Good intentioned people send along warnings they have received about viruses. Recently, we've received several warnings on our genealogy lists that have been hoaxes, sometimes suggesting actions we should take which will screw up our computers. There are very simple ways that we can all use to easily check to determine whether a warning is about a real virus or if we have been sent a hoax message. Following are addresses to web sites you can go to in order to see if you have received a real or a hoax virus warning. Or whether other chain mail messages you receive are valid. If we each were to use them before sending along warnings to large numbers of people then we would know when someone is trying to trick us all into sending along useless messages that use up internet/server space, or even to do something to our computers to injure them. BASIC HOW-TO INFORMATION: Each of the following websites has a place to type in search words. A good place to start when you are trying to come up with what words to put in the search blank is with the key words from the subject heading of the virus warning message you received, or type in the name of the virus that is listed in the message. If these don't pull up anything, type in words from the message that stand out when you read it. Sometimes the virus warnings or other content from chain e-mail messages will be verified as true; sometimes the information will be found to be false. Then, you will know if you should pass the information on. THE WEBSITES DEDICATED TO HELPING US LEARN ABOUT REAL AND FALSE VIRUS WARNINGS: The Urban Legends site: http://www.snopes2.com is my favorite place to start determining whether a warning is real or a hoax. I can find most things I am looking for on this site. While I have found Urban Legends usually has the reports I have searched for, sometimes, it has not yet gotten to a new warning before I receive it. (Or I just did not pick out the right words from the e-mail message to use in my search!) Then I go to some of these other sites to see if the warning is there. Usually, when a warning is not posted on one of the webpages dedicated to keeping us informed about whether a virus or other warning is real or not, it will be on another site. Some sites are more inclined to concentrate on virus warnings and to not be as concerned about other chain e-mail. This is because the other kinds of hoaxes (messages with health warnings, stalker/chain murderer warnings, messages that tell you to send the message on to others to earn money for a charity, etc.) cannot screw up your computer. BUT IT DOES CLOG UP THE INTERNET, SLOWING DOWN SERVICE FOR ALL OF US, AND SOMETIMES CAUSING A SERVER TO CRASH. Here are some other really good sites to check out warnings/chain e-mail: A company named F-Secure (formerly called Datafellows) sells virus protection products to corporations. It maintains its warning website as a service both to the companies who buy their products and to us regular guys for free. Their hoax address is: http://www.datafellows.com/news/hoax/ The Dept. of Energy also maintains an excellent website to keep us informed about real and hoax warnings: http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ Oxcart Software maintains a site called HoaxKill which is easy to use. Like Urban Legends, it deals with more than virus hoaxes; it also includes categories of chain mail that clog up the internet, waste senders' and readers' time, and are just generally a pain in the butt. Their address is: http://www.hoaxkill.com./ Semantec is another internet security company (like F-Secure). (I think they might be the owners of the Norton products, but I'm not sure.) In any event, they, too, maintain a good virus warning site to let us know if a warning is real or not. To get to their main pages, go to: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/ To get to the list of hoax viruses, scan down to the bottom of the page and click on "Hoaxes". Semantec also will scan your computer for free to see if you have any viruses. I've never used this service since I maintain my computer security with McAfee, so I don't know how long it would take to use theirs. I'm sure you will have to download some software onto your machine which will take a little while, so do it when you have some time! Semantec will not, however, fix your files if it finds infected ones; it will just tell you which ones are infected. To get rid of the virus/viruses, you will need a current anti-virus software program (such as McAfee which you can get online and update regularly online) (and, I'm sure Semantec must have such a program for sale, too). You can get to Semantec's virus check service by going to the mainpage address above and check on "Free online virus and security check". V-Myth is a very interesting site. It is not maintained by a company or a government site. It first got started with a couple of folks who wanted to let people know the truth about virus warnings in the late 1980s. I think they must get their money from advertisements on their site, but I don't know for sure. Still, they have good stuff and you can get to them from: http://www.vmyths.com/ They also ask you to send them copies of the hoax messages you have received so they can keep their research updated. I hope this information is helpful so that we can find out for ourselves whether we should be worried about a virus warning and whether we should pass the information along! Let's arm ourselves to eliminate spreading false warnings!