How to spot an Internet hoax.

They pop up in Usenet newsgroups from supposedly informed sources or slide into your e-mail box from well-meaning friends. The message begins with a dire warning a pending modem tax, a virus that's supposedly passed on by reading a particular plain-text e-mail. Sometimes it's a pyramid scheme that is guaranteed to make you thousands of dollars without raising a finger. Internet hoaxes are not only annoying, they gobble up precious Internet bandwidth that could be put to better use.

Often a hoax declares itself by shouting, "This is not a hoax!" followed by a startling prediction of doom, perhaps some technical jargon, and a reference to a quasi-authority--"This came from a friend of a friend who is a lawyer," or "who works at (X large company or Y government agency)." The message ends with the telltale request: "Pass this message on to everyone you know." There may also be a request to contact a third party, such as the Federal Communications Commission ("Tell them we don't want a modem tax!") or a dying person whom you don't know ("He needs messages of encouragement!"). But if you do the math--five friends telling five friends telling five friends--you'll see that the third-party recipient quickly becomes the victim of an e-mail flood that can cripple a small mail server and cost the victim his Internet account.

More harm? Internet hoaxes cost everyone's network or Internet service providers (ISPs) by clogging the bandwith with unnecessary transmissions. ISPs can't gauge the actual cost in hardware and bandwidth, since they don't read user mail, but they know it costs them in technical support to answer user concerns. America Online has "Reach Out" and "Virus Update" areas for users to get immediate valid information. AOL itself was recently the target of a hoax claiming the service read information from users' hard drives. "The biggest cost is the way (hoaxes) impact our members online experience," says AOL spokesperson Rich D'Amato.

William J. Orvis, security specialist with the U.S. Department of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC) Team (http://ciac.llnl. gov/ciac/ciachoaxes.html), says hoaxes may not hurt your machine, but "they do hurt your network. Mail machines can be completely filled up."

There are ocher costs, too, says Rob Rosenberger, Web master of the Computer Virus Myths Home Page (http://kumite.com/myths/). He recalls one man who erased his hard disk and lost everything (with no backups) because he believed a virus hoax.

What can you do? Don't pass hoaxes on. When users pass on hoaxes, the effect itself is a lot like a virus--tying up resources with useless information.

How ran you tell? Orvis says the request, "Send this to all your friends," is a giveaway. Look up specific hoaxes at the CIAC Internet Hoaxes Page (http://ciac.llnl. gov/ciac/CIAC Hoaxes. html).

If the message warns about a bad piece of legislation, there should be a bill number, House resolution (HR) number or its equivalent recorded with the appropriate governing body. Follow up on these numbers through the appropriate Capitol Web page.

Look very critically at messages chat ask you to write to a third party. The point of these chain-hoaxes is either to harass the recipient or do something "nice" but misguided for someone. Orvis reminds potential do-gooders char some ISPs charge their users for each piece of mail they receive.

All messages that claim a company is engaged in wrongdoing (as with the AOL hard drive invasion hoax) should be treated as libelous until you have the facts.

All messages chat claim you can get a computer virus by merely reading a plain-text e-mail are hoaxes. Computer viruses have to be "executable code"--not plain text. Binary attachments are a different story: always treat something you can't read with a plain-text editor as a potential hazard.

Word processing documents, for example, may contain executable macros, and should be screened with a virus checker or thrown away unread. You can double check virus alerts at the Computer Virus Myths Page at http://kumite.com/myths/. If the alleged virus isn't listed, check at one of the anti-virus makers' sites. Your Network security "expert" may or may not be able to help, depending on qualifications.

If a hoax appears in a Usenet newsgroup, see if someone else rebuts it before adding your voice to the fray. And by all means, add the subject line to your killfile! You may not be able to put a stake through the heart of a hoax, but you don't have to invite it into your place of business.