In the past few weeks, I've noticed more internet hoaxes and scams floating around than ever. Most of these come to me from people who forward them to my e-mail box and/or send them to me via social networking sites. Unfortunately, anyone who forwards these things to other people is just as guilty of perpetuating these scams as those who initiate them. All it takes is a little bit of critical thinking and/or a quick search on Snopes to debunk them before you pollute the internet with more of this garbage.
Hoax: The first example is a chain e-mail suggesting that we should all forward said e-mail to everyone we can think of to "send a message to our politicians that we will not tolerate this". The suggestion goes on to include that everyone should "fax a copy of the e-mail to their local representatives" along with a letter demanding answers about why this is allowed. The "this" that is being referred to is the claim that illegal aliens are collecting social security benefits because it is legal to do so, and that we must stop allowing "anchor babies" (babies illegal aliens allegedly come to the United States to give birth to so that they can remain with the child until it turns 21) and we should all "demand that they change the laws to stop this".
Truth: Under current laws, illegal aliens are NOT awarded social security benefits OF ANY KIND, and the citizenship of any baby born in the United States does not confer ANY citizenship to ANY other family member, nor does it allow the parents of said infant to stay in this country for any length of time. In fact, many children of immigrants born in the U.S. are separated from their parents and put into social services custody since they are citizens, while the illegal immigrant parents are jailed awaiting deportation. That seems rather cruel to me, especially when we're talking about a breastfeeding infant. (It happens more often than you think.) In what fantasy world are the creators of these hoax e-mails living where children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants allow their parents to live in the United States legally until they turn 21?
The Harm: What may seem like a harmless hoax causes much harm in several ways. First, while it only takes a few seconds to forward an e-mail, the time spent forwarding and reading this garbage would be much better spent writing an actual letter to our politicians about REAL issues that actually exist. That brings me to point number two, which is that every letter, fax, or e-mail that gets sent to a politician's office about this garbage must be dealt with in some way, and it takes a lot of taxpayer money for your local senator to have staff respond to the invalidity of them or do so themselves. Wouldn't you rather your local representatives deal with real problems instead of imaginary ones made up by some internet hoaxster?
Example number two is the infinitely changing "virus" hoax e-mail, in which there are claims that there is a virus circulating that will "wipe your hard drive clean and destroy your computer" if you click on a link in a certain e-mail. While there are viruses that are sent regularly via e-mail, the exaggerated e-mail warnings set people up to fall for fake "free virus checkers" that they see pop up on various web sites which, instead of checking your computer for a virus, actually install a virus on your computer. Rule of thumb: get virus software from a reliable source (an electronics store, for example) and do not ever, EVER trust ANY "virus checker" software you see on the internet.
I would take it a step further and before clicking on any link in any e-mail from someone you know, contact them and ask them what the link is for and if they have used it themselves. Request that any links be explained before including them in e-mails so that you will be better able to determine if you wish to click on them. Many of us are charged for bandwidth on our internet access and if the link goes to a video or other streaming media, it's going to cost actual money to click on it. If it goes elsewhere, it's a matter of common courtesy to explain where. Basic e-mail etiquette dictates this.
Also, ask anyone who forwards spam and/or chain e-mails to either a) not send them to you or b) at least make sure they put your address in the "bcc" section instead of the "cc" section. "CC" stands for "carbon copy", meaning you are sending an electronic version of a "carbon copy" of that e-mail to someone and EVERYONE who receives the e-mail will have all of the e-mail addresses of everyone else to whom you have sent the e-mail, while "bcc" means "blind carbon copy", meaning that nobody else can see to whom the e-mail has been sent but the sender. I've seen forwarded e-mails with hundreds of e-mail addresses showing in the "cc" section, and this is exactly why those who complain about getting so much spam e-mail are getting it - everyone who gets the e-mails their friends are forwarding are also getting their e-mail addresses, and they are forwarding those e-mail addresses to other spammers every time they forward the e-mail, even if they don't realize it.
