The Hoax that Hurts - Blue Mountain Arts Virus Hoax

A small, family-owned publishing company called Blue Mountain Arts is still reeling this week after finding itself the victim of a malicious Net hoax.

Publisher of a variety of note cards and poetry books, Blue Mountain has operated a popular Website offering free electronic cards for all occasions since 1996. Though it's now a highly-trafficked commercial site, it was originally launched as a public service in accordance with the ideals of its hippie-era founders, Susan and Stephen Schutz.

The company achieved a sudden and unwanted notoriety during the week of February 22 when the following message began being passed around on America Online:

Subject: Fwd: BLUE MOUNTAIN CARDS VIRUS ALERT!!!!!
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 01:02:07
Just received a call from family. A friend of theirs opened a card from Blue Mountain Cards and system crashed.

Do not open Blue Mountain Cards until further notice.

Virus has infiltrated their system..pass it on

As virus warnings generally do, this one caught on quickly, spreading beyond the confines of AOL to the Internet at large. What began as a trickle of inquiries to Blue Mountain's Webmaster address on February 25 had escalated to a flood by the following week. People all over the world were not only forwarding the alert to everyone they knew, they were posting it to newsgroups and listservs and spreading it in personal messages. Not one word of it was true.
Read More



"Yigaquu osaniyu adanvto adadoligi nigohilvi nasquv utloyasdi nihi" Cherokee - "May the Great Spirit's blessings always be with you."