Hoax IM about Mark Genesis Gallardo

Hello Everyone,

Lately I have been getting some IM's from friends and group IM's that say not to accept a friend request from Mark Genesis Gallardo.

For those who have not seen this IM - it looks like this:

"If someone by the name of Mark Genesis Gallardo (rugbylegend) wants to add you to their list, don't accept it. It's a virus. Tell everyone on your list because if somebody on your list adds them you will get it, too. It is a hard drive killer and a very horrible virus. Please pass this on to everyone on your list. We need to find out who is using this account. Sorry for the inconvenience. Right click on your group name of your buddy list and click Send."

And there may be some slight variations on the text.

I normally write off these types of messages in RL because they are hoaxes. But I figured after receiving my 4th (fourth) one in SL - it was time to help out the masses.

While it is great that everyone in SL wants to make sure that there friends are protected and alerted to any potential problems, I want people to understand that this is a HOAX.

The first alarm that this is not true is the fact that SL names can only be 2 words. A First Name and a Last Name. Even if the First Name is trying to show 2 names it must be connected by some character (normally an underline or dash).

Second, accepting a frienship request will put a calling card into your inventory in SL.

Your SL inventory is NOT on your local computer. It is on the Lindens computers. Unless you specifically load something to your computer - you cannot get a virus from Second Life that will shut down your system or kill your hard drive.

As an IT professional for 19 years - I normally see these types of e-mails used in RL to obtain valid e-mail addresses so that a they can be sold to spamming companies.

I have to admit I'm a little lost as to why you would do this SL.

Unless you were bored.

I hope this helps everyone.


Steve

Anyone who believes thay can get a virus by adding someone to their friends list shouldnt be alowed to own a computer without first passing a 'walk along without drooling and dragging your knuckles on the floor' test

wow, that one must have gotten around really fast...I recieved it too. At first glance, I didn't think about it, and simply copied and pasted it into my group IMs. Then went back and read it one more time..I thought OMG I can't believe I reposted that..lol. Maybe whoever wrote it misspelled the name, and forgot to put an underscore, but what I figured is that someone was trying to slander someone's name. Somebody probably got pissed about a sales transaction or something and wrote that note to try and ruin this guy's business. However, I haven't yet checked to see if anyone by that name really exists, I"ll have to go check now.

This same hoax has gone around before with a different three part name. I'm clueless too as to what the appeal of this is... boredom, like you said, I guess...

That's a hoot! and you name is funny too, if i say it with a lisp.

We need a snopes site for SL! Every time I see a warning like this spammed across SL, it contains technical impossibilities (e.g., an object that takes money away from you while it's in your inventory).

Friends: DON'T PASS ON WARNINGS unless you can verify their authenticity. It's true of email, it's true of IMs.

Anyone interested in helping to form slsnopes.com?

As Torley lLnden says on his blog site (see CSI)
The SL client simply cannot carry viruses or carry trojans to damage your drive.


One other that goes around, don't accept a free object 9usually a willy) as it will clean your Linden $$$$$ account out.

Is this true?

can it happen?


or is it a myth, various places give you notecards about this threat as you visit.

I'd say it's true that it's pretty unlikely for something in SL to actually damage your system, assuming you stick to LL versions of the software.

For things stealing your money, only scripted objects - not notecards and textures and such - can do that and _only_ if you give them permission to take your money.

It can happen ONLY if you accept the (now yellow) popup asking whether you will allow the object to take your lindens.

This used to be a bigger problem since we're used to just saying "yes" when doing something like joining a danceball -- allowing it to animate. The popup to allow taking lindens looked the same, just with different wording. They made a huge improvement by making the popup yellow whenever it involved anything "dangerous" like taking money. (Don't recall whether there were any other "dangerous" permissions.)

So, an object can take money from you, but only if you permit it by saying "Yes" to a YELLOWISH popup that specifically mentions taking $L from you.

The change was a very good move by LL.

Ah, sounds a good move indeed. I just wondered if this was client version dependent (being a lazy hobbit and not upgrading in a while) or is it server related?
I was suspicious of the OP hoax and resisted forwarding.

Unfortunately, an SL Snopes would only help a very small amount. I am constantly sending RL friends to snopes and many of them will still send me a Hoax email again in a month's time and again and again.

Bless them, most really are trying to do a good deed -- they just never think to check out the accuracy of what they are passing on.

I must have got that dam thing 7 times yesterday!!! Every time i wrote back and said people this is a hoax~!!! It amazes me how gullible people are and how little people actually understand about thow viruses work. I'm no IT expert but I knew dam well this was bullshit. I'd like to know who the wingnuts are that begin these things in the first place~!!! Are they the same people who pass around those ridiculous emails about Bill Gates giving away money for an email test? *rolls eyes*

More and more I begin to doubt the idea that human beings are an intelligent species...I think we evolved through sheer luck, no offense to Darwin.

so your saying you can't catch a virus if someone in SL sneezes on you either?

as much as you can by taking a dump on some random person`s toiled

Yup, or they'll say "well, that's nice what they say on that site, but I think it's best to forward the information *just to be sure.*

Mari
(A big fan of Snopes.com)

Yea, I received one of these yesterday as well. I don't know much about it, so I just kind of let it go, didn't send it out to others or anything.

ya it is real odd half the stuff that is being passed around so fast, 15 out of my 23 groups all have some kind of warning about this guy, but yet for the hell of it i looked it up in search there isn't even anyone close to that name let alone 3 parts to the name, it most likely is just one of those sl rumors to bring some craziness into sl

Yeah - throw the word virus in it and everyone thinks it needs to be passed around really fast.

Most don't take the time to look and see what is going on with the information.

An internet search of the name shows that exact name on friendster.com.

And there is nothing in sl for the name - even if you combine the first two names together to gte to sl's naming convention (which does not allow for three seperate names).

bad news spreads fast, good news spreads slow.

There are two types of virus:

machine based

and

people based

In thie virtual world, people virus is much much more common than the real computer virus threat.

It seems people love to forward these fake warning messages 'just in case'

The Microsoft warnings a couple of years ago fooled even our national heads of service, mind you that's hardly surprising when you think about it.

I had to make a standard explanation note for so many varients and mail them to the 'affected' to explain how they worked.

Simply put - Hysteria

ROFL

So I should look out for you if I ever catch a number 12 to Coventry huh?

The fact that they claim you have to accept something gives away that this one's a hoax

I got this too through one of my groups. before i could even finish reading it, someone else had posted that it was a hoax, but they said it in a horrible way, as if this person themselves had made up this warning and was spamming it out.
I thought that was uncalled for - this person was just trying to help. I guess they had heard so many of the 'warnings' that they were a bit peeved.

I've never heard of snopes, but I never pass on warnings or junk anyway - I have no way to prove or disprove what I am passing on.

My understanding is that these kind of spam hoaxes are designed to overload email systems in RL. Everyone passes them on and so traffic spikes big time and the network jams up. I can only imagine someone is trying the same thing in SL. I guess it's just a 'huh huh look what I can do' kinda thing. The only way to deal with these imho is to totally ignore them.

I have received a similar hoax by email years ago, and a few months ago through my FaceBook profile. I generally ignore this sort of thing, and most certainly don't forward it to anyone.

I used to direct people to a hoax site if they sent me something like that, but even that doesn't always work. I couldn't be bothered doing that now, I just delete the email/IM/etc.

Other B.