Hoax & Virus Topics involving the MAPUG List

       

Subject: Links to Hoax, Urban Legend, & False Virus Alert Sites

Here are some sites that maintain databases of virus alerts (both real and fictitious), hoax warnings (scary stories that are not true), and urban ledgends (on-going fictitious stories that just won't die). So if you get an email alert, especially one that has been forwarded many times and asks you to forward it to everyone in your addressbook (big hint that it is a hoax), check it out at these sites before doing anything. Or you just might be doing what the writer of the hoax wants: to have it spread throughout the Internet!

<http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/>
<http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/hoaxes/>
<http://www.snopes.com/>
<http://www.internet-101.com/hoax/>
<http://www.F-Secure.com/virus-info/>
<http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HoaxBustersHome.html>
<http://urbanlegends.com/>

Subject: Privacy Concerns on Google and other "Reverse Look-Up" Search Engines  

Currently, Google.com has an option available that you may not care for. If you type in your telephone number in Google's search bar and click the search button, it will give you the address of the phone number AND the option of pulling up driving directions and a map to the location of the phone number!

This means that anyone who gets your telephone number (through the phone book or Caller ID) can find out exactly -- and immediately -- where you live. Because this "reverse directory" is now online, abusers will be able to more easily find victims and those who help them (such as people who run safehouses for victims of spousal abuse).

The good news is that you can get the link to your telephone number REMOVED.
Here are the instructions:

1. Type in your full telephone number like this: 555-123-4567.
2. If your number appears in the mapping database, an icon resembling a telephone will appear to the left of the entry on the results page.
3. Click on this icon and it will take you to a page containing a description of this service and a link to request that your number be removed.
4. If you have additional phones lines, be sure to check them too.

Note: on the page in step 3 are a number of links to other "reverse look-up" sites, you'll need to visit each to delist yourself.