Bush, Phishing

Anyway, Bush won the election.


I learned this word "phishing" yesterday. Last week in "Hacking--do the pros now rule?" of CNet, Robert Graham said:

It's not so much that they get paid to hack, but that they earn money from hacking. Take phishing attacks: It's usually the people who are running the attacks themselves that are earning money; no one is paying them to do it.

I followed the link of phishing but found it's too complicate, so I was confused.
Yesterday watching CTV I heard this word, then I totally understood. If I read it lound, I should have found out it was respell from "fishing". My blog "Spoof email trying to steal money" on Oct, 18 descriped what was phishing already.

According to Colloquialisms Dictionary of Babylon, this term has been known in the hacker culture since about 1996, but it has only hit the headlines in the mainstream press since about July, 2003. Anti-Phishing Working Group gives an astonished number:

By hijacking the trusted brands of well-known banks, online retailers and credit card companies, phishers are able to convince up to 5% of recipients to respond to them.

Yes, that kind of email is convincing.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group encourage people to report phishing email to build a Phishing Achieve, so I sent my 2 phishing emails. It's good to know that somebody is working on it.