OP feels like a dunce because he is a dunce. The medium has nothing to do with it - his actions would be equally stupid if he had been replying to a letter or phone call or fax. Engineering solutions to naïveté would be nice, but they're unlikely to work without stepping all over basic rights. The big wide world is a scary place that demands a certain degree of cynicism and savvy. I feel no obligation to protect competent adults from themselves.
The best solution to the most common kind of phishing (pretending to be a bank) would be an engineering solution: digital signatures on e-mails.
It's pretty trivial, and has been possible for a long time, I don't know why it hasn't been adopted by email programs by default.
Though it appears that at least gmail is working on this. I recently enabled a (labs) feature on my gmail account, and emails that are really from Paypal are now marked with a yellow key.
This is a little step forward, but a step forward nevertheless...
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 14.6 ms ] threadIt's pretty trivial, and has been possible for a long time, I don't know why it hasn't been adopted by email programs by default.
Though it appears that at least gmail is working on this. I recently enabled a (labs) feature on my gmail account, and emails that are really from Paypal are now marked with a yellow key.
This is a little step forward, but a step forward nevertheless...