[ALBSA-Info] don't be fooled by spam

[Eriola Kruja]

When the Spam Hits the Fan

By Michael Chapman 

IOWA CITY, Iowa (U-WIRE) -- University of Iowa students probably get more
e-mail from Anthony Parkin and Jessica Mydek than from their own parents.  
They're the kids who are terminally ill, dying from some incurable brain
tumor or other rare form of cancer, and are featured on popular fake
e-mail chains. Due to their "illnesses," they have decided start an e-mail
chain letter, with the promise that the American Cancer Society will
donate 3 cents toward cancer research for every person the letter is sent
to. 

Because of this and other such letters, the American Cancer Society has
posted a notice on its Web site saying it "is greatly disturbed
by reports of a fraudulent chain letter circulating on the
Internet which lists the American Cancer Society as a 'corporate
sponsor.'" <http://www.cancer.org/chain.html>

Fake e-mail, a type of spam, is a problem common to anyone who has an
e-mail address.  Though she gets the occasional funny forward, UI freshman
Erin Nelson says, the majority of the e-mail she receives is spam. 

"I'd say I get 10 to 20 a day," she said. "Some of them are good, but most
of them are junk." 

Fake e-mail exists in hundreds of forms, ranging from hoax chain letters,
such as one in which Bill Gates offers to send you $1,000 if you forward
his e-mail to 100 people, to get-rich-quick schemes that tell the
recipient to send money to others first, to forwards promising that wishes
will come true if you send the letter to enough people. 

"The best one I've gotten is the one where, if you forward this to people,
you'll get Gap clothes," said UI freshman Elaina Buzzell.