Internet hoaxes and chain letters have one main purpose, to be sent to everyone you know. Most tout fake, made-up or dated facts that no longer are true or never were true. They accomplish this by using several different techniques to persuade you to send it along. They play on your sympathy, your fear or they want you to want to be the good Samaritan to help out your friends.  

"... forward this to everyone you know..."

Chain letters are very similar to Internet hoaxes because they both have the same purpose. Chain letters have different techniques to lure you into forwarding the message on. Some use the promise of riches if you forward them or the horror of "bad luck" if you don't. Some chain letters, like the famous "dying child chain letter", want to make you believe that the American Cancer Society will send 3 cents to this dying child for every person you forward the e-mail too. This is just as much not true as any other hoax or chain letter that may come across your desktop.

"... you will be financially rewarded for every person you forward this to..."

Everyone wants to help find the missing, abducted boy from Texas or help the little girl with cancer. Everyone wants to warn their friends about a new and horrible virus before it attacks their computers.  Why not? Isn't it easier to just send an e-mail to all your buddies rather than determine if what you are sending on is really true or not?  You may be surprised at how easy it is to identify a hoax and just delete them instead of forwarding it on.

How to Recognize a Hoax

It may be harder to recognize a hoax versus a chain letter, but once you become familiar with the following common themes that both hoaxes and chain letters use, you'll be able to recognize them immediately in the future. Remember, you want to be able to recognize a hoax so that you aren't spreading false information to your friends and family.

Some of the tips below include a link to an entry at a hoax busting website to show different techniques used in these hoax e-mails. Each link will show a copy of  a real world e-mail that has circulated around the Internet and then will list supporting information on why it is false. You may have seen some of these and even may have forwarded them on to your friends in the past. Some of them are very believable!

1. Hoaxes usually include a request to "forward to everyone you know". Nine times out of ten, when you see a mail message include a statement similar to this, it normally is a hoax. No real computer or health related warning message will tell you to send the e-mail out to everyone you know. Become suspicious when you see this tell tale sign.
2. Hoaxes usually use LARGE LETTERS TO GET YOUR ATTENTION. As well as plenty of exclamation marks!!!!!!! They want you to think this is VERY IMPORTANT!!  This is just a ploy to get you to forward it to everyone you know without checking to see if it's actually true or not.
3. Look for statements like "This is not a hoax." Normally, the opposite is true and you ARE reading a hoax.
4. Hoaxes use technical sounding language. Don't be fooled just because an e-mail contains technical computer/medical/political jargon that includes words that you have heard before or sound so technical that it's got to be true. Even technically savvy people or people in the medical field could be fooled into thinking the content is real.

   Example: Read this entry at one of the hoax busting websites that explains an e-mail hoax about anti-perspirants causing breast cancer that has circulated inboxes everywhere. The link contains a copy of the hoax and then a discussion on why it isn't true.

5. Hoaxes normally do not refer you to legitimate websites that could corroborate their claims. A hoax will include all the detailed information in the body of the e-mail without referring you to any outside source. This usually occurs with virus hoaxes where the e-mail contains all the technical details about the next new virus, but does not refer you to an anti virus website where you could get more info. There are NO virus companies that send out e-mail messages with details of a virus. All virus companies keep virus details on their website and don't propagate virus warnings via e-mail.

   Example: This link is to an anti-virus website that describes information about a common virus hoax. You'll notice the content of the virus hoax utilizes techniques 1, 2, 4 and 5 to convince you it's true!

6. Hoaxes try to sound credible by association. This can be done by having the e-mail appear to come directly from Bill Gates of Microsoft or end with a signature of a phony, made-up manager at IBM (complete with phony phone number and address of course!) Hoaxes can also sound credible by including a link to a legitimate website. You figure if the website is real, the content has to be real right? Wrong. For example, a hoax wants you to contact your state representative in order to complain about a phony bill that the hoax wants you to believe is true. So they include a link to a legitimate government website that shows you how to write your representative. 

   Example: Here is a link to a popular political hoax's entry at a hoax busting site. The link provides a copy of the hoax followed by supporting information on why the content of the hoax is false. It also provides links to additional outside sources and sites the sources it got the information from.  This particular hoax is trying to use the credibility of a real website to make you believe that the entire e-mail is true!

What to do?

        Don't forward it! Just delete the message.

Not passing on hoaxes or chain letters is the best solution. You don't waste disk space. You don't tie up network resources sending the e-mail to multiple people. You don't send out information that will scare or possibly infuriate people with their fake content. People won't be afraid to put gas in their car or put their finger in the change return slot of pay phones OR sit down at movie theatres for fear of getting the AIDS virus. (Yes all of those are hoaxes that have propagated inboxes everywhere making people scared to go out into the real world.)

There is a possibility that a portion of an e-mail hoax is true. There is also a very small percentage of e-mails that appear to be hoaxes but really ARE true. If you are not sure and want to find out if the e-mail is true or not, use one of the many hoax busting websites out there. You can search their databases for specific words such as "girl cancer" and they'll list hoaxes that match your criteria. They will tell you if an e-mail is actually true or if it's a fake. They'll also give supporting information because they actually track down information to find out if an e-mail is true or not. 

Here are two that are easy to use and have very large hoax databases:

http://www.snopes2.com

http://urbanlegends.about.com

Here is information about terrorism-related and relief-fund hoaxes:

Read this important information on terrorism-related e-mail scams from CAUCE.

If you still aren't sure about an e-mail after searching these databases, you can e-mail it to security@commnet.edu (without e-mailing it to all your friends first of course!) and we'll let you know.