Forwarded email often reminds me of the story of Chicken Little. As you probably remember from bedtime, Chicken Little thinks the sky is falling and manages to convince all his/her friends. The story ends abruptly when a wily fox lures them to his cave as protection, whereupon he promptly eats them all.
The fact is, the forward function of email is pretty abused. Many of you have already received forwarded mail, most with a mile-long swath of the email addresses of its previous recipients. Usually they're jokes, forwarded from friends.
One story deserves extra attention. As many of you have probably heard, a cancer-stricken young girl named Jessica Mydek sent an email plea to live life to the fullest, and pass the message along. Well, it's a hoax. The American Cancer Society has never heard of her, and according to the New York Times, the true authors of this message are using it to collect email addresses, so they can send junk mail to you.
Perhaps the oldest email prank, a classic piece of digital folklore, is one concerning Craig Shergold, who was also afflicted with cancer and wanted to get into the Guiness Book of World Records with the record for the most greeting cards received. The story WAS true - eight years ago. Craig has now gone into remission, and all greeting cards are now simply shipped, unopened, to a recycling plant.
Some Internet providers, like mine, actively discourage unnecessary forwarding. You could get
into trouble if you do.
Of all the forwarded chain mail I have ever received, I have only responded to one: the legitimate Houghton Mifflin book charity drive. The rest were outdated, or frauds. What's worse is that, like some sort of Telephone Game, words become twisted, changed or removed all together. For example, there is a Shergold email strain going around that has his name misspelled, his age lowered, his condition worsened and involves business cards, not greeting cards. Other infamous "urban legends" include the FCC modem tax, the Neiman Marcus/Mrs. Field's cookie recipe, the Save Sesame Street petition, and "Good Times" and other so-called "email viruses". Sound familiar?
Pranks like these and email virus "warnings" do little but clog up bandwidth, spread disinformation and perhaps cause unnecessary hysteria and aggravation. However, some nastier hoaxes, like "GET RICH QUICK!" mail or pyramid schemes, are also con games. No thank you, I'm pretty sure you can't make millions of dollars stuffing envelopes.
Sure, chain letters and mail scams are hardly new in the real world. However, it's so much easier to forward email - there's no stamp to buy and no mailbox to walk to. And thanks to the quoting function, you don't even have to retype the message in question. However, throwing away email is much easier too.
When you get forwarded mail (email, snail mail or otherwise), be a little cautious. And not just during April Fool's. Please don't just blindly send it off to your friends, because you'll just end up wasting time - yours and theirs. As for those chain letters claiming you have to send the letter to 200 people or get eaten alive by a gerbil or some such thing: take some initiative, tell the sender to shove it, and stop the chain.
If something is too good to be true, it probably is. If their claims seem fishy, don't take their word for it. Just use common sense, and reader beware. [imo]
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