I don't watch my blog stats, but whenever I pass my Wordpress Dashboard, this post is always at the top. It's gotten, literally, thousands of views. I keep adding the new names that get put on the spam email, so people can just search on the name and find out it's hoax. Snopes is wonderful, but they can't keep adding every new name that comes down the pike. If you see any new names in the hoax, please come back to purplecar.net and let me know, or find me on facebook as facebook.com/christinecavalier/

And don't worry too much about your friends. Everyone is in a learning stage right now. It's only been 10 years or so of widespread internet access, and it's a scary place. There is very little regulation, protection or education about it. Try to have some patience with the end users. (Of course, I say this, but I rip my hair out over their inane behaviors on a weekly basis.)

Thanks for checking in!

Peace!
-PurpleCar
http://www.purplecar.net/

________________________________

I don't watch my blog stats, but whenever I pass my Wordpress Dashboard, this post is always at the top. It's gotten, literally, thousands of views. I keep adding the new names that get put on the spam email, so people can just search on the name and find out it's hoax. Snopes is wonderful, but they can't keep adding every new name that comes down the pike. If you see any new names in the hoax, please come back to purplecar.net and let me know, or find me on facebook as facebook.com/christinecavalier/

And don't worry too much about your friends. Everyone is in a learning stage right now. It's only been 10 years or so of widespread internet access, and it's a scary place. There is very little regulation, protection or education about it. Try to have some patience with the end users. (Of course, I say this, but I rip my hair out over their inane behaviors on a weekly basis.)

Thanks for checking in!

Peace!
-PurpleCar
http://www.purplecar.net/

________________________________

So sorry your name ended up in this mess – it really can happen to anybody. As you can see by my updates, new names get added consistently. I’m not sure there is much you can do. Friends of (or enemies) of a Richard Peel probably started the meme and it took off. Keep this link handy and just send it on whenever anyone asks. Perhaps people are getting so used to spam and personal Denial of Service attacks, that they won’t think that you are a hacker.

Did Facebook suspend your account? Have you run into any trouble because of this? Let me know, and let me know if your name shows up in any other spam like this.

Good luck!

=PC

There isn't any hacking risk to accepting a friend request on Facebook. You can accept any requests you like. Accepting friend requests from the people listed in this note (or any new ones that come along) won't do any harm, to you or your computer. It's just not how hacking works. A hacker needs your password, for any site that has password protection on the internet (like Facebook). Even friends on Facebook don't get to view your password, nor could they hack their way to it just because of the friend connection.

Believe me, if there were a way to hack friend connections, the hackers would have already done it by now. How would Facebook survive if they didn't code this basic security into the platform? These types of emails are just hogswash, meant as a joke or denial-of-service attack on others. They also spread TRULY unnecessary fear. So yes, friend Adam Slaney and the others. They'll be able to see everything you haven't marked private, but they will never be able to navigate to your password, let alone a totally different email account on totally different servers with totally different companies (The whole “warning” is ridiculous).

-PC