Phishing, or pretending to be a bank or organisation to steal personal information over the Internet is a disgusting practise which robs many people all across the world of money every year. It’s already highly illegal, and practitioners can be prosecuted for their crimes, but that isn’t stopping the US Senate from introducing new laws which at first glance offer nothing new than what is already in place.

Most attempts at phishing come via email, whereby the innocent party receives a message purporting to be from a bank, credit card company or official organisation asking for account details for one reason or another. Obviously, instead of helping protect your money, these emails are intended to persuade you to give up details which can then be used to access an account and steal money from it.

Seven US states have already enacted antiphishing legislation, and the Justice Department has managed to secure a conviction against a scammer pretending to be AOL’s billing center.

Now, according to CNet News, senators Bill Nelson, Olympia Snowe and Ted Stevens have introduced a bill called the Anti-Phishing Consumer Protection Act, which contains 31 pages of new regulations designed to stop the scammers in their tracks.

Stevens said in a statement:

“Phishers are targeting Alaskans, particularly seniors, and trying to acquire bank account information. This legislation empowers states and the federal government to pursue these criminals with significant fines and imprisonment.”

The way he’s talking, it’s as if the senator has just learnt of the problem for the first time, and decided that something should be done about it. Unfortunately for the well meaning Stevens and his colleagues, plenty already has been done, and phishing is a well recognised crime.

Okay, so some senators have introduced a bill which is pointless at best, but there are tracts of the bill which could raise the costs for legitimate companies, and make things more difficult for people who aren’t phishers but just want to have a bit of anonymity on the Internet.

Amongst other weird passages, the bill states that it should be unlawful to block or restrict access to details of who holds domain name registrations. This is making criminals of otherwise ordinary law abiding citizens, and seems totally unnecessary.

Phishing is definitely a problem, and a big one at that. It’s also capable of catching out otherwise tech savvy people with a well timed, and well written email, but this legislation seems overkill for something which is already illegal, and recognised by everyone as such.

Related:

Entry was posted on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 3:28 pm under Crime, Internet, Malware, Piracy.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
Stumble It!