full-disclosure - Are consumers being misled by "phishing"?

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Message-ID: <1151540789.10974.7.camel@localhost>
Date: Thu Jun 29 01:26:59 2006
From: wesleymcgrew at gmail.com (Wesley McGrew)
Subject: Are consumers being misled by "phishing"?

On Wed, 2006-06-28 at 18:26 +0100, n3td3v wrote:
> I believe the industry coined up "phishing" to make more money out of
> social engineering. 

So far as I can tell, the term "phishing" was not coined by industry,
but by the "phishers" themselves.  I remember "phishing" as being the
term for people posing as staff, asking for passwords over messaging
services of AOL and similar services, 11 or so years ago.  Accounts
stolen using this method were the "phish" and were traded between
"phishers" using this terminology.

And I'm sure this isn't the original usage, if anyone can show me
something older.

One could also argue that "Social Engineering" is just a confusing
buzzword for age-old confidence schemes/games people have been pulling
for centuries.  The single moms and retired couples don't know what
"Social Engineering" is any more than "phishing".  If anything, "Social
Engineering" sounds less threatening/unfamiliar.

-- 
Robert Wesley McGrew
http://cse.msstate.edu/~rwm8/