Klarinet Archive - Posting 000177.txt from 1996/11

From: Daniel Abramovich <dabramov@-----.EDU>
Subj: Good Time
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 20:53:48 -0500

Hi... I just saw the posting about the Good Times "Virus" just in case
anyone was nervous.. and to stop the speard of any more rumors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Good Times email virus is a hoax!
If anyone repeats the hoax, please show them the FAQ.

G o o d T i m e s V i r u s H o a x
------------
F r e q u e n t l y A s k e d Q u e s t i o n s

by Les Jones
macfaq@-----.com
lesjones@-----.net

October 12, 1995

This information may be freely reproduced in any medium,
as long as the information is unmodified.

-----------------
October 12 Update
-----------------

The Good Times virus hoax is popping up again. I've received reports
that the Infinite Loop version of the hoax has hit the U.S. Census
Bureau and U.S. Department of Agriculture. People seeking information
have been posting to the virus and security newsgroups on Usenet.

The Good Times hoax shows no signs of going away. This FAQ seems to
be the best antidote to outbreaks. I've updated the FAQ with new
dates and updated URLs. I plan to post it to Usenet on a quarterly
basis to keep it in circulation.

--------
Contents
--------

Is the Good Times email virus a hoax?
Why should I believe the FAQ instead of the hoax?
I'm new to the Internet. What is the Good Times virus hoax?
What is the effect of the hoax?
What was the CIAC bulletin?
What did the first major warning (Happy Chanukah) say?
What's the other major warning (ASCII)?
What's the popular variation on ASCII (FCC or Infinite Loop)?
Exactly when did the hoax start?
Who started the hoax?
Is an email virus possible?
How can I protect myself from viruses in general?
Where can I find anti-viral information on the Internet?
Was the hoax a sort of virus itself?
What's the best way to control a thought virus?
What are some other hoaxes and urban legends on the Internet?
Online References

-------------------------------------
Is the Good Times email virus a hoax?
-------------------------------------

Yes. It was a hoax in December of 1994, and it's still 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.

-------------------------------------------------
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.

-----------------------------------------------------------
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 of 1994. It sprang up
again in March of 1995. In mid-April, a new version of the hoax that
mentioned a FCC report began circulating. Worried that Good Times
would never go away, I decided to write the FAQ. These worries proved
valid when the hoax began popping up again in October of 1995.

-------------------------------
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 and
non-English-speaking countries. One reader sent me an English
transcription of a radio broadcast in Malta.

Adam J Kightley (adamjk@-----.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, the USDA, U.S. Census Bureau,
and various national labs. 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, before
passing the hoax along to their omployees.

The virus hoax has occasionally escaped into the popular media.
ez018982@-----.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. Other radio stations,
including Australia's ABC radio, have also spread the hoax.

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.

---------------------------
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.

----Begin quoted material----
THE "Good Times" VIRUS IS AN URBAN LEGEND

In the early part of December, CIAC started to receive information
requests about a supposed "virus" which could be contracted via
America OnLine, simply by reading a message.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 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. |

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

THIS IS A HOAX. Upon investigation, CIAC has determined that this
message originated from both a user of America Online and a student
at a university at approximately the same time, and it was meant to
be a hoax.

CIAC has also seen other variations of this hoax, the main one is
that any electronic mail message with the subject line of "xxx-1"
will infect your computer.

This rumor has been spreading very widely. This spread is due mainly
to the fact that many people have seen a message with "Good Times" in
the header. They delete the message without reading it, thus
believing that they have saved themselves from being attacked. These
first-hand reports give a false sense of credibility to the alert
message.

There has been one confirmation of a person who received a message
with "xxx-1" in the header, but an empty message body. Then, (in a
panic, because he had heard the alert), he checked his PC for viruses
(the first time he checked his machine in months) and found a
pre-existing virus on his machine. He incorrectly came to the
conclusion that the E-mail message gave him the virus (this
particular virus could NOT POSSIBLY have spread via an E-mail
message). This person then spread his alert.

As of this date, there are no known viruses which can infect merely
through reading a mail message. For a virus to spread some program
must be executed. Reading a mail message does not execute the mail
message. Yes, Trojans have been found as executable attachments to
mail messages, the most notorious being the IBM VM Christmas Card
Trojan of 1987, also the TERM MODULE Worm (reference CIAC Bulletin
B-7) and the GAME2 MODULE Worm (CIAC Bulletin B-12). But this is not
the case for this particular "virus" alert.

If you encounter this message being distributed on any mailing lists,
simply ignore it or send a follow-up message stating that this is a
false rumor.

Karyn Pichnarczyk
CIAC Team
ciac@-----.gov

----End quoted material----

Note: Karyn is now with Cisco. Her new email address is
karyn@-----.

The CIAC report was wrong when it stated that the hoax was started by
"a user of America Online and a student at a university." See "Who
started the hoax."

----------------------------------------------
What's the first version of the warning (FYI)?
----------------------------------------------

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---

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.

