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From: griffin@ecst.csuchico.edu (Kent Nichols)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Stevie and Amanda's Science Project
Date: 15 May 1996 19:51:01 GMT

Alright this little meme reaks of an UL. I origanlly recieved this message a few months ago. I replied to the given address. The next day I recieved a junk mail from someone at tiac.net.

I have just received the message again. Is it a UL? Is it pure fiction or is it something gone wildly out of control (ie Craig Shergold)?

Hi, our names are Stevie and Amanda. We are in the 5th grade at the Phillipson Memorial School in Phillipson, Massachusetts, USA. We are doing a science project on the Internet. We want to see how many responses we can get back in two weeks. ( We are only sending out 2 letters).

Please respond and then send this letter to anyone you communicate with on the Internet. Respond to smc@tiac.net.

1. Where do you live (state and country)?
2. From whom did you get this letter?

Thank you,

Stevie and Amanda

+=+=+=+=+=+=+

From: texmex@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (Steve Patlan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Stevie and Amanda's Science Project
Date: 15 May 1996 20:47:47 -0500

Kent Nichols wrote,
>Alright this little meme reaks of an UL. I origanlly recieved this
>message a few months ago. I replied to the given address. The next
>day I recieved a junk mail from someone at tiac.net.
Ummm - are you sure it was "junk mail"? (see below)

>I have just received the message again. Is it a UL? Is it pure
>fiction or is it something gone wildly out of control (ie Craig
>Shergold)?
[ message snipped ]

Well, it appears to be mildly out of control. It shouldn't have been out of control at all, except that some genius in your forwarding chain seems to have cut out the following, which was in the version that I received on Apr 8:

> Reply-To: smc@tiac.net
> Subject: True: help a little kid...waste a little bandwidth (fwd)
>
> *PLEASE* include the following if you forward this message:
>
> The deadline for the project is Friday April 12, 1996 (this week).

Of course, whoever sent it to you is no logician either - by now anybody with more than one e-mail friend should have received enough crap like this to know *not* to forward anything asking for the whole world to respond, especially with *no* closing date.

In response to Kent, Helge Moulding <hsm@unislc.slc.unisys.com> wrote: >I seem to remember that there was a considerable flame war
>over the use of the internet as an instructional diversion,
>sparked by this very letter. About two years ago. That makes
>it as much a UL as the Shergold card raiser, since Stevie
>and Amanda are likely no longer looking for responses...

This very letter? Two *years* ago? Are you sure? I've never heard of it before this year, and I'm on a list which receives (from a few clueless members and ex-members) just about every mass-forwarded piece of lame humor, Good Times warning, "AIDS experiment" chain-letter and Shirgoldesque plea around. Often more than once.

Anyhoo, here is the followup we got 3 days later:

Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 10:15:36 -0500 (CDT)
From: Nobody you know
To: Psychotics Anonymous <address@domain.com> Subject: True: Don't send mail to the fifth graders (fwd)

> From: Somebody Else <somebody else@bbn.com>
> Subject: Sylvia cries uncle
> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 23:08:22 -0500 (EDT)
>
> The ``fifth-graders seek e-mail'' mom throws in the towel.
> (Only 2000 messages? Wimps.)
>
> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 13:45:33 -0400
> To: lots of people...
> From: smc@tiac.net (Sylvia Charland)
> Subject: uncle
>
> UNCLE! UNCLE! UNCLE!.... That means we give up!!
> PLease do not forward this any further. THE EXPERIMENT IS OVER!!! We have
> received over 2000 letters from wonderful people like you...but we can't
> handle any more. We certainly have learned a lot - the internet is BIG!
>
> PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THE LETTER ANY MORE.
>
> Thanks for you response.
>
> --- end forwarded text

Steve "everybody please send me a dollar" Patlan

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From: sandee@Think.COM (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Amanda, meet Craig Shergold
Date: 15 May 1996 17:58:23 GMT

In article <4ncsji$r1@flood.xnet.com>, warinner@flood.xnet.com (Robert Warinner) writes: => This Shergold-like solicitation was vectored through a mailing list I => read. Anyone seen a mutation?

