I received today a communication from my grandmother, warning me of dangers awaiting in the mail. These dangers were of the usual type–losing all one’s stored information, being unable to use anything useful–and contained the usual warnings against opening attachments to messages.

Of note were a couple of differences between this and previous communications of the same tenor: first, that it was an amalgamation of two previous warnings (in this case, one about a message purporting to contain photos of Osama Bin Laden being hanged and another about an Olympic Torch) and secondly that it purported to have been verified by Snopes, the well-known purveyors of anti-hoax information.

When researched, of course, it turned out to be almost entirely a hoax; the one semi-accurate part was exaggerated and outdated.

As always, the key to keep from being made foolish by passing along a hoax is to carefully research any warnings you receive, especially those asking to be passed along–most of those (nearly all, in my experience) will have no real truth to them.

Remember: real news is passed on in Times 10, not in Impact 36.

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