Can The Community Stop Phishing In Exchange For Coffee Mugs?
from the mmmm...-coffee-mugs... dept
Up until now, it seemed most attempts to use technology to stop phishing attacks seemed fairly weak. Most seemed to target sites of a single company, or a small group of companies. However, Netcraft has come up with an interesting version that basically gets the community involved to try to stop phishing. The idea, similar to the way some have tried to stop spam, is that people can easily report a site that is designed for phishing, and it goes into the communal database. It will then be used to alert others who visit that site with the toolbar. There are mechanisms, of course, to try to make sure the sites listed actually are phishing sites. Of course, most people who hear about such a toolbar are probably the type who know better than to end up on phishing sites anyway. Also, Netcraft needed incentive to get people to highlight the bad sites, so they're apparently offering coffee mugs and other tokens of appreciation to anyone who uncovers a new phishing site. It's unlikely to stop phishing by itself, but if other, more recognizable, names started to offer something similar (maybe via a shared database), it would be a start. Of course, then we'd all just have to wait until the first mis-classified site filed a lawsuit.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
