Date:         Sun, 18 Jan 2004 16:32:26 -0800
Reply-To:     gary hradek <hradek@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         gary hradek <hradek@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      heads up on  IE browser flaw
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Many of us share urls on the vanagon list and I should
like to alert others of a flaw in IE browser that
allow the true URL to be hidden from the viewer.   The
net result is that you are misdirected to a browser
page that may be a fake page that looks very much like
what you would expect but is in fact is some other
site.   If you have any question about the actual web
page you can avoid being misdirected by manually
typing in the url instead of  clicking on a url or
using the copy and paste feature.
   An example of how this can be misused is that you
may click on a url  thinking that you will make a
paypal payment for a vanagon part.   Because it is a
link with a misdirected url you make provide
confidential passwords and user names to someone who
will use this information to steal from your paypal
account.   Everything will look just as it should but
because of the flaw in the browser you will not see
that you are at a fake web page.   This is a very good
scam and it is impossible to catch but can be avoided
by always manually entering the url when you are
providing confidential information.
    I hesitated to put this out on the list but it is
serious enough that I feel that I should alert others
on the list.   Many on this list use ebay and paypal
and I feel most of us are more than casual users of
the net.   We are the target of many scams because of
our high profile use of the net.   If this message
prevent any of us from being victims of the potential
scams of this flaw it will have served its purpose.
At his time ther is no patch for this flaw in IE.
Regards Gary hradek


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