New attack on WhatsApp: citizens of Kazan are being scared by a deadly water bug and a virus “Dance of the Pope. It is true that the video "Dance of the Pope" contains a dangerous virus

Residents of Ufa continue to spread scary messages on WhatsApp. This time they write this: “Tell all the contacts on your list not to open the video called “Dance of the Pope.” This is a virus that formats your mobile phone. It is very dangerous!"

It is true that the video "Dance of the Pope" contains dangerous virus?

Is this true or another scarecrow, listeners ask us to find out! Let's get started!
What's even more interesting is that this message being sent out also says that this information was sent from Canada! And there they said about a dangerous virus on the radio! Why was it announced on the radio? Somehow it looks like a children's horror story. But maybe I'm wrong, so I asked the special correspondent of Sputnik FM Aidar Nugumanov to experience the Pope's dance on himself, or rather on a mobile phone. Listen to how the experiment went in the audio version below. But in short, nothing terrible happened, everything is in order with the phone, there is neither a virus nor the dance of the Pope in the video, in fact.
This was confirmed to us in the Kaspersky Lab, where we sent the material a request for verification. Here is what the antivirus specialists answered us: “Lily, the experts and I have studied everything that is. It's more like a "duck". If you watch this video on your phone, nothing will happen - you can try it yourself.”

Residents of Ufa continue to spread scary messages on WhatsApp. This time they write this: “Tell all the contacts on your list not to open the video called “Dance of the Pope.” This is a virus that formats your mobile phone. It is very dangerous!"

Is it true that the video "Dance of the Pope" contains a dangerous virus?

Is this true or another scarecrow, listeners ask us to find out! Let's get started!
What's even more interesting is that this message being sent out also says that this information was sent from Canada! And there they said about a dangerous virus on the radio! Why was it announced on the radio? Somehow it looks like a children's horror story. But maybe I'm wrong, so I asked the special correspondent of Sputnik FM Aidar Nugumanov to experience the Pope's dance on himself, or rather on a mobile phone. Listen to how the experiment went in the audio version below. But in short, nothing terrible happened, everything is in order with the phone, there is neither a virus nor the dance of the Pope in the video, in fact.
This was confirmed to us in the Kaspersky Lab, where we sent the material a request for verification. Here is what the antivirus specialists answered us: “Lily, the experts and I have studied everything that is. It's more like a "duck". If you watch this video on your phone, nothing will happen - you can try it yourself.”

At the end: "Let's be careful, forward, inform our friends" - this is a traditional addition to horror mailing lists. Russians regularly become recipients of such messages, forwarding them to each other, despite the fact that they guess that, most likely, this is a fake, they say, it’s better to be careful. Psychologists believe that main reason such behavior - unwillingness to think and loneliness.

From terrorists from Syria to pills from Israel

18 suicide bombers sent to the cities of Russia, a mass action of the Blue Whale suicide group, during which five thousand children were supposed to commit suicide, poisoned tangerines from Turkey, paracetamol from Israel with a wire inside, chewing gum with drugs that are offered to children in schools - this is only a small part of all the horror stories that are distributed in instant messengers and social networks.

One of the last appeared in Kazan before the start summer holidays. School groups are actively sending out a message about the appearance of a new species of insect, from the bite of which "a person goes crazy and dies within two hours." The message is accompanied by a photograph of a beetle with a pimply back and the caption: “Show the children, let them not touch it with thoughts that it is a hedgehog.” To enhance the effect, the spam kit also includes an image of a palm and fingers dotted with black holes - apparently, traces of pricks from the hedgehog.

“This insect is a giant Belostomatidae water bug. It grows up to 15 centimeters in length. Despite not very appetizing appearance, this insect is considered a delicacy in some countries. Asian countries. The bite is very painful, but not fatal. This is a tropical creature, there are no giant water bugs in our area, ”says the biological encyclopedia.

The effect increases many times if officials join the distribution of the message. So, in 2015, a panic began in Tatarstan over a report about the “death of 12 children due to drug allergies”, which came from the head doctor of the Naberezhnye Chelny Medical and Physical Education Center Rafis Akhmetzyanov. It turned out that the secretary of the head physician, having received a message from her friend on WhatsApp, decided to do a “good deed” and send it out from the office mail of her boss.

On the eve of the global attack of the WannaCray virus, another message about the dangers from the worldwide Web appeared:

“Tell all the contacts on your list not to accept a video called 'Daddy Dance'. This is a virus that formats your mobile phone. Beware, this is very dangerous. They announced it today on the radio. Print this msg as much as you can!"

As you can see, it looks like another fake message calling for urgent warning of relatives and friends about the new virus ivchetoo 225 and ivchetoo 05.

