We covered this ground before in other email forums. It's a hoax that's 
been running around the internet world for at least two years.

Mike Buetow
IPC Tech Staff

On Mon, 6 May 1996 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> I received this e-mail from one of our engineers within Merix.  Watch out!
> 
> John Sharp
> Merix Corporation, Forest Grove, OR
> 503-359-9300 (5-4351)
> 503-359-1040 FAX
> [log in to unmask]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __________________ Forward Header__________________________________
> 
> Subject: Most recent Virus warning!!!!
> 
> Date:    4/24/96 9:59 AM
> 
> 
>      I received this information from a friend who has encountered this 
>      virus...
>      
>         "Beware of a computer virus that is being sent across the Internet. 
>      If you receive an E-Mail message with the subject line "Good Times", 
>      DO NOT OPEN IT, DO NOT READ IT, but DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY, no matter 
>      who it says the sender is. It rewrites your hard drive, totally 
>      destroying anything on it. Tell anyone you know who might be affected 
>      by this, or anyone who is using the internet at work or home.
>      
>         The FCC released a warning two weeks ago Wednesday concerning a matter
>      of major importance to any regular user of the internet. Apparently a 
>      new computer virus has been engineered by a user of America On-Line 
>      that is unparalleled in it's destructive capability. Other more well 
>      known viruses such as "Stoned", "Airwolf", or "Michelangelo" pale in 
>      comparison to the prospects terrifying, said the FCC, is the fact that 
>      no program needs to be exchanged for a new computer to be infected. It 
>      can spread through the existing E-Mail systems of the Internet. Once a 
>      computer is infected, one of several things can happen. If the 
>      computer contains a hard drive, it will most likely be destroyed. If 
>      the program is not stopped, the computer's processor will be placed in 
>      an nth-complexity binary loop -- which can severely damage the 
>      processor if left running that way to long.
>      
>         Unfortunately, most novice computer users will not realize what is 
>      happening until it is far too late. Luckily, there is one sure means 
>      of detecting what is known as the "Good Times" virus. It always 
>      travels to new computers the same way, in a text E-Mail message with 
>      the subject line reading "Good Times". Avoiding infection is easy once 
>      the file has been received -- not reading it! The act of loading the 
>      file into the mail server's ASCII buffer causes the "Good Times" 
>      mainline program to initialize and execute.
>      
>         The program is highly intelligent -- it will send copies of itself 
>      to everyone whose E-Mail address is contained in a receive-mail file 
>      or a send-mail file, if it can find one. It will then proceed to trash 
>      the computer it is running on. The bottom line here is -- if you 
>      receive a file with the subject line "Good Times", DELETE IT 
>      IMMEDIATELY!! DO NOT READ IT!! Rest assured that whoever's name was on 
>      the "from:" line was struck by the virus. Warn your friends and local 
>      system users of this newest threat to the Internet. It could save them 
>      a lot of time and money.
> 
>