INTERNET WARNING: virus or hoax

[Tim McDaniel]

On Wed, 6 Nov 1996, dennis grace <amazing at mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
> Subject: Fwd: INTERNET WARNING: virus or hoax
> 
> Greetings, Cousins,
... 
> >The latest hoax or a really bad virus?  I thought i'd pass this on
> >since I wasn't sure. ...
> >> DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300 REGARDLESS OF EXTENSION !!!

I strongly thank the originators and those passing it along for the
dose of skepticism.  Many warnings passed along nowadays are urban
legends.  (E.g., the "Good Times virus" warning uses nonsensical terms
and simply couldn't function like that.)  It's good to take such
warnings with a grain of salt pending verification.  (You certainly
may, for prudence's sake, follow them just in case, but it's best to
keep an open mind for new evidence.)

I recall reading that PKZIP300 is indeed a bad program that destroys
disk contents.  Unfortunately, I have no citations.  If I were not
feeling lazy 8-), I'd check out the FAQ list for the Usenet newsgroup
alt.folklore.urban; I'm 80% sure it would have a few lines on this.

-- 
                             Tim McDaniel
                        Reply-To: tmcd at crl.com
    mcdaniel at mcdaniel.dallas.tx.us is wrong tool.  Never use this.