Good Times Virus Hoax FAQ
Richard Masoner (richardm@cd.com)
Wed, 6 Nov 1996 16:56:22 -0600 (CST)
Good Times Virus Hoax FAQ
by Les Jones
macfaq@aol.com
lesjones@usit.net
April 27, 1995
This information can be freely reproduced in any medium, as long as the
information is unmodified.
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Is the Good Times email virus a hoax?
Yes. It's a hoax.
America Online, government computer security agencies, and makers of
anti-virus software have declared Good Times a hoax. See Online
References at the end of the FAQ.
Since the hoax began in December of 1994, no copy of the alleged virus
has ever been found, nor has there been a single verified case of a
viral attack.
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Why should I believe the FAQ instead of the hoax?
Unlike the warnings that have been passed around, the FAQ is signed and
dated. I've included my email address, and the email addresses of
contributors, for verification. I've also provided online references at
the end of the FAQ so that you can confirm this information for
yourself.
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I'm new to the Internet. What is the Good Times virus hoax?
The story is that a virus called Good Times is being carried by email.
Just reading a message with "Good Times" in the subject line will erase
your hard drive, or even destroy your computer's processor. Needless to
say, it's a hoax, but a lot of people believed it.
The original message ended with instructions to "Forward this to all
your friends," and many people did just that. Warnings about Good Times
have been widely distributed on mailing lists, Usenet newsgroups, and
message boards.
The original hoax started in early December, 1994. It sprang up again
in March of 1995. In mid-April, a new version of the hoax that
mentioned a (long since retracted) FCC report began circulating.
Worried that Good Times would never go away, I decided to write the FAQ
and a separate report that chronicles the hoax's history.
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What is the effect of the hoax?
For those who already know it's a hoax, it's a nuisance to read the
repeated warnings. For people who don't know any better, it causes
needless concern and lost productivity.
The virus hoax infects mailing lists, bulletin boards, and Usenet
newsgroups. Worried system administrators needlessly worry their
employees by posting dire warnings. The hoax is not limited to the
United States. It has appeared in several English-speaking countries.
Adam J Kightley (adamjk@cogs.susx.ac.uk) said, "The cases of
'infection' I came across all tended to result from the message getting
into the hands of senior non-computing personnel. Those with the
ability and authority to spread it widely, without the knowledge to
spot its nonsensical content."
Some of the companies that have reportedly fallen for the hoax include
AT&T, CitiBank, NBC, Hughes Aircraft, Texas Instruments, and dozens or
hundreds of others. There have been outbreaks at numerous colleges.
The U.S. government has not been immune. Some of the government
agencies that have reportedly fallen victim to the hoax include the
Department of Defense, the FCC, NASA. I've confirmed outbreaks at the
Department of Health and Human Services, though they had the good sense
to question the hoax, and ask for more information on Usenet.
The virus hoax has occasionally escaped into the popular media.
ez018982@betty.ucdavis.edu reports that on April 4, 1995, during the
Tom Sullivan show on KFBK 1530 AM radio in Sacramento, California, a
police officer warned listeners not to read email labeled "Good Times",
and to report the sender to the police. I've called Business Media
Services (916-453-8802) and ordered a tape of the show. .WAV at 11:00.
There are scattered reports of the virus spreading via Faxnet, that
low-tech network of secretaries and bored knowledge workers that
traffics in cartoons and dumb blonde jokes. I don't have any of these
faxes, so if you have one, email me and I'll give you my fax number.
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What was the CIAC bulletin?
On December 6, 1994, the U.S. Department of Energy's CIAC (Computer
Incident Advisory Capability) issued a bulletin declaring the Good
Times virus a hoax and an urban legend. The bulletin was widely quoted
as an antidote to the hoax. The original document can be found at the
address in Online References at the end of the FAQ. Note that the
document went through several minor revisions, with 94-04c of December
8 being the most recent.
