Cut and Paste.  Peel and Stick.  Pick and Mix.  Scratch and Sniff.

Two of these are real IT jargon.  Two are things my kids like.

Sometimes though, it isn't that easy to tell the difference between genuine IT speak and,
well, garbage.  Take the following email (and it's many variants) doing the rounds....

"You should be alert during the next days:  
Do not open any message with an attached file called 'Invitation' regardless of who sent it.
It is a virus that  opens an Olympic Torch which 'burns' the whole hard disc C of your computer.
This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.
SEND THIS E-MAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW"

All sounds good, and in fact the idea of not opening any attachments from senders you don't know
is perfectly valid advice.  But it's garbage.  It's a hoax.  Passing this gumph around is just clogging up the
net, and giving some spotty geek sat in his bedroom a kick everytime it's forwarded.

Real virus alerts will ALWAYS have a (genuine) link to a major anti-virus company to support the
message - such as:

http://www.sophos.com/security/hoaxes/sectorzero.html 

(Sophos)

or

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_138711.htm

(McAfee)

If you have any concerns about emails like this, just drop us a line and we'll try to find out if it's genuine or
smelly rubbish destined for the recycle bin!
 

Stay Safe,

Toby
www.pchelpcentre.co.uk