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Author Topic: A real computer virus on Face Book  (Read 1679 times)

DickyD

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A real computer virus on Face Book
« on: August 10, 2012, 12:44:15 am »

A real computer virus on Face Book

http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/invitation.asp
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catengineman

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Re: A real computer virus on Face Book
« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2012, 01:18:32 am »

Probably as annoying as Face Book itself.
I do tend to steer clear of most of the social sites like and inc FB though I still seem to get a few of the Round Robin Rubbish but my trash can takes care of them for me.

 :embarrassed:
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bikerdude999

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Re: A real computer virus on Face Book
« Reply #2 on: August 10, 2012, 04:55:58 am »

Am I missing something? It says it's a hoax?
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Peter Fitness

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Re: A real computer virus on Face Book
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2012, 05:44:04 am »

Yes, it definitely says it's a hoax O0, and an old one at that.

Peter.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: A real computer virus on Face Book
« Reply #4 on: August 10, 2012, 09:37:56 am »

This is terribly reminiscent of the 'Good Times' scare which goes back to the middle of the 1990s. Computer Security geeks love it because of its self-referential features...

'Good Times' was a classic 'fake warning' email which did the rounds, waning of a dangerous virus which spread when people opened an email entitled 'Good Times'.  The email exhorted you to copy the warning to all your friends.

No real virus called 'Good Times' existed at the time, and the 'Good Times' email was just a straightforward fake warning email. But the fake warning email which everyone copied around was itself entitled 'Good Times', so if you opened it and read it you thought that you might be 'infected'. In one sense you were; because if one definition of a virus is a bit of code which replicates itself on other computers, then the email was certainly replicating itself - not automatically but by the human agency of people emailing all their friends. In effect, humans had been made part of the replication loop.

Anti-Virus companies tried to stop this mindless scare-building by issuing warnings saying that the email was fake, and that there was no such thing as a 'Good Times' virus. Then, after a short while, virus writers started turning out viruses with the words 'Good Times' in them, hoping to get these real viruses named 'Good Times' and thus undermining the warnings which were being issued. By then it had become very difficult to provide an accurate warning which a typical non-computer-literate member of the public could actually follow.....

Happy days.....  %% :-X %%
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malcolmfrary

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Re: A real computer virus on Face Book
« Reply #5 on: August 10, 2012, 10:21:27 am »

Not so much a virus as a parasite, then.
The simple answer for the general user is to look at the email and if it implies a warning and contains the instruction "Pass this to all your friends"  simply delete it, because it will be a spoof.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: A real computer virus on Face Book
« Reply #6 on: August 10, 2012, 12:17:53 pm »

Yup - there is no simple 100% rule, but there are a few good indicators.

Scares usually

  • include some technical detail which is vague and incorrect
  • make a reference to an authoritative source, but don't give enough info to contact it
  • include a direction to spread this around (eg. "tell all your friends". A real authoritative warning would NEVER ask that the warning be passed this way - they would reference their known authoritative web site - for instance http://www.met.police.uk/pceu/cyber_crime.html )

and a simple google will invariably tell you whether it's a fake or not.

All of this, and many other scams, work because humans are social animals, and conditioned to obey directions with little question when issued from an apparently authoritative source. People really will do amazing and appalling things if told to in the right way.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment  refers...

It doesn't work on me, because I rarely do anything under any circumstances...  %% %%
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