My guess is there was no virus, but I'm not going to open it anyway. The e-mail was intentionally sent out, unlike many viruses that just send themselves. This would be prosecutable.

While I'm sure mass mailing of chain letters violates AOL's Terms of Service, most of us probably weren't bothered enough to complain to AOL about it, and it would take a whole bunch of complaints for them to do anything. If I start getting a pile of spam, I will, but one little chain letter hasn't given me enough motivation. Interesting to read all those e-mail addresses, though.

Bill, I can delete stuff off the server too. If I notice a really big file coming in, I'll often stop it and go see what it is and who sent it. The only harm these things can do to me is to make me take the time to download them, and I don't even have to do that anymore.