
In most cases thepayloadis an exhortation to distribute the
message to everyone in the recipient'saddress book. Sometimes
the hoax is more harmful, e.g., telling the recipient to seek a
particularfile(usually in aMicrosoft Windowsoperating system); if
the file is found, the computer is deemed to be infected unless it is
deleted.
In reality the file is one required by the operating system for
correct functioning of the computer.

Virus Hoax
A virus hoax is a false warning about a computervirus.
Typically, the warning arrives in an e-mail note or is
distributed through a note in a company's internal
network. These notes are usually forwarded using
distribution lists and they will typically suggest that the
recipient forward the note to other distribution lists.
If you get a message about a new virus, you can check it
out by going to one of the leading Web sites that keep up
with viruses and virus hoaxes. If someone sends you a
note about a virus that you learn is a virus hoax, reply to
the sender that the virus warning is a hoax.

 Definition:A deceptive alert disseminated

via forwarded email warning users of a
computer virus, Internet worm, or other
security threat which in reality does not exist.
Example:
The widely circulated alert warning PC users
of an alleged security threat from the
harmless Budweiser Frogs Screen Saver is one
of the best-known examples of avirus hoax.

How to spot an Email Hoax - Guide to Recognizing

Hoaxes

There are thousands of email hoaxes moving around the Internet at any
given time. Some may be the latest email hoaxes around. Others may be
mutated versions of hoax messages that have travelled the Internet for
years. These email hoaxes cover a range of subject matter, including:

Supposedly free giveaways in exchange for forwarding emails.

Bogus virus alerts.
False appeals to help sick children.
Pointless petitions that lead nowhere and accomplish nothing.
Dire, and completely fictional, warnings about products, companies,
government policies or coming events.

The good news is that, with a little bit of foreknowledge, email hoaxes
are easy to detect. Hidden within the colourful prose of your average
email hoax often lurk telling indicators of the email's veracity.
Probably the most obvious of these indicators is a line such as "Send
this email to everyone in your address book". Hoax writers want their
material to spread as far and as fast as possible, so almost every hoax
email will in some way exhort you to send it to other people. Some
email hoaxes take a more targeted approach and suggest that you
send the email to a specified number of people in order to collect a
prize or realize a benefit.

GWAPO NI LOBETE