Geeks Bearing Gifts

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Congressional Pensions)

A recent email-frenzy regarding the Social Security program has been making the Internet rounds lately, claiming congressional disinterest in funding the program is because "senators do not pay Social Security" and "they get paid their entire salary, after retirement, for the rest of their life (or words to that effect).

I received a copy of this email today, and decided to research it in depth. For me, the first place to go for information about this kind of email is Snopes.com

The Snopes rating on this rumor is: FALSE

Bottom line, Senators DO pay into the Social Security program, and they do NOT receive their entire salary (with huge payments to their spouses) unto death.

Go to the link and read the whole thing.

The reason that I include this on the blog is that I receive a HUGE number of these "announcements" every month. I use to receive them every WEEK, until I started replying to my family members .... and everyone on the headers of the announcements that they sent them to, besides me, pointing out that the rumor has been investigated and debunked by at least one source which I consider reliable.

Usually, this source is Snopes. Sometimes it's an anti-hoax website such as the CIAC Hoaxbusters website. (This is the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Office of Cyber Security, also known as the "Computer Incident Advisory Committee").

Another place to check out these warnings is the Symantic website.

You really need to check these internet rumors out, friends, before you proliferate the hoax by forwarding them to your mailing list. If you receive one of these hoax emails, you would be performing a service to yourself, your family and your friends if you confirm them before you forward the email.

Note that while these are usually started as deliberate hoaxes, in the same mindframe of those who create viral software for internet distribution, sometimes they are simply tongue-in-cheek jokes sent to a small circle of friends. This isn't always perceived by the recipients as humor, and the risk is that it will be forwarded in all seriousness and will be misinterpreted by the next level of recipients.

I can confirm that this is true. In 1999, I received an obviously joke email, and found it so funny that I made minor changes and forwarded it to a few friends.

Within the week, this email achieved certain notoriety by hitting the CIAC HoaxBusters list with a bullet.

It was a take-off of the Trojan v*r*s (deliberately obscured word) announcements, relating to the Greeks, a wooden horse, and the similarity between the words "Greek" and "Geek". I had originally taken my nom de plume from "Jimmy the Greek", naming myself "Jerry the Geek". when I saw this email hoax, I couldn't resist modifying it slightly . . . in parentheses, as I too-often do ... and forwarding it to a few friends. The original never again saw the light of day, but the Geek Version was somehow picked up and forwarded relentlessly for years. You can see my version, still in the CIAC files, here.

When you read it, there can be no doubt in your mind that it's a personal pun, and a joke. I never expected such notoriety. Nor did I expect that the phrase would be picked up and used so universally; a NetScape search on the phrase "Geeks Bearing Gifts" lists over 3400 hits, and you have to get pretty deep into the search-results list (hit #70) to get to the original. Generally, the term is now commonly used to refer to dubious software, most frequently Windows ME. (!)

I've learned my lesson. No longer will I send funny emails to people without making sure there is NO chance that they will misinterpret it as a "real" warning.

This is your opportunity to learn the same lesson. Do NOT forward any joke email unless you have clearly labeled it as something which should not be accepted as fact.

Be sure you've checked it out before you forward it. I've given you three good resources, you can bookmark them and use them to check out the validity of the claims before you impose the confusion on others.

That's what I do.

Also, I own the best Security software I can find, and update it every year. I run the AV update daily, and scan my hard-disk at least twice a week . . . daily, if I'm doing a lot of net-surfing. It's the only way I know to prevent my email addresses from being used to forward hoaxes & bogus files to my friends and family.

PS: Okay, so now there are 3401 hits on "Geeks Bearing Gifts". What goes around, comes around, eh?