Like all quoted material in the FAQ, it includes the original spelling
and punctuation. Because some of the lines in the CIAC report are
rather long, they will appear broken.
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What are some early versions of the warning (Protos)?
I have an early version of the hoax that dates back to November 15,
1994, when it was posted to the TECH-LAW mailing list. This is
currently the earliest known example of Good Times. See also "When did
the hoax start?"
---Begin quoted material----
FYI, a file, going under the name "Good Times" is being sent to
some Internet users who subscribe to on-line services (Compuserve,
Prodigy and America On Line). If you should receive this file, do
not download it! Delete it immediately. I understand that there is
a virus included in that file, which if downloaded to your personal
computer, will ruin all of your files.
----End quoted material----
Here's another version that was circulated among a few AOL members on
November 18:
---Begin quoted material---
Somebody is sending e-mail under the title "good times". If you
get anything like this, DON'T DOWNLOAD THE FILE! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
It has a virus that rewrites your hard drive, and you lose anything
on your hard drive. Please be careful and forward this mail to
anyone you care about, I have!
----End quoted material---
One person remembers seeing Good Times as far back as April or May of
1994, but there is no supporting evidence for that claim. For now, the
FYI message qualifies as the earliest prototype of Good Times.
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What did the first major warning (Happy Chanukah) say?
This is the canonical original message as I received it on December 2,
1994, and as it was quoted in the CIAC report. The message that sparked
the Good Times panic. Note, however, that it is not the earliest
version of the hoax (see "When did the hoax start").
----Begin quoted material----
Here is some important information. Beware of a file called
Goodtimes.
Happy Chanukah everyone, and be careful out there.There is a virus
on America Online being sent by E-Mail. If you get anything called
"Good Times", DON'T read it or download it. It is a virus that
will erase your hard drive. Forward this to all your friends. It
may help them a lot.
----End quoted material----
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What's the other major warning (ASCII)?
The "Happy Chanukah" greeting in the original message dates it, so more
recent hoax eruptions have used a different message. The one below can
be identified because it claims that simply loading Good Times into the
computer's ASCII buffer can activate the virus, so I call it ASCII.
Karyn Pichnarczyk (karyn@cisco.com) remembers the ASCII message from
the original hoax in December of 1994, though I never saw it. Mikko
Hypponen (Mikko.Hypponen@datafellows.fi) sent me a copy of this warning
that dates back to December 2, 1994. The Infinite Loop variety of ASCII
is now the basis for the most common warnings.
----Begin quoted material----
Thought you might like to know...
Apparently , a new computer virus has been engineered by a user of
America Online that is unparalleled in its destructive capability.
Other, more well-known viruses such as Stoned, Airwolf, and
Michaelangelo pale in comparison to the prospects of this newest
creation by a warped mentality.
What makes this virus so terrifying is the fact that no program
needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be infected. It can be
spread through the existing e-mail systems of the InterNet.
Luckily, there is one sure means of detecting what is now known as
the "Good Times" virus. It always travels to new computers the
same way - in a text e-mail message with the subject line reading
simply "Good Times". Avoiding infection is easy once the file has
been received - not reading it. The act of loading the file into
the mail server's ASCII buffer causes the "Good Times" mainline
program to initialize and execute.
The program is highly intelligent - it will send copies of itself
to everyone whose e-mail address is contained in a received-mail
file or a sent-mail file, if it can find one. It will then proceed
to trash the computer it is running on.
The bottom line here is - if you receive a file with the subject
line "Good TImes", delete it immediately! Do not read it! Rest
assured that whoever's name was on the "From:" line was surely
struck by the virus. Warn your friends and local system users of
this newest threat to the InterNet! It could save them a lot of
time and money.
----End quoted material---
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What's the popular variation on ASCII (FCC or Infinite Loop)?
