You have probably seen this email before...“A new Congressional bill affects all Internet users. The government wants to charge you each time you access the Internet. Forward this to others so we can prevent it.” Not true. This is an example of the classic Internet hoax.

You'll receive a wide variety of these hoax emails, but they all have one thing in common, they urge you to forward the e-mail to all your friends. Where they vary is in the reasons they give you to forward the e-mail.

For example, one hoax making the rounds lately is a warning about the Sulfnbk virus. It says that the Sulfnbk virus may have been planted on your computer. Sure enough, you find the Sulfnbk.exe file on your hard drive. "Delete the file to remove the virus," the e-mail says.

Here's the problem: There is no Sulfnbk.exe virus. Sulfnbk.exe is a legitimate Windows file used to restore long file names. It's a minor file, and if you delete it, you might never miss it. But why delete a perfectly good file? This hoax is more clever than most because recipients have the file on their hard drives, so it has some truth to it.

One of the most common story concerns Craig Shergold and various other children, all of whom are supposedly dying of cancer. According to the myth, the children are seeking business cards in an effort to set a record before they die.

This one has some truth to it. Craig Shergold did have cancer. He did ask for the cards. He did set a record. In fact, he received millions of cards, and the Guinness Book of Records retired his record. But that was in 1991.

Make-a-Wish Foundation of Phoenix is a target in most emails. Supposedly, the foundation is seeking cards for a dying child. The foundation has been putting up with this nonsense for more than 10 years. It even has an 800 number explaining that it doesn't want business cards.

If you get a virus warning or an urban legend, check it out before you pass it along. It's easy to check these stories out. Hoaxbusters (http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org), which is run by the Computer Incident Advisory Capability at the U.S. Department of Energy, is a good place to start. Antivirus firms (like McAfee and Norton) also maintain hoax listings. You can check weird stories at the Urban Legends Archive (http://www.urbanlegends.com) and ScamBusters (http://www.scambusters.org).

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