[pmmail-list] In case this needs repeating

[John Bridges]

Regarding the Halloween Mall Warning some felt we HAD to be warned about (on
a commercial software support mailing list?)

This is a WIDELY distributed hoax/urban legend.

http://chekware.com/hoax/Halloween_Mall_Warning.htm

And here is a story from the NYTimes:

FBI debunks warning of Halloween attack
Amy Harmon
New York Times News Service
Oct. 11, 2001 17:00:00

At a time when Americans are plagued by a generalized fear of an invisible
enemy, the latest urban legend from the Internet warns specifically of a
terrorist attack on a mall on Halloween.


The e-mail message, which began circulating last Friday, describes a story
the author heard from a "friend of a friend" whose Afghan boyfriend stood her
up on a date on Sept. 6. On Sept. 10, the e-mail message says, she received a
letter begging her not to get on any commercial airlines the next day and -
drumroll - not to go to any malls on Halloween. After the attacks on Sept.
11, the message said, she immediately turned the letter over to the FBI.

By this afternoon, the e-mail message had been forwarded by so many friends
of friends of friends that the FBI was deluged by calls from people who had
received it. An FBI spokesperson said that the attack described in the e-mail
message was "not a credible threat," and that the agency had not received a
letter like the one described in the message.

The e-mail message is just the most recent in a series of rumors that have
arisen after the terrorist attacks that historians of urban legends say are a
common cultural response to large-scale disasters. Several Web sites, most
notably www.snopes2.com, have compiled lists describing and debunking the
post-attack legends. Typically, they serve as a psychological shield against
the unknown, and cause no real harm themselves.

"A lot of legends come out of situations where there is an intense and poorly
defined feeling of stress," said Bill Ellis, an associate professor of
American Studies at Pennsylvania State University, who received the "mall
attack" e-mail message Thursday. "The legend puts a face on it and provides a
strategy that the common person can use to help ward it off."

But the speed and global reach of the Internet may have made the current crop
of urban legends more difficult to weed out. Natural skepticism seems to wilt
in the face of the sheer number of people who seem to almost simultaneously
get word of something like the Halloween e-mail message.

"This is scary," wrote one of the many people whose e-mail addresses appeared
in a long list of forwarded messages. "Please be careful and keep this in
mind. Not sure if it is real, but it comes from a friend who is a pretty
reputable source."

Also overwhelmed by phone calls Thursday was Volt Information Services, in
Orange, Calif., the employer of the woman who appears to have originally sent
out the e-mail message. Norma Kraus, a spokeswoman at the firm, declined to
make the woman, Laura Katsis, available for comment. But she did note that
Katsis had violated the firm's e-mail policy by sending the non work-related
message to 15 friends.

"It's amazing, isn't it, how fast things can circulate with this medium,"
Kraus said. "I think we're learning something about that."

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