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Thursday, May 20, 2004

The First Ever Virus Hoax 

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

IF YOU RECEIVE A GIFT IN THE SHAPE OF A LARGE WOODEN HORSE DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT!!!! It is EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE and will overwrite your ENTIRE CITY!

The "gift" is disguised as a large wooden horse about two stories tall. It tends to show up outside the city gates and appears to be abandoned. DO NOT let it through the gates! It contains hardware that is incompatible with Trojan programming. It will destroy your army, sack your town, and kill your women and children. If you have already received such a gift, DO NOT OPEN IT! Take it back out of the city unopened and set fire to it by the beach.

FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

Apollo
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FROM: hector@studmuffin.com
TO: laocoon@doomgloom.edu
RE: Greeks bearing gifts

Laocoon,

I hate to break to you, but this is one of the oldest hoaxes there is. I've seen variants on this warning come through on other listservs; the most famous was the "Pandora's Box" hoax, which is practically as old as the HelleNet. Here are a few tipoffs that this is a hoax:

1) This "Forward this message to everyone you know" crap. If it were really meant as a warning about the Greek army, why tell anyone to post it to the Phonecians, Sumerians, and Cretans?
2) Use of exclamation points. Always a giveaway.
3) It's signed "Apollo." So far as I know, the gods do not have email. In any case, the lack of a real header with a detailed address is always an indication that the message is not genuine.
4) It is not technically possible for a horse to overwrite your entire city. A horse is just an animal, after all.

Next time you get a message like this, just delete it. I appreciate your concern, but once you've been around the block a couple times you'll realize how annoying this kind of stuff is.

Hector.

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And for the more scholarly among you, the Latin version: 'CAVE! CAVE! CAVE!' etc.

Both available here.

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