[LINK] ICE

[Ash Nallawalla]

Generally, any email that asks you to tell others to "pass it on, can't
hurt, just in case" is a hoax because real alerts are passed on through the
traditional news media and, in urgent cases, by direct mail.  I tend to grab
some unique-looking sentence and Google it. I used "He therefore thought
that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for
this purpose".

See this American version:

http://activerain.com/blogsview/101557/Do-You-Have-ICE 

(I love the East Anglican Ambulance Service).

I then Googled "East Anglican Ambulance Service", which brought forth many
more suckers, including our very own ABC Radio back in 2005.

http://www.abc.net.au/melbourne/stories/s1424165.htm 

Now the East Anglican Ambos even have "Matthew Ware, a spokesman for the
East Anglican Ambulance service".

Googling this Matthew Ware brought forth many more instances when he worked
for the similarly named East Anglian Ambulance Service.  Obviously some
well-meaning person actually retyped the story and created the Anglican
version.

It came to a crashing end at Snopes, which should be mentioned to anyone who
sends you one of those "pass it on" stories:
http://www.snopes.com/crime/prevent/icephone.asp 

Have you all seen the PPT/PPS slide show that craps on about the price of
"gasoline", Bush, Cheney and then purports to show a palatial building and
says that it is a palace occupied by the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi?  It is
actually a hotel: http://www.emiratespalace.com 

Perhaps the Link Institute should create its own hoax email and see how far
it goes?

Ash

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Howard

> Personally I've seen enough of this type of email that I'm immediately
> suspicious and hit Google for all of them, although in this case it
> pretty
> much stands out itself - the wording isn't what you'd expect from an
> organisation like the NSW Ambulance service, incorrect capitalisation,
> use
> of "&", etc.
> 
> But the real give away?  US spelling...  "recognized"