The original was legit, and apparently not directly Shergold-inspired. I got it in an early stage on a mailing list because the mom of one or both of the kids is a former colleague of mine. She added a deadline in a followup, then two days later sent out a "please stop sending mail" plea. However, the genie had been let out of the bottle, and will no doubt wander around the net for years to come. The account has long since been deactivated by the ISP. This was in early April, but not on April 1st. Now that wasn't on AOL - it was on tiac.net (a Boston area ISP). And there were two kids, Stephen and Amanda. I wonder if this is the second email she speaks of, or if the chain letter got mutated.

< snip>

=> You might add a deadline of 5/24 to this, since one wasn't specified - I => can see this kid still getting mail five years from now! =>
=> >>Hi, my name is Amanda. I am in the 5th grade at the Phillipston => >>Memorial school, Phillipston, Massachusetts, USA. I am doing a => >>science project on the Internet. I want to see how many responses => >>I can get back in three weeks. (I am only sending out 2 letters, => >>plus three postings in mail groups on the Internet). My teacher => >>(Mrs. Tucker) says it will travel across the globe. => >>
=> >>Please respond and then send this letter to anyone you communicate => >>with on the Internet. If you receive this letter, please respond to: => >>
=> *<AOL email address snipped to protect the innocent>* => >>
=> >>1. Where do you live (state and country)? => >>2. From whom did you get this letter? => >>
=> >>Then, please send this to anyone you communicate with on the Internet. => >>
=> >>
=> >> Thank you, => >>
=> >> Amanda

Daan Sandee sandee@think.com Burlington, MA

From: sandee@Think.COM (Daan Sandee)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Amanda, meet Craig Shergold
Date: 15 May 1996 21:21:24 GMT

In article <4ndeep$87t@mercury.campbell-mithun.com>, swb@mercury.campbell-mithun.com (Shawn Barnhart) writes: |> According to sandee@Think.COM..
|> [Snip]
|> ! doubt wander around the net for years to come. The account has long since |> ! been deactivated by the ISP. This was in early April, but not on April 1st. |> ! Now that wasn't on AOL - it was on tiac.net (a Boston area ISP). And |> ! there were two kids, Stephen and Amanda. I wonder if this is the second |> ! email she speaks of, or if the chain letter got mutated. |>
|> I sent a mail message to the tiac.net account specified in the message in |> late April and it never bounced back. I assumed it was a valid account. Or |> did they create a special sendmail ruleset to just drop mail to /dev/null?

Someone reported on news.admin.net-abuse.misc (some time ago, it attracted the attention of the net.police before AFU's) that they had telnetted to port 25 and got the address expanded to /dev/null. I tried to duplicate this just now but I forget what the address was. (It's politer to have the message go into a black hole than to send bounces.) My mailer accepts an alias of /dev/null - no need to tinker with sendmail.cf (god forbid.)

Daan Sandee sandee@think.com Burlington, MA

From: derek@nezsdc.fujitsu.co.nz (Derek Tearne)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Amanda, meet Craig Shergold
Date: 17 May 1996 16:15:02 +1200

In article <4ndhsk$85b@bone.think.com>, Daan Sandee <sandee@Think.COM> wrote:

>Someone reported on news.admin.net-abuse.misc (some time ago, it attracted
>the attention of the net.police before AFU's) that they had telnetted to
>port 25 and got the address expanded to /dev/null. I tried to duplicate
>this just now but I forget what the address was.

smc@tiac.net

Expands to 250 </dev/null@mailserver1.tiac.net>

Incidentally I got the slightly more terse 'Stevie and Amanda' one.

(the e-mail address was smc@tiac.net, school still Phillipston, Subj: 5th grade project...please help Date: 96-05-07 22:18:56 EDT ).