A short essay about chain email letters and why it is stupid to forward these mails.

  1. What is a chain email ?

    A chain email is any mail that asks you to send/forward it to everyone you know (or many people).

  2. What is the least I should do before forwarding ANY kind of news to anyone?

    If you really want to do your friend a favour, like you implicitly claim by sending him/her that information, then verify it before you do so. Find some good evidence to support the information, in other words: a reliable source (e.g. the NY Times or IBMs webserver). Provide at least a link to the website with the information. If you cannot find any confirmation other than the mail itself, the information is most likely bogus.
    So don't just pass it on. Because the person in the chain before you is not a reliable source, he/she did just that: passing the mail on to you. If you really want to do someone else a favour, put some real effort into it: find additional information, verify it and then summarize. That way you will save others time and work, instead of wasting it. Most important: provide web links to original sources.

  3. Why is it generally stupid to forward chain emails ?

    Check your math. If everyone who receives the mail forwards it to at least 10 people and that only happens 10 times, the mail will have been sent 10^10 (ten to the power of ten) times = 10.000.000.000 times. That's ten billion emails. Oops.
    The mail will have reached every valid mailadress on the internet by this time. Or rather more likely, many people will receive the message several times.
    Thus you will contribute in wasting an enormous amount of bandwith and hard disk space for sending and storing all the copies of this mail, and wasting an enormous amount of other peoples time because they have to read it. Even worse, if the message is just a hype, you have contributed to spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) to a whole lot of people and most likely made them very nervous for nothing.
    You have just accumulated a huge mountain of bad karma, congratulations.

    Chain emails usually claim to have an information that is so important that everyone needs to know about it. If that would be truly the case, broadcast media (like newspapers, radio and television) are much more efficient to spread news to a large number of people. So if it's really that important to everyone, it should and would be on TV. If it's not on TV, that indicates that the information is either not important or that it is bogus anyway.

    If a person is interested in a certain topic, chances are he/she already knows, because people usually do keep themselves informed about topics they are interested in. It is ok to forward information to someone of whom you know or believe that they'd be interested in knowing. But pushing any kind of information to everyone you know and thus insisting that they need to know about it is just straightforward rude and insulting.

  4. What about email/internet viruses? Everyone who has email/uses the internet needs to know about this, right ?

    Wrong. First of all, most of these chain mails are hoaxes (see http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html and http://www.europe.datafellows.com/virus-info/hoax/ ). Even if it's not a hoax, people use different computers, different operating systems and different email software. By definition no virus can work on all of these. Period. So it only applies to a certain group of people (that use a specific software with a specific version). Even if it applies to them they may have already fixed the problem or installed anti-virus software that protects them.
    You really want to do someone else a favour? Good. Find a detailed description of the problem and it's solution and send them that. Most of all, make sure the advice you give is correct.
    If you are really worried about viruses go have a look at the following sites, they have all the information you'll need:


    Granted, computer viruses can be a serious threat. If you use the internet on a regular basis, it's a good idea to buy virus protection software and update your virus filters at least weekly. Read the instructions that come with the software carefully and make sure you understand the threats and how to protect your computer. That will take care of the problem, which is exactly why many people do it. "Virus warning" chain mails from other people will not help you at all when a smart virus gets sent to you and you happen to execute it on your computer. You'll not even notice it's there until it does some real damage and by then it will be too late.

  5. What about other news? Make Money fast? The world is coming to an end? etc.

    Please. Be reasonable and use your brain, that's what you got it for.
    If there was some clever trick to get rich quick would you tell the whole world? Of course not.
    And if the world is really coming to an end rest assured everyone will find out about it soon enough anyway.

Some good advice from a veteran:

I have been connected to the Internet for well over 10 years now, and I have had an email address even longer than that. During all this time, I received dozens of chain mail letters. 99% of them were stupid hoaxes. Not a single one contained any important or necessary information for me.
Why? Because responsible and knowledgeable users do not send chain mail letters to other people.
True, freedom is an important part of the Internet community. So if you want to out yourself as an Internet dummie and make a lot of people angry at you, go right ahead and forward that chain mail, please do.
On the other hand, in addition to freedom being a part of the Net, so is responsibility. But either way at least do me one favour: keep me off the list of recipients for your chain mails.

Thanks for your attention.