You rarely see the pure ASCII version any more. One common variation
mentions an FCC memo, and claims that Good Times can destroy a
computer's processor by placing the processor in a "nth-complexity
infinite binary loop," which is a fancy-sounding bit of science
fiction. This is by far the most common version nowadays, and consists
of ASCII with the following additional material:
----Begin quoted material----
The FCC released a warning last Wednesday concerning a matter of
major importance to any regular user of the InterNet. Apparently,
a new computer virus has been engineered by a user of America
Online that is unparalleled in its destructive capability. Other,
more well-known viruses such as Stoned, Airwolf, and Michaelangelo
pale in comparison to the prospects of this newest creation by a
warped mentality.
What makes this virus so terrifying, said the FCC, is the fact that
no program needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be infected.
It can be spread through the existing e-mail systems of the
InterNet. Once a computer is infected, one of several things can
happen. If the computer contains a hard drive, that will most
likely be destroyed. If the program is not stopped, the computer's
processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop
- which can severely damage the processor if left running that way
too long. Unfortunately, most novice computer users will not
realize what is happening until it is far too late.
----End quoted material---
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Exactly when did the hoax start?
I thought I knew, but new evidence has come to light. In the original
FAQ, I wrote the following paragraphs :
----
December 2, 1994 is often quoted as the beginning of the hoax, but
some of the AOL forward message headers in the copy I received put
the date at December 1. One non-AOL header is dated November 29,
though that date could easily have been forged.
Also, notice the text of the original message as it was sent to me,
and quoted in the CIAC report:
Here is some important information. Beware of a file called
Goodtimes.
Happy Chanukah everyone, and be careful out there.There is a virus
on America Online being sent by E-Mail. If you get anything called
"Good Times", DON'T read it or download it. It is a virus that
will erase your hard drive. Forward this to all your friends. It
may help them a lot.
The first paragraph suggests that someone was forwarding the
information in the second paragraph. A seasonal greeting like
"Happy Chanukah" is almost never placed in the second paragraph of
a letter, suggesting even more strongly that this message was
repeating information from someone else.
----
After reading the FAQ, several people reported earlier instances of the
hoax. On November 15, 1994, Rich Lavoie (lavoie@cwt.com) posted it to
the TECH-LAW mailing list. Rodney Knight (r.j.knight@rl.ac.uk) saw that
message on a newsgroup, and forwarded the warning to the POSTCARD
mailing list. November 15 is currently the earliest confirmed sighting.
Anthony Altieri (magneto@epix.net) recollected the hoax as far back as
April or May of 1994, but that recollection is so far unsubstantiated
by any evidence.
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Who started the hoax?
No one knows who started the original hoax. You'll meet people who
think they know who started it, or where it started. They are
mis-informed. Show them the FAQ. They're just repeating second hand
information. The truth is, no one knows who started Good Times. I
discuss this further in my report.
Now that new outbreaks of the hoax have begun, it's not especially
important who spreads the rumors. Most people who pass on the warnings
aren't aware that it's hoax. We're better off spending our time
educating new Internet users, and distributing the FAQ whenever Good
Times erupts.
Asking who started the hoax assumes that someone consciously started
the hoax. It's possible that Good Times is a highly distorted report of
some real or semi-real event. After being told and retold, the story
became the Good Times hoax as we know it. The Telephone Game gone mad.
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How do you know all this stuff?
I investigated the original hoax in December of 1994. I'll disclose the
full details in my report.
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When will your report be ready, Les?
Soon. I'm working on a complete history of the hoax. It promises to be
good reading. The report provides a detailed history of events and
public opinion. It also suggests a way to counter hoaxes and other
thought viruses, and recounts my discovery of the NVP Trojan horse.
When it's finished, it will be freely distributable, and will be
available from my ftp site at usit.net in the pub/lesjones directory.
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Is an email virus possible?
The short answer is no, not the way Good Times was described.
The longer answer is that this is a difficult question that's open to
nitpicking. Keep three things in mind when considering the question:
1. A virus is computer specific. IBM PC viruses don't affect
Macintoshes, and vice versa. That greatly limits the destructive
power of viruses. (And notice that none of the Good Times warnings
mention which types of computers are affected.)