The most recent example of an internet hoax I experienced was just a few hours ago. Someone sent me an "invitation" to an "event" on Facebook claiming that the first 25,000 recipients to click "attend" would receive a "free Facebook hoodie".
First of all, Facebook would likely make such an offer or announcement on their own corporate web site or via e-mail, since they have the e-mail address of EVERY SINGLE MEMBER. Hello!? You are an absolute fool if you give any of your personal information to these people.
First of all, once you send them your name, address, and e-mail address, they now have the information they need to devise further scams and appeal to your foolishness so they can scam you with something bigger. The web site link you are instructed to click on takes you to a web site that is NOT in the U.S. and that is also NOT a Facebook web site. It has all kinds of "comments" from people claiming "I got mine the other day!" or "I tried to get three but they limited me to two." Of course, these are obviously comments from the scammers themselves, designed to trick the easily fooled people into thinking they really will get a free hoodie if they hand over their e-mail addresses and physical addresses, along with their names. You are wasting your time, and you are rewarding a scammer for scamming you by inviting them to send you all kinds of scam e-mails and/or develop a mailing list which they can sell to others, and they will NEVER send you a hoodie, guaranteed.
It is astonishing to me that people who can carry on semi-intelligent arguments about political issues will fall for such nonsense, but some people see "free" and their brains immediately shut down.
I highly recommend that anyone with a Facebook account should "friend" Facebook's corporate account, so that you will be able to receive updates about the changes you may be seeing in their internet and smartphone app interfaces, as well as warnings about various scams as mentioned above. The link for the Facebook web site is http://www.facebook.com/facebook - do it now!
A family member forwarded to me a spam e-mail that had clearly been sent to hundreds of others before with an embedded HTML section of a credit score checking web site. The subject says "Your credit score may have changed. View it for free from the three major reporting agencies!" You click on it, and it appears to take you to a web site which allows you to sign up for a free trial in a credit score monitoring service that will allow you to see your credit report and correct any inaccuracies as well. The problem? If you click on the link, it will not take you to a valid web site, but a scam web site that LOOKS like a valid web site. When you enter your birthday, social security number, etc. the scammers now have ALL of your personal information, so instead of protecting your credit score, you have made access to your credit information completely available and vulnerable to the people you don't want to have it.
DO NOT EVER CLICK ON A LINK IN AN E-MAIL TO GO TO ANY BANKING OR FINANCIAL-RELATED WEB SITE! TYPE THE SIMPLE WEB ADDRESS OF THE SITE IN YOUR BROWSER AND GO THERE DIRECTLY!!! It is the only way to ensure that you aren't being targeted for a "phishing" scam, which is what the scam above is called.
The above examples are just a small sampling of the obvious hoaxes I receive on a regular basis. I realize they may not be obvious to some of the less savvy internet users, but they will be if you learn to use some common sense and understand that, with the many wonderful things that come with the internet, there are always scammers hard at work spending more time and effort trying to scam you than it would take to just go get a real job.
My intent wasn't to turn this into a "how to protect yourself from internet scams" blog, but rather to point out what a lack of critical thinking will do to you. In fact, pretty much everything we don't like about the world we live in right now is due to a lack of critical thinking on our part, and it's time we stop blaming our politicians and start blaming ourselves for putting them there, and for failing to do what is necessary to make ourselves very clear what we will and will not vote for the next time around, and what we need to see in order for the public servant in question to have a chance at getting re-elected. Of course, you'll first have to educate yourself on what the issues are, not on what you think you heard someone else say they are. Listen the next time you watch the news - really listen. Go to the web sites of the politicians you are both for AND against, get a good understanding of what each is REALLY saying so you don't become another source of false information. We have enough of those already. And if you have to lie about what a politician you don't like said in order to make the one you do like look good, I'd question my choice in candidates.
