Chain emails, just like their chain letter counterparts, can be schemes designed to get money out of the reader. However, since we are supposed to be living in the Information Age, the new thing in chain letters is to spread some ridiculous hoax or outright lie around the world in a matter of seconds via email. I cannot tell you how many times in the past month I've gotten an email explaining how awful New York junior Senator Hillary Clinton behaved when she refused to meet with an organization representing mothers of deceased US soldiers. When confronted with this email, I thought "Man, no matter how slick Hillary thinks she is, refusing to meet with moms of soldiers who died in combat is really politically damaging of Clinton if she wants to be president. Why would she do that?"

The Internet brought me this chain email and the Internet exposed it as a lie in less than five minutes. Within two minutes of receiving the email, my curiosity led me to the web site of the "offended" organization, the Gold Star Mothers. In bold type on their home page, the Gold Star Mothers asked people to stop spreading the very email I had just read. I replied to all those who had received the hoax email (there were about thirty people on the list), pointed them to the Gold Star Mothers' web page and got half a dozen replies of: "Why are you defending that witch Hillary Clinton?" (or something more vulgar to that effect). Believe me, I'm not thrilled about being put in the position of sticking up for a Clinton, but a lie is a lie regardless of ideology.

Halting some of the lies spread via chain email require some common sense analysis. One that has been making the rounds for a year or so is the "Microsoft tomato" story. Chances are you've seen it: An out of work laborer applies for a janitorial position at Microsoft. Because the applicant doesn't have email access, the Microsoft HR rep says he is worthless and refuses to hire him. The unemployed man, down to his last ten bucks, dejected, rejected and desperate, buys a carton of tomatoes and sells them on the street corner for 100% profit. Over the next few days he sells more tomatoes at this amazing profit level and within a year he has incorporated his produce business and wants to buy life insurance for his family's benefit. The insurance salesman is shocked that this wealthy business owner doesn't have an email address to send certain insurance forms. "How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would be now, if you had been connected to the Internet from the very start!" The tomato millionaire cleverly replies, "I would be a janitor at Microsoft!" The rest of the email is a "moral of the story" statement declaring that the Internet and Microsoft only takes wealth away rather than creating it.

Let me clue you all in on how absolutely unrealistic the story of the tomato millionaire is:

1) Selling a carton of tomatoes on a street corner at 100% profit the first day may have worked out, but the next day several panhandlers competing at the same stoplight harass the tomato seller for free food. When the tomato seller refuses, the panhandlers anonymously call the police to report a food vendor operating without a license. The police arrive to see one guy selling tomatoes because the bums that were competing for money at the stoplight against the honest tomato reseller have all hidden from view.

2) The tomato seller tells the police that he is within his rights to sell tomatoes on the corner because he sees other people selling oranges and roses. The police notify him that those people are supposed to have a license too and are prosecuted when caught without one. The tomato seller is forced to leave the corner and find another place to sell his tomatoes (similar to when unsuccessful companies litigate a more successful company out of business because they can't compete in the marketplace).

3) Our dedicated tomato seller gets up early in the morning and goes home late every night from selling his tomatoes at a farmer's market. After a couple of days of the tomato seller's amazing 100% profit margins, it is discovered by his competitors that his tomato supplier is the supermarket. Because many of the sellers at the farmer's market are small-time farmers, they take offense at the new guy selling tomatoes grown on large "corporate" farms owned by the store chain. Within a week, rumors of the "Franken-food tomato guy" spread like wildfire and a lack of business close down his tomato kiosk at the farmer's market.

4) Because our tomato reseller doesn't grow his own tomatoes and has no license to resell tomatoes on the street corner, he returns to the supermarket. The manager recognizes him and puts him to work in the produce section. When a higher paying job as cashier opens up, the tomato reseller fails the basic skills test due to his hatred for email and Microsoft. Apparently, he spent so much time trying to start his own tomato selling business that he never learned how to run a computer — the basis of every cash register in a modern supermarket.

The real moral is: Crazy regulations, a lack of marketing, poor planning and a limited skill set are the real barriers to wealth in the real world — not a corporation that has worked hard to get the entire world communicating and producing at an astonishing rate.

Other than cutting and pasting my response about the tomato millionaire (which I encourage anyone who gets that stupid tomato millionaire email to do), how can you combat the scourge of email hoaxes? One of the best resources is the Snopes website of urban legends maintained by David and Barbara Mikkelson of the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society in California, USA. The Mikkelson's do a great job of referencing and researching all manner of crazy hoaxes on the Internet and should be the first website you visit when you get a suspected hoax email.

In the end, it is up to us as individuals to take care of the email hoaxes, viruses and the other junk mail we all get in our inboxes. Whether it's buying a virus scanner, using an anti-spam filter service or hitting the "delete" key, it's ultimately up to us

Scott McCollum is an independent consultant and tech industry insider living in Austin, Texas. He is a contributing writer for Pure Politics and has appeared on the nationally syndicated Cyber-Line radio talk show.