2. A virus, by definition, can't exist by itself. It must infect an
executable program. To transmit a virus by email, someone would
have to infect a file and attach the file to the email message. To
activate the virus, you would have to download and decode the file
attachment, then run the infected program. In that situation, the
email message is just a carrier for an infected file, just like a
floppy disk carrying an infected file.
3. Some of the situations that people have dreamed up involve Trojan
horses rather than viruses. A virus can only exist inside another
program, which then automatically infects other programs. A Trojan
horse is a program that pretends to do something useful, but
instead does something nefarious. Trojans aren't infectious, so
they're much less common than viruses.
There are some email programs that can be set to automatically download
a file attachment, decode it, and execute the file attachment. If you
use such a program, you would be well advised to disable the option to
automatically execute file attachments.
You should, of course, be wary of any file attachments a stranger sends
you. At the least, you should check such file attachments for viruses
before running them.
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How can I protect myself from viruses in general?
Use a virus checker regularly. Freeware, shareware, and commercial
anti-virus programs are widely available. Which program you use isn't
as important as how you use it. Most people get into trouble because
they never bother to check their computer for viruses.
Most viruses spread through floppy disks, so isolating yourself from
online services and the Internet will not protect you from viruses. In
fact, you're probably safer if you're online, simply because you'll
have access to anti-viral software and information.
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Where can I find anti-viral information on the Internet?
o Usenet newsgroups - comp.virus -- the Usenet gateway for VIRUS-L
(below)
o Mailing lists - VIRUS-L is for discussions of viruses and
anti-viral products. Send email to listserv@lehigh.edu. In the
body of the message, include the line "sub virus-l your-name"
(without the quotes).
o FTP sites - cert.org in pub/virus-l/docs/ Contains information
about viruses and anti-virus products, with pointers to other FTP
sites.
o World Wide Web - http://www.singnet.com.sg/staff/lorna/Virus
(Note: the V must be capitalized!)
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Was the hoax a sort of virus itself?
Yes, but it wasn't a computer virus. It was more like a social virus or
a thought virus.
When someone on alt.folklore.urban asked if the virus was for real,
Clay Shirky (clays@panix.com) answered:
"Its for real. Its an opportunistic self-replicating email virus which
tricks its host into replicating it, sometimes adding as many as
200,000 copies at a go. It works by finding hosts with defective
parsing apparatus which prevents them from understanding that a piece
of email which says there is an email virus and then asking them to
remail the message to all their friends is the virus itself."
Shirky eloquently described what a lot of people were thinking. So what
is a virus? To a biologist, a virus is a snippet of genetic material
that must infect a host organism to survive and reproduce. To be
contagious, a virus usually carries instructions that cause the host to
engage in certain pathological activities (such as sneezing and
coughing) that spread the infection to other organisms.
To a computer programmer, a virus is a snippet of computer code that
must infect a host program to spread. To be contagious, a computer
virus usually causes the host program to engage in certain pathological
activities that spread the infection to other programs.
From this perspective, it's easy to see the Good Times hoax as a sort
of thought virus. To be contagious, a thought virus causes the host to
engage in certain pathological activities that spread the infection.
In the case of Good Times, the original strain (happy Chanukah)
explicitly told people to "forward this to all your friends." The other
major viral strain (infinite loop) encourages people to "Please be
careful and forward this mail to anyone you care about," and "Warn your
friends and local system users of this newest threat to the InterNet!"
Likewise, the stories of an FCC modem tax encourage people to tell
their friends and post the warning on other BBSes. David Rhodes' Make
Money Fast scam instructs people to re-post the message to as many as
ten bulletin boards.
