Identity theft is a big deal and one of the most pervasive ways of getting information from unsuspecting people is through what are called Phishing Scams. In the typical scam, an e-mail that purports to come from a bank or other well-known company asks you to click on a link to a legitimate looking but spurious site to "verify" personal information. Fighting back has been a topic swirling around the net for quite some time now and here are some solutions.

Several vendors are taking a shot at the problem, in the form of free browser plug-ins. One of the first is the Netcraft Toolbar http://toolbar.netcraft.com now available for both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox. Netcraft has compiled a list of known Phishing sites from its own survey data and from user input. Users are encouraged to reports sites, and a menu option on the toolbar makes it easy.

If you attempt to visit a known Phishing site, the toolbar will block it and warn you. With other sites the toolbar includes a "risk rating" indicator that slides from green to red, based on technical factors in the page that may be typical of Phishing.

There are several other options for Phishing toolbars like the Earthlink Toolbar www.earthlink.com/software/free/toolbar only for Internet Explorer, the Cloudmark Safetybar http://www.cloudmark.com/desktop/ also supports only Internet Explorer, the Spoofstick by Corestreet http://www.corestreet.com/spoofstick/ which supports both IE and Firefox and the TrustBar http://www.trustbar.mozdev.org for Firefox only.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910

Gary Woods is the Computer Trainer for the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors. You can hear Gary on the Radio at 1290 AM Monday and Wednesday at 8-9AM and he is a Broker/Associate at Home Realty & Investments, Inc.