{"id":967,"date":"2008-06-11T11:41:45","date_gmt":"2008-06-11T10:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=967"},"modified":"2008-06-11T11:41:45","modified_gmt":"2008-06-11T10:41:45","slug":"beware-the-hoax-e-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=967","title":{"rendered":"Beware the hoax e-mail"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I regularly receive e-mails circulating a warning &#8211; usually about some health or safety situation &#8211; and urging me to pass on the message to all my friends. From experience, I know that virtually all of these e-mails are hoaxes, although the sender does not realise this and is acting with the best of intentions.<br \/>\nHow do I know that they are hoaxes? The content &#8211; often improbable &#8211; and the style &#8211; usually overly dramatic &#8211; frequently make this obvious to someone with a questioning mind.<br \/>\nBut I often check them out on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/snopes.asp\">Snopers.com<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.co.uk\/\">Google<\/a> by simply cutting and pasting into the search box the title of the e-mail or a key bit of text. I do this because I&#8217;m fascinating by how the e-mail originated and what basis, if any, the advice or warning has. It tells us a lot about human nature and the role of the Net.<br \/>\nI was reminded of these hoax e-mails today by <a href=\"http:\/\/lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk\/women\/story\/0,,2284776,00.html\">this article<\/a> which makes the interesting point that many of these e-mails are targeted at women. Why is this? Because women are vulnerable, they are caring, and (sadly) they are often gullible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I regularly receive e-mails circulating a warning &#8211; usually about some health or safety situation &#8211; and urging me to pass on the message to all my friends. From experience, I know that virtually all of these e-mails are hoaxes, although the sender does not realise this and is acting with the best of intentions. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}