In this case, it was not difficult to identify the source of the stuffing, but usually the authors of such mailings remain unidentified. Although it is difficult, according to Andrey Prozorov, an information security expert, to do this, it is possible.

If we are talking about instant messengers, then special protocols can be used that enhance security, and it becomes more difficult to figure out who sent it. It is necessary to use specialized software products, services that allow you to identify the emergence of new groups, new activities, new trends and hashes in social networks, and from there you can see who was the primary source and work with him. In general, it is laborious, but to control and monitor social networks all the same, it is necessary, - Andrey Prozorov believes.

While in Russia there is no practice of bringing the authors of panic messages to justice, moreover, they cannot be found. In previous cases, the police only went after distributors. In November 2015, after a message about 18 suicide bombers that sowed panic (it is interesting that after the terrorist attack in St. Initially, the information began to spread in Tatarstan and reached Moscow by the end of the day. A day later, the police reported the arrest of the author, later it turned out that the woman had received the message from her friend in the same way, she was just spreading it more actively than others in online communities.

At the end of March, Anton Gusev, a participant in the Dom-2 TV show, was detained for sending out about 5,000 children who are going to commit suicide one day. According to Life, some acquaintances turned to Gusev in order to distribute the newsletter. The implication was that in this way she would be able to reach the maximum number of people due to the popularity of the author. According to preliminary information, Gusev will not be held liable, as he did it without criminal intent.

Mailings that evoke emotions - fear or compassion - receive the maximum distribution. Suffice it to recall the message in which they called for the removal of 150 thoroughbred puppies from the kennel, otherwise they would allegedly be euthanized. According to Pavel Afanasiev, Associate Professor of the Department of Psychology at KFU, the epidemic of horror stories is caused by a lack of critical thinking. When people receive messages, they are too lazy to think and analyze whether the message can be true, it is much easier to click on the “forward” button.

Many experts say that the population has a low level of critical thinking. A person cannot analyze how correct the information is, takes everything at face value, and instead of turning on critical thinking, turns on an emotional, affective reaction. Position mature person- take responsibility and think, but it's more difficult than just reacting emotionally, - says Pavel Afanasiev.

The second moment - oddly enough, loneliness. By forwarding a message, a person feels like a part of a society united by some idea or fear.

The launch of such horror stories is a hidden request for unity, for the elimination of one's loneliness. A person infects another person with his emotions and understands that he is not alone, that there are other people nearby who experience similar feelings. It's like in a cartoon about a kitten named Woof: “What are you doing here? I'm afraid. Let's be afraid together." If someone next to you is also afraid, then you are not so defenseless, because you are not alone, but you are afraid together, - says Pavel Alekseev.

Online hysteria can turn into a nightmare real life. So, in Tatarstan, the banking system almost collapsed through instant messengers, after the collapse of Tatfondbank, a message appeared with calls to urgently withdraw money from the banks of the republic. The Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the detention of the authors of the mailing - they turned out to be two men, residents of Naberezhnye Chelny and Almetyevsk.

There are signs of fake information that are visible to the naked eye. If the message is replete with the phrases “URGENT!!! Pass it on to all your loved ones!!! Make the maximum repost! Send it to whoever you can!” - most likely, the message is a fake. As well as messages without specifying the author, they usually begin or end with the words: “I have a friend in the police, he said that ...”, “My husband’s sister works in a bank, they were warned that ...”, “Teacher 2B asked everyone to report…"

Along with false reports designed to sow fear, real ones are also spreading on social networks. One of the latest, for example, a recording from a surveillance camera, of a man approaching a boy at music school. Then it turned out that the suspicious type was not a pedophile, as his worried parents managed to christen him, but a bum from Dzerzhinsky near Moscow, asking the children for money for a drink. The message spread all over Russia, and parents in every city were sure that the incident had happened to them.

In fact, locating the scene was easy. The message does not indicate the city and number of the "musician", but there is the name and surname of the school director who asked to distribute the video - we hammer it on the Internet - and everything falls into place.

In the same way, in Kazan, they were looking for the mother of the boy Gleb from the fourth entrance of house number 5 on Zarechnaya Street. It was enough to open a map of Kazan to find out that there is Zarechnaya street in the city, but this private sector, and there can be no multi-entrance building there. As a result, it turned out that the case was in Novosibirsk in January 2016, the boy's mother was found within a couple of hours. Since then, Gleb "settled" on the Internet, they are still "looking for" him in Nizhny Novgorod, then in Tomsk, then in Tyumen.

In the photo: This insect is a giant water bug Belostomatidae, according to the biological encyclopedia. Photo 79pomyslow.info