Yeah, I know Fox News and C.N.N. aren't perfect news sources, but they're a hell of a lot better than a spam e-mail that could easily have been written by a confused 8-year old. I'm convinced that's where a lot of people get their political opinions - from false statements made in spam e-mails forwarded to them by their friends.
Everyone knows that I'm concerned about the many displays of bigotry, hate, and violence by some of the religious people in our world, including the highly educated terrorists who made the decision to crash planes into buildings due to religious superstitions they held. (Interesting that these were educated people, and the only thing that could convince them to do something so stupid was religious superstition.) I won't repeat those arguments here, but I would like to discuss the fact that, if you have made the decision to "believe" in a religious figure and/or engage in religious activity, there are certain responsibilities you have to understand the need for separation of church and state.
First, the constant postings I keep seeing about why people should not drink Dr. Pepper because they "left the words 'under god' out of the pledge on their packaging which had the 'Pledge of Allegiance' on it" are a clear display of ignorance. The original pledge of allegiance NEVER HAD THE WORDS 'UNDER GOD' IN IT TO START WITH! If you're going to be angry about that and post that people should boycott the product, then please, at least have the decency to acknowledge that you are miffed that the ORIGINAL VERSION OF THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE is being used because you want everything possible to be about religion, even though the original author of the pledge, who was a Baptist minister, had the self-discipline to refrain from making a patriotic pledge into a religious prayer, in honor of the U.S. Constitution. If only people had that kind of respect for our constitution today...
If a Baptist minister can refrain from putting religion into a government document, surely the average citizen can.
Yes, there truly are religious leaders who have the wisdom to recognize that there is a time and a place for everything, and patriotic, government-sanctioned activities need not mention anything about anybody's religious figurehead.
The other thing I keep seeing over and over is the bitching about how they "need to put prayer back in schools". Of course, everyone knows how I feel about turning a publicly-funded (tax-supported) school into a religious sanctuary, since it is a violation of the United States Constitution's "Separation of Church and State". It's what also protects your children from having to listen to a Qur'an passage each morning before classes begin.
It's not that prayer is forbidden - any child is free to pray as they see fit. It's simply that the school isn't going to organize it. If you think your child wants or needs to pray at school, then instruct him or her on how to do so and take steps to ensure that it can be done in as unobtrusive a way as possible. That is responsible parenting and promotes a healthy attitude in your child that the world needn't revolve around them in order for them to faithfully practice their religion.
However, the bigger issue for me here is that the people who do the griping about there not being prayer in school seem to suffer from the delusion that having kids say a quick prayer before classes begin is going to somehow change the world or the way kids behave in school. It won't. The only thing that will do that is making sure that you teach your children right from wrong, and I'm not sure that having them recite prayers is the way to do that. Just some food for thought.
I'm also amazed at the number of e-mails I receive with "prosperity angels" that will supposedly make me wealthy if I forward the angelic spam on to all of my contacts. I'm curious why anyone would think that something like this would be sanctioned by their religion, and the fact that anyone is superstitious enough to even waste time on the POSSIBILITY that "it might work" is the same reason why we have so many problems in our world today, and it's also the same reason why these same people end up with computer viruses, financial security issues, and a host of other problems in their daily lives.
Got suckered by a two-timing love interest? Lack of critical thinking. I GUARANTEE you the signs were there, you just didn't want to see them.
Didn't get your homework/housework/take-home from work-work done? It's because you were too busy sending out spam e-mails, giving all of your personal information to scammers for future use, sending an "event" invitation to fifty of your Facebook friends, or trying to reboot your computer after you clicked on an e-mail attachment claiming to contain some of the most amazing free porn ever.
Critical thinking isn't always easy, but if you can learn to think your way out of the traps set for you by those who are counting on you to be gullible and fall for their scams, it's a start in the right direction. Who knows, as you get better and better at asking yourself whether something is legit or not, you just may learn to see the many hidden scams that most take for granted as true without even thinking about it, much to the detriment of society as a whole.
A.
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