------------------------------------------------------
What did the first major warning (Happy Chanukah) say?
------------------------------------------------------

This is the canonical Happy Chanukah message as I received it on
December 2, 1994, and as it was quoted in the CIAC report, though
it's not the earliest message. This message was largely responsible
for sparking the December Good Times panic.

----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----

---------------------------------------
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@-----.com) remembers the ASCII message from
the original hoax in December of 1994, though I never saw it. Mikko
Hypponen (Mikko.Hypponen@-----.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---

-------------------------------------------------------------
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---

--------------------------------
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@-----.com) posted
it to the TECH-LAW mailing list. Rodney Knight (r.j.knight@-----.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@-----.net) recollected the hoax as far back
as April or May of 1994, but that recollection is so far
unsubstantiated by any evidence.

---------------------
Who started the hoax?
---------------------

We don't know who started the hoax. You'll meet people who think they
know who started it, or where it started. They are mis-informed. Show
them the FAQ. I've seen some people claim that the hoaxsters were
arrested and convicted. This is incorrect.

The CIAC report stated that the hoax was started by "a user of
America Online and a student at a university." I asked Karyn
Pichnarczyk about that. During the December outbreak of Happy
Chanukah, several people tried to trace the hoax by following
messages headers. When America Online traced headers, they stopped at
an AOL account. When Nathan Gilliatt (gilliatt@-----.edu) traced
headers in different messages, the messages seemed to stop at
Swarthmore College. Karyn said she didn't know who to believe, so she
said that the virus was started by "a user of America Online and a
student at a university." We now know that "Happy Chanukah" wasn't
the original message, so tracing headers was a futile attempt to
trace the origin of the hoax.

Asking who started the hoax assumes that someone consciously started
the hoax. It's remotely 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. The problem with this theory is that it's
probably impossible to prove.

AOL postmaster David O'Donnell (PMDAtropos@-----.com) has another
theory about the origins of the hoax. David says that there was once
a Good Times chain letter going around. To stop the chain letter,
David's theory goes, someone claimed that the chain letter contained
a virus, and warned people to delete any email with "Good Times" in
the subject line. Once again, however, there is no evidence to
support this theory.

---------------------------
Is an email virus possible?
---------------------------

The short answer is no, not the way Good Times was described.

The long answer is that this is a difficult question that's open to
nit-picking. Keep three things in mind when considering the question:

* A virus is operating system-specific. DOS 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. That omission set off
many people's hoax detectors.)

* 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.

* 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 and much less destructive 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.

-------------------------------------------------
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.

--------------------------------------------------------
Where can I find anti-viral information on the Internet?
--------------------------------------------------------

Usenet newsgroups
_________________
comp.virus -- the Usenet gateway for VIRUS-L (below)

Mailing lists
_____________
VIRUS-L is a moderated list for discussions of viruses and anti-viral
products. To subscribe, send email to listserv@-----. In the
body of the message, include the line "sub virus-l your-real-name"
(without the quotes).

FTP sites
_________
cert.org in pub/virus-l/docs/

Contains information about viruses and anti-virus products, with
pointers to other FTP sites.

World Wide Web
http://www.singnet.com.sg/staff/lorna/Virus
(Note: the V must be capitalized!.)

------------------------------------
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@-----.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 analyze them.
The more copies they get, the more information they have to analyze.
Send those unwanted chain letters to meme@-----.

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.

-----------------------------------------------
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."

-------------------------------------------------------------
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@-----.)

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.

-----------------
Online References
-----------------

CIAC Notes 94-05, 95-09, and especially 94-04
---------------------------------------------
FTP to ciac.llnl.gov and look in the pub/ciac/notes directory. The
URL is ftp://ciac.llnl.gov/pub/ciac/notes/

The URL for the CIAC home page on the World Wide Web is:
http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/

The announcement from PCERT is not available at an archive server.
The AUSCERT announcement including it is available from their WWW and
ftp sites at {www,ftp}.auscert.org.au
===
--spaf

alt.folklore.urban FAQ
--------------------------
Available via FTP from cathouse.org in the
/pub/cathouse/urban.legends/AFU.faq directory.

Also available on the World Wide Web at
http://cathouse.org/UrbanLegends/AFUFAQ/

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.txt .

The Good Times Virus Hoax FAQ (this document)
---------------------------------------------
Via FTP:

ftp://usit.net/pub/lesjones/good-times-virus-hoax-faq.txt
ftp://users.aol.com/macfaq/good-times-virus-hoax-faq.txt

On the World Wide Web:

http://www.tcp.co.uk/tcp/good-times/index.html -- excellent hypertext
http://www.singnet.com.sg/staff/lorna/Virus -- lots of virus info
(Note: the V must be capitalized.)
http://www.nsm.smcm.edu/News/GTHoax.html

On America Online:

in the file libraries at keyword "virus"

By email:

Send email to archive@-----.TXT in the
subject line. The FAQ should arrive by email within an hour or two.

/// Daniel Jay Abramovich dabramov@-----.edu
. . Residential Computer Consultant @-----.edu
| http://www.tufts.edu/~dabramov @-----.edu

You will think of something funnier than this to add to the fortunes.