April 19, 2004

Misleading Headlines Trolling for Readers

I am often annoyed by the stretched attemps of journalists and their editors (and your current host) to tempt readers with stupid puns, alliterations and the like. For some reason, yet to be explored, this does not bother me so much when bloggers are the perps.

I am doubly annoyed when they lie at the same time. Today C/net published an article with this headline:

'Phishing' scams luring more users
I have a few samples of Phishing scam emails locked away in a folder and, yes, the headline lured me to the article to see if there was new info. Especially the bit about the apparent growing success of these scams.

But it turns out they have no clue. Here is the meat:

...said Monday that in September 2003 the company encountered just 279 phishing e-mails. In January 2004, this figure reached 337,050 and then dropped back to 215,643 by March. The company said it is impossible to estimate exactly how many people have been fooled by the phishers.
You read it right. The rate is down and there is nothing to substantiate the headline's allegation that these scams "'are luring more users." Argggghhhh....

All this aside you might want to make antiphishing.org a regular stop for the latest scam updates.

Posted by Steve on April 19, 2004
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