By Rosie Moore

Did you ever get a  chain letter? I did many years ago. I would read them out of curiosity then throw them away. The way my life was going as far as luck was concerned, no way was a letter going to change it!

There are two types of chain letters. A hoax, an attempt to trick or defraud users, is one type. It can be malicious or also a scam  that convinces users to send money or personal information. Phishing attacks could fall into this. The second type is urban legends, which are designed to be redistributed and usually warn users of a threat or claim to be notifying them of important or urgent information.

It didn’t take long for this form of hoax make its appearance on our personal computer. Make Money Fast is a modern-day user-net chain letter. It is read by thousands of people daily. It is basically the same scheme in which the reader sends one dollar to each of the five people on  the list, then moves his name onto the bottom of the list. Typically they hook you in by telling a joke, promising good fortune or popularity, threatening you with bad luck, informing you of another person’s tragedy or misfortune–anything to grab your interest Or they will request that you send the chain letter on to 3-5 friends and ask you to do this within a quick time frame, like 24-72 hours.

Shun those impossible dreams. Someone once said, “I hate it when I don’t  forward a chain letter and I die the next day!”

Thought for the day: Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things.Henry Ward Beecher

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