Thursday, August 25, 2005
Too many lies spread via e-mail by innocents
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
E-mail is a wonderful way to be informed about the doings of your children and friends, a lifeline for the shut-ins. It is also a fine source of misinformation and distribution of urban legends and harmful lies.
My ex-colleague Sarkis sends me and some fifty others periodic fresh-off-the press warnings about worms and Trojan horses materializing as unsolicited e-mail messages with attachments that will destroy your computer. Checking his warnings through Internet sources, they all turn out to be revivals of hoaxes, mass messages that were distributed and discredited two or more years ago. Just to quote some, there was the warning not to open attachments to e-mails that say “ It takes guts to say Jesus,” or “A message from a WTC survivor,” else your computer or c-drive would be lost. Another hoax was the warning not to punch the number 90 and # sign when requested by an AT&T technician ostensibly tracking a problem; the crook would be able to charge his bills to you.
There must be someone in Internet Land who periodically re-sends the old hoary tales, once the passage of a year or two has dulled the public’s ability to remember. Others who were taken in include friends, Julie and Tom, who can be counted to send good Jewish jokes mixed with reports of iniquities perpetrated by the Washington crowd. Their most recent missive, of which they were the fifth generation of re-senders, threatens cell phone owners with a flood of telemarketing calls. It sounds credible, but it is a scare and a hoax. To quote it in full:
“Subject: Release of cell phone numbers Date;8/18/2005
“JUST A REMINDER... 31 days from today, cell phone numbers are beingreleased to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive salescalls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS. To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list (sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission). It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS! Signed: D. Moe”
This rumor first appeared in December 2004, and was promptly discredited by such hoax hunters as Snopes.com, breakthechain.org and the entertaining urbanlegends.about.com. Nevertheless, such reputable groups as SierraTimes.com and the PalmCoast.org were taken in by the story. The anonymous authors linked it to the then recent national Do Not Call law, under which there was a deadline for requests by the public to be opted-out. Actually, the opting out for subscribers to land-based telephone services - and cells -continues to be available, and the current number of telephone subscribers so registered is at 69 million (May 2005).
What is happening with cell phones is that six service providers – AllTel, At&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, Sprint PCS and T-Mobile – had hired Osent, Inc. to produce a wireless 411 directory and service, with lookup charges, same as the land-based 411 and 555-1212 services. It allows for telemarketing, but it is illegal to use automatic dialers to access cell phones. Unsolicited sales calls made before 9 PM on most systems would cost the subscribers valuable minutes and predispose them against the advertiser, therefore one could naturally expect the main volume of telemarketers clogging up your lines in the evening and on charge-free weekends.
Although only those customers who would opt-in were to be included in the directory, and those who would not answer requests would be left out, the directory project naturally invoked protests from user groups. Verizon and US Cellular anticipated trouble and wisely stayed out of the plan, and AllTel and Sprint PCS eventually withdrew, but the others are going ahead, with a planned wireless 411 directory to be implemented in 2006. For those of us the 170 million cell phone users who fear that we might have been enticed into being listed, calling the national Do Not Call service is a good idea.
All of us are vulnerable to invasions of privacy in this techno age, and a number of laws have been put into effect to protect the public, despite certain objections from the strict interpreters of the Constitution, particularly those of the right-to-lifers objecting to Roe v. Wade, who claim that privacy was not part of the Signers’ intent. But privacy has been imbedded in a large body of laws, with federal Do Not Call, HIPAA (vs. unauthorized disclosure of medical information) and other statutes, and state laws supplementing them.
Why the fuss? Well, there are enough attempted infringements to worry about, real intrusions into our privacy. Trumped-up charges, even by well-meaning individuals, confuse the factual issues and serve to discredit real problems. I love getting the jokes, but please be careful, dear friends. By distributing unchecked information you may be spreading fear and perpetuating lies as facts. The era we live in makes us fearful and mistrustful enough as is.
