Snopes

When I was just a nipper the mysterious idea of the "Chain Letter" first reached my infantile senses via children's TV. A child had written into the agony aunt section of a Saturday children's TV programme about their concerns. The presenter promptly received more letters from scared kids who had received chain letters. Like a good kids icon, I think it was Phillip Schofield, he and his fellow host, could have been Sarah Green, announced that they would proudly tear up and destroy these abuses of our respected Royal Mail. You'd have thought that my generation would have grown up with a good education in handling chain letters and the "fad" would have finished... This is not the case. The internet turned the chain letter into a relentless method of time-wasting that regularly hooks friends, family members and business associates. Now we have misinformation on virtually everything being fielded around the net like the viruses they very often lie about.

Luckily there are some very helpful sites, which you can use immediatley to check information on whether the next email you receive will fry your hardrive, deep bake your mother and curse your socks. The next time you get a hoax email from a friend asking you forward on a charity cause, get some free money, claim some "too good to be true" vouchers, warn you about a virus that does not exist (most you get a warning from via email don't) or tell you about a conspiracy theory, make sure you send them links to these sites.

Snopes: A great site for internet urban legend resources and research. It also contains information on conspiracy theories, cryptozoology and all the other great targets for scepticism. http://www.snopes.com

Hoax Slayer: If Snopes can't sort it then try "Hoax Slayer" http://www.hoax-slayer.com/

Cracking links Jamie,

regards,

Den.

Nice resource Jamie! Thanks for that.