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The Family History Compass
2/4/2002 - Archive
To Forward or Not to Forward, That is the Question
As editor of the Ancestry Daily News, I get a LOT of e-mail and while
I love to hear from readers, I am also often the recipient of some unwanted
e-mails in the form of literally hundreds of viruses and hoaxes. Although they
are a nuisance to all parties involved, I am pretty used to this and just make
it a point to keep myself informed about what's going around so that I'm not
taken in by one of them. Some folks are not as forgiving. Should you inadvertently
pass a virus or hoax on to them, you might find yourself on the wrong end of
a not-so-nice e-mail at the very least. (And if you see your fellow mailing
listers, family members, business associates, and other correspondents coming
down the street with torches, tar and feathers, you might want to head for the
hills!) Today I thought I'd devote this column to some ways we can avoid this
ugly scene and protect our data.
Hoaxes and Urban Legends
Hoaxes and urban legends come in a variety of shapes and sizes. There are the
offers of free computers, free money, free beer, or free cars for simply passing
on a message to fifteen or twenty of your closest friends. (If you want to keep
these close friends, you may want to resist the temptation to share these offers
with them.)
There are also warnings to beware the "blush spider" that hangs around toilets
in O'Hare awaiting unsuspecting victims, warnings about taxes on e-mails and
modems, tales of eighty-seven-pound mutant cats, and a multitude of warnings
about food-related pests and toxins (which I will refrain from listing here
for those of you who just ate).
Then there are the warnings that tell of horrible viruses that will set all
of your clocks to flash 12:00, reprogram your stereo system to play Radio Disney
round the clock, and set your oven so you burn all your meals. (OK, this sounds
a little like my house on a normal day and it might be for real.) The warnings
always come from "reliable sources" and say things like, "I know this is true
because the person who sent it to me knows someone whose brother-in-law's neighbor
worked with a guy who used to work on the loading docks of a big computer company."
Some are obvious hoaxes, but with viruses it can be hard to tell. (Although
if it says "Pass this on to everyone you know!" it's probably a hoax. The bottom
line is, check it out first. Most folks these days are suffering from "e-mail
overload" and receiving fifty copies of the same hoax can cause people to do
things that are out of character, like the above-mentioned tar and featherings.
The Real Deal
As I write this article, the Symantec Web site says that it has identified 58,611
viruses. While some of these viruses are more of an annoyance than anything,
and can be easily removed with little harm done, there are many with dangerous
payloads. One of the newest ones, W32.Hunch virus is a particularly nasty mass-mailing
worm that according to Symantec, "modifies the Autoexec.bat file in an attempt
to format drive C. It deletes all .ocx, .sys, and .dll files from the C:\_RESTORE
folder, and deletes other files that have a randomly chosen extension."
In addition, the old advice of "just don't open attachments you aren't expecting"
isn't always enough to protect you. While it still holds true and will stop
some, there are some viruses that take advantage of vulnerabilities in browsers
and e-mail programs. For example, if a security patch has not been downloaded
for IE 5.1 and 5.5, the Badtrans and Nimda viruses use encoded script that can
be executed by simply clicking on the message. This is a good reason to also
keep your browser up-to-date since patches for these vulnerabilities are added
as they are discovered.
You can prevent most virus infections by simply using a reputable anti-virus
software program and keeping it current. Keeping your virus definitions current
is critical with new viruses being released almost daily. This is becoming increasingly
easy with auto-updating abilities that allow you to let the program do all the
work for you.
In addition, both McAfee and Symantec offer free alerts that are sent via e-mail
when a new threat is detected. These are helpful when you are inbetween auto-updates
so that you can recognize the virus should it arrive in your inbox before you
get a chance to update your definitions.
Back Up Just in Case
With new viruses being created all the time, although anti-virus software will
keep us protected from most, even the best programs are not 100 percent safe.
With so much of our family history stored on our computers, it is critical to
back up important files regularly. I spend too much time inputting records and
data into family history software, scanning photos, and creating charts to put
it at risk. I have a "backpack" CD-rewriter where I back up files electronically,
and despite my run-ins with the "pile monster," I still keep paper copies, too.
A copy of the CD is also stored "off-site" with my mother because viruses and
computer crashes aren't the only dangers we need to consider.
In the End
This can all be a little overwhelming and despite receiving hundreds of viruses
in my e-mail, I still get nervous when they come in. In my early online days,
I was suckered into passing on e-mail hoaxes, too. (I had a terrible time getting
the tar and feathers out of my hair.) But with a little common sense and some
important protective measures in place, you won't have to worry about the villagers
with their torches, tar, and feathers beating down your door.
Links
--- Virus Information ---
McAfee Virus Information Library
vil.mcafee.com/default.asp?
Symantec Virus Encyclopedia
securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html/
--- Hoaxes and Urban Legends ---
Snopes.com
www.snopes.com/
Urban Legends Archive
www.urbanlegends.com/
Urban Legends and Folklore
urbanlegends.about.com/culture/beliefs/urbanlegends/library/blhoax.htm
Urban Legends: Don't believe everything you read
www.scambusters.org/legends.html
--- Virus Hoaxes ---
McAfee Virus Information Center
www.mcafee.com/centers/
Computer Virus Myths
kumite.com/myths/myths/
Virus Hoax Information
urbanlegends.about.com/culture/beliefs/urbanlegends/msubvir.htm
CIAC
ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html
IBM Antivirus Online
www.research.ibm.com/antivirus/SciPapers
Network Associates Services Virus Info
www.nai.com/vinfo/
AntiViral Toolkit Pro Virus Encyclopedia
www.avpve.com/
Juliana Smith is the editor of the Ancestry Daily News and author
of The Ancestry Family Historian's Address Book. She has written for
Ancestry Magazine and Genealogical Computing. Juliana can be reached
by e-mail at: mailto:editor@ancestry-inc.com,
but regrets that she is unable to assist with personal research.
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