Every now and then you probably get a message somewhat like this:

“Tonight😴 you will get a text💬from your crush🤭❤️, BUT only if you forward this to 10 other people🧍‍♀️in the next 10 minutes. If you ignore this, then you will have bad luck for a whole year😡, AND your crush will start to BULLY 😭you in school. The timer is running! ⏯️Go, go, go!

It may look a little different, but the gist is all the same: send this to more people! While they seem pretty harmless, and most can guess that they probably aren’t real, they can actually be very dangerous and spread malicious software throughout your phone or computer.

The first thing you should know about chain mail, is that it’s not a new concept. Chain mail has been around since 1888. Back then of course it was transmitted through postal services. If you take a look at some of old chain mails  you can see that it was very different from the ones we see today. Some of the popular chain mails from the time was the Send-a-Dime chain mail that originated in Denver, Colorado.

Now to get to the real question, is chain mail safe? The short answer is no. Chain mail can be very dangerous and quite honestly not worth your time. If you don’t respond to the chain mail, quite frankly, nothing will happen. Your mom won’t die, you won’t have bad luck, you won’t even have to eat vegetables for 2 weeks. Don’t feel pressured to do things like this. When hackers make these they target people’s weaknesses. Some of them include helping starving children, finding the love of your life, getting money, getting good luck, gettting popular, getting pretty, etc. The list goes on forever and to be honest, it’s quite disturbing how easy people can manipulate others. The reason however why it’s not safe stretches on an on. You could get a virus, get scammed into paying money, get scammed into giving personal information such as your credit card number, address, and phone number, etc.

In the long run I would say to people that if you ever end up getting a chain-mail, just ignore it, or if it’s a person you know explain to them the dangers of it and 📫send them this article, the ⏰timer is running, ⏯️GO, GO, GO!⏯️