| The Mailbox |
| Crying Wolf Online 09/07/2005: I have received a hoax virus warning from a friend telling me to watch out for and delete a powerpoint presentation called 'Life is Beautiful'. An article on anti-spam website BreaktheChain.org explains how to identify such hoaxes and avoid helping them to spread. Robbing Peter to Pay Paul I have received a number of 'An Invitation from So-and-so' emails inviting me to join Sms.ac, supposedly a way to send from text messages to cell phones. This post on UnleadedOnline.net indicates that this is a scam. Although sending the sms is free, the person receiving it is charged. Online Petition Against Online Petitions Over the years a few friends have forwarded on to me an email petition claiming that the Brazilian government is about to reduce the size of the Amazon Rainforest by half. I thought this was a bit fishy and vaguely remembered getting a simliar petition a few years ago so I did a quick web search and found this article on the Snopes urban legend website explaining that this petition is a hoax. (Update 9/7/2005: See also this article on BreaktheChain.org) Speaking as someone who has been using email as an activist tool for a number of years I would be very hesitant to send on any email petition, no matter how worthy the cause. Why? Firstly because they are often out-of-date (like the rainforest example) or outright fraudulent - some ask for people to add their email address with their name and the addresses are then harvested for spam lists. Secondly, even if the cause is real, email petition (even if well intentioned) can become a major spam problem. The way the petition spreads is viral, like a chain letter. Say the 100th person to sign is supposed to send it in but EVERYONE the 99th person sends it to is the 100th person. The same names would be sent in so many different combinations they would be almost impossible to meaningfully collate and present. Thirdly, a collection of emails is easily faked. Paper petitions are seldom taken seriously even though there is some capacity to check at least some of the people are real and actually signed. I can't imagine an email petition having even an outside chance of influencing powerful decision-makers. If someone genuinely wants to get people to put their names to a political statement there are a number of online petition website services they can use, although some of these have also been accused of using people's email addresses for spam. One example of this sort of service is Petition Online. |
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| Created: Last Updated: 09/08/2005 |
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