Tseran's Journal: The Million Forward March

My girlfriend got another one of those stupid "Please help me save my baby" hoaxes and that was the last straw for me. I blew a gasket. Here is the exact email I sent....to all 505 addresses I found in this email's message. (Yes, 505 email addresses)

Welcome to the first warning from the Prophet of Kibo, Tseran. For those of you who do not know who Kibo is, some have called him the God of the Net. He was awarded this title for being able to determine when someone was talking about him on newsgroups in the early days of the internet and then replying to them. And now, with the spread of internet hoaxes and email virii, it is time for his Prophet to appear and deliver you from the hell that is online!

Some time in the past 2 or 3 months you received an email with a picture of a baby who supposedly had brain cancer. Some of you even passed it on, feeling sorry for this baby, hoping to do something. Guess what. That baby is alive, and healthy. There was no brain cancer in the infant shown. You have been HOAXED!

Now, to those of you who read this email and either deleted it or researched it, I applaud you. Your contribution has made the net a better place.

To those of you who forwarded it, I shake my finger at you. Not only did you perpetuate the hoax, you also helped in the spread of that wonderful spam mail that we all enjoy. How? Well, off the email that I got, I was able to collect a whopping 505 email addresses. Each of those people is receiving this email. Now, all that needs happen is one spam mailing company gets this email and suddenly, you are all being offered cheap viagra and 101 ways to make money off soy bean soup.

You may ask yourself "But Prophet, how did you send this mail to me, and all the other 505 people without me knowing? Did you send out 505 different emails?" No! I used a function called BCC which stands for Blind Carbon Copy. What this does is allows me to send an email to everyone in the BCC list without any of them seeing the other email addresses. Now, I know you WebTV folks can't do this, but the least you can do is delete the email addresses of the person who sent it to you and the ones they sent it to.

What I am going to do now is give you all a suggestion of what to do from now on. You can choose to ignore it and go on with life as usual and help spread lies, spam and bad etiquette. Or you can choose to follow my lead and help the Internet be a better place for everyone.

#1. When you receive a virus warning, plea for help, or anything that wants you to send it to as many people as possible, PLEASE investigate it. Here is a good site to start:

http://www.snopes.com/

In fact, if you go to this URL: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/children/natalie.htm
you will see the information about the hoax you all received. If you can find it there, and it is a hoax, delete it, and as a public service, reply to the person who sent it with a copy of the URL that labels it a hoax. Send them a copy of this email if you like as well. The only time it is acceptable to send something to all your friends is if it is a joke, or if it is useful, non-hoax information. Would you want your friends sending you advertisements? I didn't think so. And a word of caution, chances are, those big companies will NEVER give you or anyone else anything for free. They can't stay in business doing that.

#2. Please remove all email addresses from the forwarded message (if it fits with something that you should forward) It will cut down on the amount of spam people receive. It will also cut down on the size of the message. And folks, the bigger the message, the longer it takes some people to download the mail. Some people still pay for how long they are online, so you are costing them money with long messages.

Thank you if you read this far, and fare well.
Tseran, The Prophet of Kibo

Ps. Send this to as many people as you want to, it will be good for them to know, so they don't send you a hoax later. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.