Anti-Phishing Bill Introduced To Congress

Written by Richard A. Chapo


Sen. Partick J. Leahy has introducedrepparttar Anti-Phishing Act of 2005 to Congress for consideration. The Act would allow federal prosecutors to seek fines of up to $250,000 and prison sentences of up to five years against individuals convicted for promoting phishing scams. Online parody and political speech sites would be excluded from prosecution.

“Phishing” is an online scam used to deceive computer users into giving up personal information such as social security numbers and passwords. Phishing scams usually involve email messages requestingrepparttar 105887 verification of personal information from a familiar business. Readers are provided a link that sends them to what appears to berepparttar 105888 site ofrepparttar 105889 company in question. The reader is then asked to verify their account information by providing their name, address, social security number, account number, etc.

In truth,repparttar 105890 site is an illegal copy ofrepparttar 105891 business in question andrepparttar 105892 reader’s information is collected for later fraudulent use including identity theft. Consumers are estimated to lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year to phishing scams. Undoubtedly, you have received more than a few of these emails.

Phishing emails are most likely to userepparttar 105893 sites of banks, credit card companies, and large retailers. Online companies such as Ebay, PayPal and Earthlink have had similar problems. One particularly aggressive group even scammedrepparttar 105894 site ofrepparttar 105895 IRS.

Combating SPAM

Written by Darren Cronian


Everyone who communicates onrepparttar internet via email hasrepparttar 105886 same old problem of SPAM and it’s becoming more apparent thatrepparttar 105887 recent unsolicited commercial emails (UCE) laws implemented inrepparttar 105888 US and Europe are not having an impact.

Did you know that over 60% of SPAM is fromrepparttar 105889 US? I was quite surprised by this fact.

So how can we combat this problem - I am surerepparttar 105890 majority of you will have this problem, many of you will be advertising on websites who do not hide your email address, some of you will participate in forums, or have your own website.

Professional spammers use software called “Harvesters” which scans websites and gathers millions of email addresses, that is why it is important that you protect your email address and do not display it on forums, websites or divulge it to websites which do not have a privacy statement.

There are a number of ways where you can protect yourself.

Set up free email accounts

Use an email address from a free email provider, ( Hotmail and Yahoo) that way if spammers do get hold of it you can report it as SPAM and quite easily create a new account. I have a number of email accounts that I use for subscribing to newsletters, emailing friends and family and one for entering competitions etc.

Create an HTML form

Rather than displaying your email address on your website you could instead create a HTML form whererepparttar 105891 email address is hidden and visitors completerepparttar 105892 form andrepparttar 105893 results are sent to your email address - if any of you need any assistance on setting this up, just drop me an email. If I get a big response I will publish a guide to setting this up in a future issue ofrepparttar 105894 newsletter.

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