So today, March 9, 2010, a friend of mine received an email accusing her of immodesty. The purported sender was someone named “Katie Miller” and while I’ll not post the email address here (you can get it elsewhere), I’ll note that it began with the username: katiegirl2333.

It read like this:

Dear _____:
Hello, I don’t feel good about sending this message but I felt it needed to be aired.  I have a boyfriend who attends class with you and I have found out that he has been repeatedly distracted from the lectures by your appearance. I learned of this because I recently overheard him making indecent comments in reference your body in a phone conversation with one of his friends. I asked a girl in your class who knew your name so I could look it up in the directory and contact you in a polite way.  You may be an attractive girl, but dressing in ways that put emphasis on your bodily curves and feminine clothing(often tight, revealing visible panty-lines, which I know my boyfriend to have a weakness for) are not the proper way to present yourself in an educational setting.  I have the feeling he is not the only guy who feels the same way.  It is very sinful, in my opinion.  He is trying hard to succeed in academics and to live a moral life, and he and other men could do without the distractons.  I know him to have high standards and feeling a sense of temptation does not make him proud.

I hope you did not intend to distract good young men, but whether or not, please consider carrying yourself in a more modest manner for everyone’s sake.
Sincerely,
Katie

The “Dear _____:” was specific – with my friend’s name.

Naturally, my friend was troubled – for many reasons.

A bit of forensics performed by a Computer Engineer I know revealed that the source of the email was the state of Missouri – more precisely, the University of Missouri. My friend felt a sense of relief, since she knew no one from Missouri. Even if she did, they hadn’t seen what she was wearing to class.

Further investigation revealed identical letters (except that the “Dear _____:”  is customized) here:

http://www.angelfire.com/amiga2/oonamas/immodesty.html

and here:

http://community.burton.com/forums/thread/746442.aspx

The Burton site dates the email 13 months prior to my friend receiving hers.

Then I checked www.archive.org and found the Angelfire site dates back to March 2004 (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.angelfire.com/amiga2/oonamas/immodesty.html).

So the question is, who is Katie and why is she sending these emails to people?

Here’s my theory.

Someone hates someone named Katie. Perhaps Katie is prudish or maybe she’s legalistic and critical. Maybe Katie even wrote an email like this. In any case, Katie was hated.

The person who hated Katie wrote a simple script that they passed around (a virus or more accurately, a worm) that, when it loads on your computer looks for email addresses and first names. It then composes emails to random people with the text.

This makes Katie the object of great wrath. Note the instructions at the bottom of this web site:
http://www.angelfire.com/amiga2/oonamas/immodesty.html

“Feel free to let Katie know how you felt about her email at….”

In any case, Katie is the original and continual victim. Everyone who receives the text disseminated by the worm is victimized as well.

So, in my estimation, if you received this email, don’t change your wardrobe. You’ve been hit randomly. The fact that this email has been floating around for six years shows that it wasn’t written with you in mind.

And if you know someone who received it, please pass this info along to them.