In The Selfish Gene (1976, University of Oxford Press), Oxford
evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins extends the principles in his
book from biology to human culture. To make the transition, Dawkins
proposes a cultural replicator analogous to genes. He calls these
replicators memes:
"Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions,
ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate
themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or
eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from
brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called
imitation. ... As my colleague N. K. Humphrey neatly summed up an
earlier draft of this chapter: "...memes should be regarded as living
structures, not just metaphorically, but technically. When you plant a
fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it
into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus
may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.""
Amazingly, when I read alt.folklore.computers looking for research
material, two people had already mentioned Dawkins' memes. One of them
referred to an article in the April 8, 1995 New Scientist about
something called the Meme Research Group. (The article erroneously
stated that the group is at the University of California, San
Francisco. In fact, they are at Simon Fraser University in British
Columbia.)
The Meme Research Group is collecting chain letters to analyse them.
The more copies they get, the more information they have to analyze.
Send those unwanted chain letters to meme@scottlabsgi.chem.sfu.ca.
I am not a memeticist, and a real memeticist might take umbrage at my
explanation of the concept. To learn more, visit the alt.memetics
newsgroup on Usenet, and especially the alt.memetics home page on the
World Wide Web (http://www.xs4all.nl/~hingh/alt.memetics/). Though
we've talked about memes in terms of viruses (a common analogy), the
concept of a meme is neither good nor bad. The idea of "Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you" is as much a meme as the Good Times
hoax.
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What's the best way to control a thought virus?
Create a counter virus like this one as an antidote. To make the
counter virus contagious, include instructions such as, "The Good Times
email virus is a hoax. If anyone repeats the hoax, please show them the
FAQ."
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What are some other hoaxes and urban legends on the Internet?
The FCC Modem Tax
Every so often someone posts a dire warning that the FCC is considering
a tax on modems and online services. The warning encourages you to tell
your friends so they can take political action. It's a hoax. It's been
going on for the five years I've been online, and probably much longer.
If you'll notice, the warnings don't include a date or a bill number.
Make Money Fast
If you haven't seen a Make Money Fast message, call your local
anthropology department. They might be interested in studying you.
Devised by David Rhodes in 1987 or 1988, Make Money Fast (sometimes
distributed on BBSes as a file called fastcash.txt) is an electronic
version of a chain letter pyramid scheme. You're supposed to send money
to the ten people on the list, then add your name to the list and
repost the chain letter, committing federal wire fraud in the process.
Posting a Make Money Fast message is one sure way to lose your Internet
account. (Information from the Make Money Fast FAQ by ewl@panix.com.)
Craig Shergold needs your get well cards
Craig Shergold is a UK resident who was dying of cancer. He wanted to
get in the Guinness Book of World Records for having received the most
get well cards. When people heard of the poor boy's wish, they began
sending him postcards. And they kept sending him postcards, and never
stopped. Shergold is now in full remission. He was listed in the
Guinness Book of World Records in 1991. He really does not want your
postcards any more, and neither does his hometown post office.
These are just the urban legends that you're likely to encounter on the
Internet. There are many more in real life that you probably believe. I
won't give them away, but here are some clues: peanut butter, Neiman
Marcus/Mrs. Fields, Rod Stewart, and the Newlywed Game. For more
information, read the alt.folklore.urban FAQ, listed in Online
References at the end of the FAQ.
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Online References
o CIAC Notes 94-05 95-09, and especially 94-04
+ ftp://ciac.llnl.gov/pub/notes/
+ http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/
o alt.folklore.urban FAQ
+ ftp://cathouse.org/pub/cathouse/urban.legends/AFU.faq
+ http://cathouse.org/UrbanLegends/AFUFAQ/
o America Online's official statement
+ keyword "virus2" on America Online
o The Good Times Virus Hoax Mini FAQ
+ A greatly simplified version of this FAQ. At two pages, it's
short enough for message boards, faxes, mailing lists, and
people with short attention spans. FTP to usit.net and look
in the pub/lesjones directory. The URL is:
ftp://usit.net/pub/lesjones/Good-Times-Virus-Hoax-Mini-FAQ