**E-Mail Warning** Its another HOAX

On Monday, August 18, 1997 9:59 AM, Sprayform
> [SMTP:sprayform.dev@netwales.co.uk] wrote:

Its a HOAX

Another Good Times hoax Please do your research before posting this stuff (I
know people panic but its always worth checking out this stuff)

see below - I found this after 5 minutes on AltaVista

http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html#penpal

PENPAL GREETINGS! Warning Hoax

The PENPAL GREETINGS! Hoax shown below appears to be an attempt to kill an
e-mail chain letter by claiming that it is a self starting Trojan that
destroys your hard drive and then sends copies of itself to everyone whose
address in in your mailbox. Reading an e-mail message does not run it
nor does it run any attachments, so this Trojan must be self starting. Aside
from the fact that a program cannot start itself, the Trojan would also have
to
know about every different kind of e-mail program to be able to forward
copies of itself to other people. This warning is totally a hoax.

FYI!

     Subject:  Virus Alert
Importance: High If anyone receives mail entitled: PENPAL GREETINGS! please
delete it WITHOUT reading it. Below is a little explanation of the message,
and what it would do to your PC if you were to read the message. If you have
any questions or
     concerns please contact  SAF-IA Info Office on 697-5059.

     This is a warning for all internet users - there is a dangerous
virus
     propogating across the internet through an e-mail message entitled
"PENPAL GREETINGS!". DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY MESSAGE ENTITLED "PENPAL GREETINGS!"
This message appears to be a friendly letter asking you if you are
interestedin a penpal, but by the time you read this letter, it is too late.
The "trojan horse" virus will have already infected the boot sector of your
hard drive, destroying all of the data present. It is a
self-replicating
virus, and once the message is read, it will AUTOMATICALLY forward itself to
anyone
     who's e-mail address is present in YOUR mailbox!
This virus will DESTROY your hard drive, and holds the potential to

DESTROY the hard drive of anyone whose mail is in your inbox, and who's mail
is in their inbox, and so on. If this virus remains unchecked, it has the
potential to do a great deal of DAMAGE to computer networks worldwide!!!!
Please, delete the message entitled "PENPAL GREETINGS!" as soon as you see it!
And pass this message along to all of your friends and relatives, and the
other readers of the newsgroups and mailing lists which you are on, so that
they are not hurt by this dangerous virus!!!!