Phish and spam

I have had enough of spam. I have never worked out how it became acceptable, then tolerated , then oh, yes, what a curse. It's always been about fix it yourself or get this product. Mailwasher was good but then my computer kept destabilising when I used it. My Yahoo account has never had a problem. Yahoo is extremely effective at deleting spam and made one mistake in a year which was an understandable one. I transferred from Hotmail to Yahoo because even though Hotmail created a spam filter I still had to wade through the grossness to find the legitimate emails put there by accident. Ozemail has never dealt with spam. Let's face it, there is a lot of spam which is easily recognizable. Considering people can't put obscene stuff on my desk at work, nor in my letterbox, considering I can't buy obscene stuff except maybe under the counter and considering we have laws which regulate content, language, sex and violence and even bigger laws against child pornography, I still am unaware as to why so much of this stuff gets into my inbox in the first place. Thank God for tick and delete all.

As for phishing, which I am being told is the new in thing no matter whether I read the paper or computer magazines, it may be the thing which makes people put their internet and computer down for good. Who is going to risk their identity being stolen? When everything is so identifiable and traceable on the Net, why can't they nab these people? I know we have a sort of cyber police. Much as I hate the notion of it, I am beginning to think one of the new jobs of this century is going to be cyber cop.The world is online. It's a community with problems but not quite the same as the real community. In real life someone has to steal my things to get my identity. We need to get ahead of these things before they take a hold. As I read about phishing though I was heartened to discover we have a myriad of programmes and security devices we can buy to protect ourselves. A bit like safe sex, I suppose. Safe surfing. Mind you, there are those who believe the safest sex is abstention. I wonder how many will pull the plug if phishing becomes as endemic as spam?