Once again, I feel like a fool. I sent a valid looking Email alert to half the Internet and it turned out to be a fake. Have you been caught? I bet you have. Do you remember the "Good Times" virus? At first sight these Emails may seem like a minor problem; a cheap laugh; a practical joke. However, just as water slowly running will wear away a mountain, these phony alerts are eroding the power of the Internet.

The one thing that separates the Internet community from the community at large is that we react. While the masses may approve of a policy or disapprove of a law, they tend to remain silent. The Internet community, on the other hand, will take arms against perceived injustice. In this the weapon if choice is Email and the offenders will soon find themselves swept away by a flood of protest. It is probably the only way we can protect ourselves against the evil influence of corporate "soft" money.

Bogus Emails are a menace. These false alerts dull our reflexes and inhibit our ability to react. We all know the fable of "the boy who cried wolf." These phony causes are cries of wolf, and when a true problem arises, we, like the shepherds of the fable, may fail to defend our sheep.

How can we protect ourselves against these false alerts? A valid Internet alert requires three things: a return Email address, a reference URL and a date. If you are creating an alert you must include them. If you are passing an alert along you must check them. Without them, or other external verification, you must assume the mail to be fake.

A valid Email address must be included in the body of the letter. You cannot just rely on the address in your "From:" field. As the Email is passed around the Internet it will eventually be deleted and forgotten. A Yahoo, Hotmail or other free address will simply not do. Anyone can set one of these up in a moment and claim to be the Queen of Sheba.

A reference URL is important too. Just about anything we need to know about will be posted somewhere. The most likely source for this information is one of the many web news services, but some special issues like fighting spam or Internet free speech have their own sites. The U.S. Department of Energy Internet Hoax Page is also a good place to find out about any current hoaxes.

Finally a date or, better yet, an expiry  date should be included in any web alert. Remember, the original send date will be lost as the missal weaves its way across the web. It is important to know when to stop reacting to an alert. These things tend to have a life of their own and often continue for months after the issue is resolved. The most recent mistake I made was a valid alert -- valid, that is, about 8 months ago.

In his article "Hoax, They're out to get you on the Net", Matthew Broersma says:

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