Learning my lesson I've already been through the
fraudulent e-mail thing on ebay (about a yr ago) & it has totally
turned me away from anything that site has to sell!
I am not a huge fan of eBay by any means but it is not their fault when
crooks target them. The crooks have a bank of email addresses and send
out phishers to all of them. NOTICE THAT RIDECAMP GOT ONE. "Ridecamp"
isn't a real person.
The real problem is that our elected officials, despite their
protestations that they are for the little guy, aren't doing shit to
protect us WHEN THE TECHNOLOGY EXISTS TO DO SO. They just stand
around, hands in pockets, mumbling about free speech and privacy
rights... while we get fleeced!
Most intelligent people do not use a litmus test to judge a candidate
for public office. However, in the case of Internet/Email attacks on
We the People, it might not be a bad idea to do exactly that. Write
ALL your state and Congressional representatives and demand that they
do REAL research with REAL Internet fraud experts and then put together
a bill WITH TEETH that can stop these attacks on us.
These laws should be written so that they can be applied to any person
anywhere in the world. Then invite the United Nations and other
countries individually to join with us. If they don't, so be it.
While we can't prosecute foreigners, we CAN stop phishing emails from
being delivered IN OUR COUNTRY and we CAN prosecute phishers
who are in the United States.
As for those countries that are willing to accept these new laws, we
would all jointly agree to allow prosecution of these crimes IN THE
COUNTRY OF THE WRONGED INDIVIDUAL(S). Since all the allied countries
would be operating under exactly the same laws, there would be no issue
of individual differences in each country's laws, no issue of what the
punishments would be, only the issue of guilt or innocence.
This is not a comprehensive solution... just a beginning point. Bottom
line, we have to stop being so damn namby-pamby on this issue. It is
real. It is damaging. It is growing worse. The time to start doing
something about it was yesterday.
