Thursday, February 7, 2002 Would making the about to be misled respondent type the address of the intended person (with a roman 'o', not a greek omicron) and then having the system see if they match detect and thwart such tricks? The respondent is already typing so it's not a large extra burden. Regards, Jim Agenbroad (dislcaimer and addresses at bottom) On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Michael Everson wrote:
> At 12:22 -0500 2002-02-07, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote: > > > >For the sake of argument, let's call the company they work at > >Microsoft, but this attack could hit most companies with a .com > >address. Let's say I register microsoft.com, only the fifth letter > >isn't a lower-case Latin o. It's actually a lower case Greek > >omicron. I then forge a believable letter from [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >to [EMAIL PROTECTED] saying "Can you please update me on your > >budget?" Bob, noticing that the e-mail appears to come from Alice, > >whom he knows and trusts, fires off a reply with his confidential > >information. Only it doesn't go to Alice. It goes to me. I can then > >reply to Bob, asking for clarification or more details. I can ask > >him to attach the latest build of his software. I can carry on a > >conversation in which Bob believes me to be Alice and spills his > >guts. This is very, very bad. > > It isn't Unicode's fault that some letters look like others. That's a > fault of history. > > -- > Michael Everson *** Everson Typography *** http://www.evertype.com > > Regards, Jim Agenbroad ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) "It is not true that people stop pursuing their dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing their dreams." Adapted from a letter by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official views of any government or any agency of any. Addresses: Office: Phone: 202 707-9612; Fax: 202 707-0955; US mail: I.T.S. Sys.Dev.Gp.4, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20540-9334 U.S.A. Home: Phone: 301 946-7326; US mail: Box 291, Garrett Park, MD 20896.