Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar
One of my coworkers got a phone call this afternoon and immediately started laughing. It was his wife on the phone, and she was telling him about how a bunch of people in her department had gotten a chain letter that promised if they forward it to a certain number of people, a picture of Tweety Bird or something will appear on their screen. They were wondering why it didn’t work. For all I know, they were ready to call the helpdesk and complain their computers were broken because the chain letter didn’t work. His wife, knowing better, started laughing and immediately shared the story with her systems analyst husband.
That gave me an idea. Why not devise a chain letter that absolutely will do what it says it will do, especially if it manages to go five or six generations without the chain breaking? Here goes nothing:
Dear friend:
This is another one of those Internet chain letters. You’ve undoubtedly received tons of them before and deleted them. This chain letter is different. It actually works.
Below you will find a list of 100 e-mail addresses. The way this works is simple. Remove the top address, then add your e-mail address to the bottom. Forward a copy of this message to all 99 people ahead of you. If there are no addresses at the bottom of the message, insert the e-mail addresses of 99 of your friends or co-workers, and forward a copy to them. Be sure to include your own address at the bottom. If you really want to get results, attach a 40-megabyte MPEG movie as well.
Very soon, one angry person, or if you’re very lucky, an angry mob, will appear at your doorstep or cubicle and beat you to a bloody pulp for clogging up their inboxes with useless junk. If you’re not so lucky, you’ll get a nice visit or phone call from your mail administrator politely telling you to cut it out.
Pretty neat, huh?
Your friend,
Dave Rhodes
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
Droll, very droll 🙂
should also chuck in a reference to the "any" key and the broken cup holder….
Tim
I frequently tell my fellow techs to hit the any key, and CompUSA has 52X cupholders on sale this week, $20 after rebate, but since the drives are made in Totalitarian China I didn’t say anything until now.