Viral Emails

[Ian2day]

Does anyone read them any more. You know the ones that say forward to all your address book contacts. I myself hate them but I do read the first couple of lines, which could be enough to get someone to read the rest of the info contained. I could possibly see there use in alerting people to information that has to reach a high number of people before it is suppressed.

[lifeofbrian]

Does anyone read them any more. You know the ones that say forward to all your address book contacts.

Never got one, wouldn't follow anonymous orders anyway.

[seeker1111]

Does anyone read them any more. You know the ones that say forward to all your address book contacts. I myself hate them but I do read the first couple of lines, which could be enough to get someone to read the rest of the info contained. I could possibly see there use in alerting people to information that has to reach a high number of people before it is suppressed.

I could see the use too, however generally speaking these emails are usually used for the purpose of aquiring as many email addresses as possible, which then are sold to third party sources in order to send advertisements/spam in the hopes that you will click on a link in the email. Affiliate marketers make money by every link clicked, also the people who gather these emails make money through selling personal information (email addresses) to third parties. These forwards can also contain exe.'s and other harmful software that can infect your email, once again for the purpose of gathering your personal information in order to sell to third parties, for the purposes of advertising and other shady reasons (Big Brother?).

If one were to learn how to do this, you could use it for spamming/spreading useful messages to the general public as apposed to useless, harmful viruses, and spyware.

[majicdragon]

911 was an inside job. (send this to ten of your friends and you will have great luck)... failure to send out ten copies will result in certain catastrophe)