Hoax Warnings


	Alphabetical Index

NAME:	Grammar Bug
ALIAS:	Spell-Check

There are currently 2 versions of this hoax and they look pretty much alike. They appeared almost simultaneously in May 1999. Here's what the first variant looks like:

 5-5-99 USA: SPELL-CHECK - AS A COMPUTER VIRUS.
 By BOB HIRSCHFELD.

 WASHINGTON - A new computer virus is spreading throughout the
 Internet, and  it is far more insidious than the "Chernobyl"
 menace last month. Named Strunkenwhite, after the authors of a
 classic guide to good writing, it returns e-mail messages that
 have grammatical or spelling errors. It is deadly accurate in
 its detection abilities, unlike the spell-checkers that come
 with word processing programs.

 The virus is causing something akin to panic throughout
 corporate America, which has become used to the typos,
 misspellings, missing words and mangled  syntax so acceptable in
 cyberspace.

 The CEO of LoseItAll.com, an Internet startup, said the virus
 has rendered him helpless. "Each time I tried to send one
 particular e-mail this morning, I got back this error message:
 'Your dependent clause preceding your independent clause must be
 set off by commas, but one must not precede the conjunction.' I
 threw my laptop across the room."

 A broker at Begg, Barow and Steel speculated that the hacker who
 created Strunkenwhite was a "disgruntled English major who
 couldn't make it on a trading floor. When you're buying and
 selling on margin, I don't think it's anybody's business if I
 write that 'i meetinged through the morning, then cinched the
 deal on the cel phone while bareling down the xway.' " If
 Strunkenwhite makes e-mailing impossible, it could mean the end
 to a communication revolution once hailed as a significant
 time-saver.

 A study of 1,254 office workers in Leonia, New Jersey, found
 that e-mail increased employees' productivity by 1.8 hours a day
 because they took less time to formulate their thoughts. (The
 same study also found that they lost 2.2 hours of productivity
 because they were e-mailing so many jokes to their spouses,
 parents and stockbrokers.)

 Strunkenwhite is particularly difficult to detect because it
 does not come as an e-mail attachment. Instead, it is disguised
 within the text of an e-mail titled "Congratulations on your pay
 raise." The message asks the recipient to "click here to find
 out about how your raise effects your pension". The use of
 "effects" rather than the grammatically correct "affects"
 appears to be an inside joke from Strunkenwhite's mischievous
 creator.

 The virus has left government e-mail systems in disarray.
 Officials at the Office of Management and Budget can no longer
 transmit electronic versions of federal regulations because
 their highly technical language seems to run afoul of
 Strunkenwhite's dictum that "vigorous writing is concise".

 The White House speech-writing office reported that it had
 received the same message, along with a caution to avoid phrases
 such as "the truth is ..." and "in fact ..." Home-computer users
 are also reporting snafus, although an e-mailer who used the
 word "snafu" said she had come to regret it. The virus can have
 an even more devastating impact if it infects an entire network.

 A cable news operation was forced to shut down its computer
 system for several hours when it discovered that Strunkenwhite
 had somehow infiltrated its TelePrompTer software, delaying
 newscasts and leaving news anchors nearly tongue-tied as they
 wrestled with proper sentence structure. There is concern among
 law enforcement officials that Strunkenwhite is a harbinger of
 the increasingly sophisticated methods hackers are using to
 exploit the vulnerability of business' reliance on computers.

 "This is one of the most complex and invasive examples of
 computer code we have ever encountered. We just can't imagine
 what kind of devious mind would want to tamper with e-mails to
 create this burden on communications," said an FBI agent who
 insisted on speaking via the telephone out of concern that
 trying to e-mail his comments could leave him tied up for hours.

 Meanwhile, bookstores and on-line booksellers reported a surge
 in orders for Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style".

 [The writer, who lampoons the news at his website,
 bobsfridge.com, contributed this comment to The Washington
 Post.]. (c) 1999 Singapore Press Holdings Limited.
 STRAITS TIMES
 05/05/1999

The second variant of this hoax is a bit different. It can be viewed from description "Grammar Bug 2".