Phishing

In this segment, we'll look at a topic related to online identity theft. From time to time you may receive legitimate emails from your bank. However, people called phishers sometimes send an email masquerading as if it were from a legitimate financial institution. The obvious homonym of fishing for phishing indicates the style of theft which occurs. Let's take a look at a couple of examples.



In this first example it appears to be a legitimate email from the security department at Bank of America. They request that you login to a specified site and provide information about your account. In the last line of the first paragraph, there is a misspelled word which reads "submin" when it should have been "submit." An official Bank of America communication would have at a minimum had a spell check completed. Another key sign if you note the address listed in the bottom left corner directs you to an address which is nothing like Bank of America's web address. This was found by hovering over the link instead of clicking on it. If a user goes to this site and provides the requested information, it is likely they would have wiped any money in the account.


In the second example, everything looks legitimate including the web address. However, if you note the other email addresses in the To: line, it looks very much like a bunch of auto generated email addresses. Phishers use software programs to automatically generate email addresses hoping that they send one to an actual address being used. They sometimes also use bots which browse the web and anytime an email address shows up online will capture it and use it when sending out this phishing spam.

Be very cautious anytime you receive an email from a financial institution and especially if they request your personally identifiable information. A legitimate institution will not ask for this information in the unsecure medium of email. When logging into a bank's website, always type the web address in yourself rather than following a link in an email. This helps ensure that you are at the actual bank's website and not a fraudulent site masquerading as a legitimate one.

A Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Day

The day began by a quick stop at the US embassy in London to pick up a ticket to Parliment and the House of Commons. I then made my way to Big Ben's home and was fortunate enough to get in to hear the Prime Minister's question time which occurs on Wednesday's at noon. This was a neat experience and quite entertaining. The British government is structured in two houses the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The House of Commons tends to have more interesting and rowdy debates. It was pretty cool to see Tony Blair going at it in person. Members of Parliment raise questions and then he responds to them. At times, they really have a go at each other and it can be almost of thing of school yard style "Your mama's so fat..."

Interestingly, there are red lines on each side of the room which people are supposed to stand behind. The original reason for them was members of Parliment would carry swords into sessions. The red lines were the length of two swords plus some extra room to help ensure that the opposing sides not actually come to blows when passionately speaking.

The Prime Minister's question time only lasts for 30 minutes and then they move into the more relaxed pace of introducing new legislation and deliberating. Things are structured very much to allow debate and encourage discussion between varying veiwpoints.

It was then on to a quick tour at the Bank of England museum. There was a sample bar of gold weighing 28 pounds which was available for visitors to pick up and try out the weight.

The evening brough us to another musical in the West End which contains the above mentioned exra long word in a song within. (hint: the musical has two words that start with an M and a P.) I especially enjoyed this stage production of the classical story. Special effects included in it allowed for the somewhat realistic looking flying of kites indoors and airborne approaches and departures from the much beloved and precocious Mary. Quite a full and satisfying day.