Hoax Warnings


	Alphabetical Index

NAME:	Meme hoax
ALIAS:	Anti-CDA hoax

This is supposed to be a joke, but as we've seen in the past several times, hoaxes like this just cause panic and grief. There is no real 'MEME' or 'anti-CDA' virus. Here is the the original hoax warning message:

  Subject: New anti-CDA virus threatens Internet
  Newsgroups: comp.security.misc,comp.security.unix,alt.security,
  alt.comp.virus,alt.folklore.computers
  Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 01:30:39 GMT

  As part of their vicious opposition to the Communications
  Decency Act, hackers have created a devilish new virus the sole
  purpose of which is to oppose the CDA.  This virus is now
  spreading over the Internet.

  According to experts, most viruses are specific to particular
  types of computers, because they insert themselves into
  "machine code" that only works on one type of computer.
  However, the recent Word Macro virus showed that some viruses
  can cross the boundaries between computer types.

  The new anti-CDA virus is in that category.  It is a so-called
  "meme virus" that propagates through insertion in the files
  that users create to automatically sign their e-mail and Usenet
  articles.  Once the virus is in the file, it is automatically
  attached to all the user's outgoing communications, spreading
  its politically extreme message with the terrifying exponential
  efficiency of biological reproduction.

  Technology has been advancing at such a rapid rate that,
  incredibly, the creation of a virus of this type has not yet
  become a criminal act. This is yet another example of the
  threat that an unregulated Internet can pose to a
  carefully-controlled and properly-constrained democracy. In the
  words of Anal Roberts, an advocate of regulations like the CDA,
  "if Jesus didn't need the Internet, then neither do we". Users
  who wish to avoid encountering this virus can do so by staying
  off the Internet for the next 2 weeks, as this particular virus
  will become inert after that.

                     Will Mengarini

  Visit  on or before Fr 15 Mar 96 to become a plaintiff in the
  lawsuit against the Communications Decency Act. Include this
  paragraph as a meme virus in your .sig until then.

Please don't distribute this message if you receive it.