E-mail is a wonderful way to be informed about the doings of your children and friends, a lifeline for the shut-ins. It is also a fine source of misinformation and distribution of urban legends and harmful lies.
My ex-colleague Sarkis sends me and some fifty others periodic fresh-off-the press warnings about worms and Trojan horses materializing as unsolicited e-mail messages with attachments that will destroy your computer. Checking his warnings through Internet sources, they all turn out to be revivals of hoaxes, mass messages that were distributed and discredited two or more years ago. Just to quote some, there was the warning not to open attachments to e-mails that say “ It takes guts to say Jesus,” or “A message from a WTC survivor,” else your computer or c-drive would be lost. Another hoax was the warning not to punch the number 90 and # sign when requested by an AT&T technician ostensibly tracking a problem; the crook would be able to charge his bills to you.
There must be someone in Internet Land who periodically re-sends the old hoary tales, once the passage of a year or two has dulled the public’s ability to remember. Others who were taken in include friends, Julie and Tom, who can be counted to send good Jewish jokes mixed with reports of iniquities perpetrated by the Washington crowd. Their most recent missive, of which they were the fifth generation of re-senders, threatens cell phone owners with a flood of telemarketing calls. It sounds credible, but it is a scare and a hoax. To quote it in full:
“Subject: Release of cell phone numbers Date;8/18/2005
“JUST A REMINDER... 31 days from today, cell phone numbers are beingreleased to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive salescalls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS. To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888/382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list (sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission). It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years. PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS! Signed: D. Moe”
This rumor first appeared in December 2004, and was promptly discredited by such hoax hunters as Snopes.com, breakthechain.org and the entertaining urbanlegends.about.com. Nevertheless, such reputable groups as SierraTimes.com and the PalmCoast.org were taken in by the story. The anonymous authors linked it to the then recent national Do Not Call law, under which there was a deadline for requests by the public to be opted-out. Actually, the opting out for subscribers to land-based telephone services - and cells -continues to be available, and the current number of telephone subscribers so registered is at 69 million (May 2005).
What is happening with cell phones is that six service providers – AllTel, At&T Wireless, Cingular, Nextel, Sprint PCS and T-Mobile – had hired Osent, Inc. to produce a wireless 411 directory and service, with lookup charges, same as the land-based 411 and 555-1212 services. It allows for telemarketing, but it is illegal to use automatic dialers to access cell phones. Unsolicited sales calls made before 9 PM on most systems would cost the subscribers valuable minutes and predispose them against the advertiser, therefore one could naturally expect the main volume of telemarketers clogging up your lines in the evening and on charge-free weekends.
Although only those customers who would opt-in were to be included in the directory, and those who would not answer requests would be left out, the directory project naturally invoked protests from user groups. Verizon and US Cellular anticipated trouble and wisely stayed out of the plan, and AllTel and Sprint PCS eventually withdrew, but the others are going ahead, with a planned wireless 411 directory to be implemented in 2006. For those of us the 170 million cell phone users who fear that we might have been enticed into being listed, calling the national Do Not Call service is a good idea.
All of us are vulnerable to invasions of privacy in this techno age, and a number of laws have been put into effect to protect the public, despite certain objections from the strict interpreters of the Constitution, particularly those of the right-to-lifers objecting to Roe v. Wade, who claim that privacy was not part of the Signers’ intent. But privacy has been imbedded in a large body of laws, with federal Do Not Call, HIPAA (vs. unauthorized disclosure of medical information) and other statutes, and state laws supplementing them.
Why the fuss? Well, there are enough attempted infringements to worry about, real intrusions into our privacy. Trumped-up charges, even by well-meaning individuals, confuse the factual issues and serve to discredit real problems. I love getting the jokes, but please be careful, dear friends. By distributing unchecked information you may be spreading fear and perpetuating lies as facts. The era we live in makes us fearful and mistrustful enough as is.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 3:56 AM 
