Phish Scams Fooling 28% of Users

Etaipo writes "Anti-spam firm MailFrontier Inc has done some testing with consumers to see if they could differentiate between legitimate e-mails and phish scams. The results, to me, were pretty shocking. The company also has provided a similar test on its web site. Get an answer wrong, and we revoke your geek license on the spot."

Comments

Sadly, most of those fooled are lower class

[beee]

The biggest demographic that is hit by these phish scams are poor, lower class minorities. With little experience using computers, let alone the internet, recent hookups to the internet in inner cities are the most heavily effected. Blacks and hispanics are especially notorious for having difficulties deciphering "phish" emails, as they've become used to cowering before anything with a menacing letterhead. It's sad that the real victims of these e-mail scams are already in difficult financial situations and can barely afford to pay for other basic services. Shame on these scammers, they are even worse than most spammers.

28%, huh?

[dabigpaybackski]

Yeah, and a comparable percentage of Americans are so fucking dumb they can't find their own country on a world map. Coincidence? You decide.

Re:Catching them on the subtleties

[beee]

This is an excellent idea, though I would caution against such a plugin being open source. If the spammers and phishers could discover what metric is used for deciding if an e-mail is fake or not, they would have a much easier time fooling it. This might be one instance where closed source is the best solution. I think I might polish off my C book and get to work ;-)

"-1 flamebait"?? What the FUCK?!?

[RLiegh]

Fucking filthy-assed hippies haven't got a sense of humor. Whaddaya know?