Some times you will get an E-mail with a virus warning like one that recently circulated on web about "A Card for You" virus.

Without checking to see if virus is real, many people immediately forwarded note to everyone they know, and urged them to do same. Many of them did so, and false information spread like wildfire around web. This particular virus was exposed as a HOAX. If anyone had bothered to take time and do a search on "A Card for You", they would have found web page at Symantec which clearly reports it as a HOAX.

The only thing you are accomplishing is to frighten people and cause unnecessary concern. In point of fact, you could unwittingly cause problems for people you send them to, like SULFNBK.EXE Warning did. This hoax urged people to search for "sulfnbk.exe" file on their computer, and if it was found to delete it. Sulfnbk.exe, is a valid Microsoft Windows 95/98/Me utility that is used to restore long file names, and if you use any of these Windows systems, you will find it. This caused a lot of people to delete it, and then they had to scramble to restore it.

I recently received an E-mail outlining a persons experiences with viruses, and he urged everyone not to accept any E-mails with an attachment. He has set his mail reading program to automatically delete any message with an attachment. This is an over reaction. One of advantages of web is wealth of information available on net.

She thinks sky is falling fast So goes to tell King.

But, after she has spread news And all is told and said

The good old King just laughs at her And sends her home instead.

That is a very wise old King and I'd love him in charge now.

Technology vendors think they can save world and they are using terrorism to sell snake oil to government and industry. Acting like Chicken Little, they run to government with a technology based "solution" to terror. But somehow our King, anxious to appear to be doing something about terrorism, agrees that sky is falling and buys her tech toys instead of laughing and sending Chicken Little home.

The following is a quote from a Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania interview with Tom Siebel of Siebel Systems, a manufacturer of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software for big business.

"Tom Siebel has been attacked for his proposal to use Siebel software to sniff out terrorist plots. In February, Siebel told a Congressional committee that a specially tailored Siebel system might have deterred Sept. 11 attacks.

"Security agencies can use this technology to maintain a 'logically' centralized – although physically disparate – consolidated view of terrorist-related information gathered from multiple sources and channels and make this information immediately accessible to authorized personnel in homeland security network," Siebel testified. "This is not an opportunistic capitalization of tragic events. This is a combined effort between U.S. government and private enterprise to avoid a repeat of September 11th."

He added that since November of last year, various government and non-profit agencies have purchased Siebel Homeland Security product to anticipate, track, prevent, and respond to national security threats."

http://makeashorterlink.com/?T59025701 (Free membership required to read, check privacy policy.)

Siebel Homeland Security product? Wow! Can I get a copy for my laptop and another for my PDA? Must be a hot selling item, and it's working like a charm, too. I wonder why it's not available worldwide, since it IS so effective? It seems that between Larry Ellison and his National ID database and Tom Siebel's Homeland Security product we've got problem of terrorism licked. But wait, it seems that hardware guys want a piece of snake oil action.