Email: Rules of conduct.

I recently received a giant chain email talking about how if you hit #90 on your phone it gives your information to the person calling and how I should send it to “Everyone I know so they can be safe!” After getting more emails like this each day I decided I would start my own, “Send this to everyone you know or else” style email due to being insanely tired of receiving emails that if I don’t send to 8 trillion people god will kill a kitten, or some other insane and implausible event. So with that, if you ever get spam from someone sending you, “How to loose 600lbs in 5 minutes while eating pizza” or “Jesus has returned as an antelope!” Please do not hesitate to copy this response (leaving out the initial specific stuff to the email I was responding to) to the “friends” of yours that sent you this “wonderful thing they couldn’t resist to send.”

Email:

"ugg. I will save everyone some completely unnecessary fear here and let you all know this is not real. here are a few common sense reasons why.

1. even if hitting #90 did do that, how would the individual get the information you just "opened up" to them?

2. no telephone company (even ATT) would be stupid enough to allow customers to forward that information on to anyone. have you ever accessed your own account by phone from say Verizon or some other company? you can find out your info but there is no such way to forward it to anyone else.

3. If someone really wants your info they can get it. unless you pay to have your number show up as "blocked" or "unavailable" to caller ID (and even that can be reverse look-up'ed) I could get all the information about anyone's phone and geographic location by going to sites like this (this site is safe, check it out to see just how easy this stuff is. there is no virus's or spyware here, I use it daily) http://www.yougetsignal.com/

4. This information was provided (the stuff in the email) by Snopes.com. Snopes is known for being the most unreliable source of rumors and "information" on the planet, (second only to the voices that speak to people about spaceships in the tail end of the comets coming to "take us home." on a side note, anyone want some koolaid?)

5. (technically not proving this email I received to be inaccurate, but still important). The Internet is a series of tubes, stuff that has "send to everyone you know" is causing (not all by itself of course) what will need to eventually be the rebuilding of the backbone of the Internet to accommodate all this excess traffic (though its mostly caused by streaming media files like watching tv online). So please, next time you see something that you think would benefit the entire world greatly, send the person who sent you the email this.

"Thank you for taking the time to email me this amazingly fascinating piece of literature and/or information (or whatever it is, "worlds cutest kittens" etc...). In the future remember that while some of these emails are infact rather interesting (or those kittens are in fact mind numbingly cute), most of this information is likely false. To ensure you do not accidental send me, your loved ones, or others you care about things that are potentially incorrect or could actually be a virus themselves please refer to this common sense test. If the email passes the test please send it my way; the test is as follows:

1. while possible is this even remotely plausible (see Bonsia Kittens, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten )? if "yes" see step 2, if "no" find the delete button and send this email back to the depth from which it came.
2. was the email interesting enough for me to even read it all the way through before sending it out? if "yes" see step 3, if "no" delete.
3. is there an attached file in it that claims "you must see" or it will "fix something" "protect you from virus's" "________" (insert other bit of nonsense here). If "yes" delete, if "no" see step 4.
4. did my computer slow down or start doing weird things after opening this email/attachment? if "yes" go to www.ChrisComputing.com and pay me to fix it, if "no" see step 5 and or go to www.ChrisComputing.com and donate money anyways for providing you with such a handy guide.
5. was it interesting enough to read again or did I take something away from this I will value for at least the next few hours? if "yes" see 6, if "no" reread it or delete to be sure.
6. you are now ready to send this to your family, friends, loved ones. Even more importantly you have passed the "common sense" test.

Alternatively if you hate the people you are sending this to just do the exact opposite of all the answers that led you to having a legitimate reason to send it.

(as a side note, the Bonsia Kitten email was at the time the most circulated email to date. Proving once and for all that while a person is smart, people (the masses) are for the most part completely devoid of common sense).

And for the love of god! Please forward this to at least 60,000 people or the world will stop spinning and head directly into the Sun! Also your computer will explode and other such nonsense. :)"

update: After sending this out, within seconds I got a mass email full of super cute kittens, that then crashed my internet browser. So either god has a sense of humor similar to mine (scary thought), or this has already making waves.

Update 2: GOOD NEWS! After reading my email I am pleased to announce that the prince of Nigeria has decided to send me a large inheritance in exchange for only a small fee for transferring the money! Wow how lucky I am to receive such an honor.
(Yes I was sent that by someone I know with the subject title being, “Do you think this is legitimate?” Is it wrong of me to want to write back, “Oh yes absolutely, you should go for it!” …when was it exactly that most people stopped using their brain?)