True or False?
The internet is a wonderful source of information and, unfortunately, mis-information. As a test, I searched snopes.com for "Obama". There were 100 entries. 62 entries were false, 13 entries were true , 20 were a mixture, and 5 were undetermined. If the 20 mixtures are split evenly between true and false, the final reckoning is: 72% false and 23% true. I have seen other estimates on internet validity ranging as high as 90% invalid. Over the years I have received several dozen virus warnings. Only one was real. All the rest were hoaxes.
Here are some indicators that an email is bogus:
Ø It seems to be unbelievable.
Ø It says "you won't find this in any news media".
Ø It says "next week" or "last month" but it is undated.
Ø It refers to someone by rank or office but does not actually have a full name attached.
Ø It offers something for nothing. "If you forward this 10 people, you will receive…..
Ø "Sign this petition." Email petitions are worthless. These are tracers in search of email addresses.
Ø "Send this to ___ people including the person who sent it to you" is also a tracer. Tracers give you a lot of spam, but no reward.
Ø "This is the worst virus ever." (How do they know.)
Ø "This was checked by snopes.com" does not mean snopes found it to be true. Please refer to the 72% and 23% above.
Some of the best websites for checking validity:
v Snopes.com
v Truthorfiction.com
v Hoax-slayer.com
v Politifact.com
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