So called phishers try to catch information about account numbers and passwords of internet users. They deceive people with faked emails and websites that resembles exactly originals of well known banks or electronic payment systems. They make people surrender their passwords and account numbers – and afterwards they clear their accounts.

This is a peril for internet merchants, affiliates and webmasters, because they often display email addresses on websites, ads or articles. Phishers may pick easily addresses from these sources.

Phishers try to worry you!

They write you stories as follows:

There have been unusual transactions on your account.

Your account is going to be suspended soon, because it lacks validation.

The database crashed down and has to be restored.

They have lost some email addresses and they need to update their database.

A case has been reported how they try to dupe internet users. The g has been replaced with a q in URL of citigroup. Thus URL www.citigroup.com has been altered in www.citiqroup.com

They urge users to act immediately

The next step is that they urge their victims to act. They offer a link to a website, where people can type in their confidential information. If people submit demanded information, they open unvoluntarily doors to a modern kind of thieves. The accounts of victims can be looted within a few minutes.

How to protect your money?

Be aware: The serious and well known financial service companies never ask people by email for confidential information. I cite from an email by PayPal that I have received after reporting an ominous email to them: “PayPal and its representatives will NEVER ask you to reveal your password. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to this policy. If anyone claiming to work for PayPal asks for your password under any circumstances, by email or by phone, please refuse and immediately contact us via webform..”

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Dealing with Information Overload Today sources of information seem to be endless. Magazines, journals, memos, emails, web sites and a lot more, provide us with more data than any person is able to handle. Furthermore, information presented to us while taking part at meetings and other events will join already obtained information from above mentioned sources. Information overload is a very real concern for today's business people, but also for all others.

We must possess skills that allow us to process huge amounts of data. Consider following method as one option to bring your information flow under your control.

1. Have a structure for information you like to store. Without a structure you will lose overview about which information is stored where. A good solution for beginning is a structure of your own knowledge and information requirements. For example: Make some folders or directories on your computer. One directory or folder for one knowledge area, such as languages, computer knowledge, knowledge from your working experiences.

You could use your computer to store things you receive by email or internet searches. To store offline items just follow same tactic. You might create one or more folders as you need to keep your structure work. What ever you do, keep your structure topic oriented. Open only new topics when you have many items for new ones. It works fine if you have a folder where you store things first for which you don't have a folder yet. Just call that folder 'Collected Items without Category' or something similar.

2. Scan Articles before reading. When you encounter information of interest, read first paragraph or two, scan body for keywords and read conclusion. Then decide if you want to keep article for future "in depth" reading. Store articles in a folder or directory which states that you like to read this article in full length. Furthermore you could have collecting folders where you put all information, which you couldn't allocate to a specific area of knowledge. Learning to "preview" information before deciding to spend valuable time on it will save you many hours. Time to spend on things that matter most.