Rambling thoughts on receiving an e-mail hoax

E-mail has been around for about thirty years. E-mail hoaxes and "urban legends" have been zipping around the internet for almost as long.

If you've been using e-mail for the past decade or so, you can easily spot them. They're the messages that tell you to forward them to "everyone you know".

In the past they were usually about computer viruses for which there was "no known cure". Mind you it's been a few years since I've seen one of these.

There are 70,000 "real" items of malware circulating in the wild for the Microsoft Windows operating system. For the free software GNU/Linux and even the non-free MacOSX operating system, there are but a handful. It seems there might be a solution there.

I've seen e-mail hoaxes about supposed missing children. Again there are "real" missing children. Sometimes they are drafted as "child soldiers" in various civil wars around the world or they're sold into prostitution. Millions more die of starvation, disease and malnutrition. These children are all very real.

The most recent e-mail "hoax" that I received was about supposed HIV infected syringes being placed on the inside of gas station (filling station if you're in the UK!) pump handles.

Again, my "handy dandy bs-o-meter" was reading full scale.

So, upon receipt of this message, I quickly entered this info along with the word "hoax" into my search terms in Google Search. Naturally I found out that this was another in a long line of urban legends. In fact this one has been circulating around the net for seven or eight years. I wonder why it took so long for me to receive this particular hoax?

But again there is a very real HIV/AIDS problem in the world. In Africa HIV/AIDS has reached pandemic proportions and whole generations of people in villages, towns and cities are being wiped out. Millions are dying and those with the power to take action have done very little to stop the pandemic.

Stephen Lewis, former leader of the Ontario New Democratic Party, former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations, most recently held the post of UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa.

When you hear Lewis speak, you can't help but notice the absolute sense of frustration and moral outrage at how little has been done in response to the crisis.

So the next time you receive a message that asks you to "send it to everyone you know"... don't. Do a quick "Google" to see if it's "real" or a "hoax".

More importantly, take a few minutes and give some thought to the "big picture" and what might be done about it.

Upon reflection, you might want to compose a message about these very real problems and send it to all of your friends. That would be very worthwhile.