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Breakup Virus

I'm sooooo sorry
  (+6)
(+6)
  [vote for,
against]

This is a typical e-mail worm that copies and sends itself to everyone in the recipient's e-mail address book. Hence the category Public:Evil.

Specifically, it mails to everyone on the list:

Dear ________ <-- [the first name is taken from the address book info]
I'm so sorry, but I can no longer go on in this relationship. I know that we have had a lot of fun times together, but I feel that we're not right for each other and I'm not ready to make a commitment. Please don't hate me for this. I would like to remain friends, but I don't think the attraction is there for me.

...And so on. The breakup letter is randomly composed, and consists of sentences commonly found in such a letter. No two will be identical. Some will confess to other concurrent relationships; some will be insulting and some will be tender. The worm also reads the user's previously sent documents and examines them for misspellings and grammatical anomalies (e.g. type of smileys used -- although I don't know how common they are in a breakup letter), how the user typically signs his/her name; etc.

With millions of these being sent out daily, chances are that many will, in fact, reach significant others, causing an latent sense of depression in the country at large. It will also introduce a permanent undertone of anxiety, as people will never be 100% certain of whether a breakup letter is phony.

phundug, Aug 25 2004

Here you go Lithium http://www.rejectionline.com/index.html
[swamilad, Oct 05 2004]

(?) Java visualization of teen breakups in blogs http://www.tate.org...bvs/thedumpster.htm
Spiking in November, for some reason. [jutta, Feb 18 2006]

[link]






       Herpes is the "hard to get laid ever again" virus.   

       Anyway - do you work for the makers of Paxil, Zoloft, or Prozac, [phundug]?
shapu, Aug 26 2004
  

       A break up email? That's a single shallow step above a breakup text message.   

       There's two hard parts to this:
1. Getting the syntax of the email to be anything like believable.
2. Keeping a lid on the nature of the scheme. This is the sort of Human Interest angle that the meeja crave, so they can shoehorn in ostensibly cutting edge tech stories, without disengaging the mouthbreathing masses.
calum, Aug 26 2004
  

       :)
DesertFox, Aug 26 2004
  

       Uh-oh! [Ichthus] I deleted a real comment while trying to get rid of irrelevant Bush remarks. I'm really sorry. Could you recreate it?
phundug, Aug 26 2004
  

       A real comment, from me?   

       I was just riffing off of your since deleted, irrelevant Bush remark - besides it was a private note from Laura to John and probably shouldn't have been posted here (although I would like to know about the pictures she mentioned).
Ichthus, Aug 26 2004
  

       How did Bush come into this? (Since this isn't Herpes I assume you mean the one in the whitehouse).
stilgar, Aug 29 2004
  

       This reminds me of a nice phone number (that once existed) which you'd give your hubby to call, and an automated voice would say something to the tune of "Very sorry, you're dumped... press 1 for counselling, press 2 for a dating agency, press 3 for..." and so and and so on... an internet version of that would be cool...
LithiumTwo, Aug 29 2004
  

       [phundug] - you are a deeply troubled person. This has to be one of the most twisted ideas I have read on this site. It has however introduced me to public:evil, which I will now go and explore...
wagster, Aug 29 2004
  

       Have now explored the section at length and this still out-evils the rest of it.
wagster, Oct 20 2004
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

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