On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 15:00:35 -0500, Peter Clark
wrote:

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 12:09:52 -0500, Jay Somerset
wrote:

On Sat, 19 Mar 2005 07:51:37 -0500, Peter Clark
wrote:

They're also pretty easy to pick out because the link has an IP
address rather than a name. Sending you to http://1.2.3.4/whatever
and sucking the information from inattentive people is much easier
than having the link point to http://www.mbna.com and attempt to
redirect the real sitename to their data-gathering box.

Unfortuantely, not true! There are ways to fool your browser (any browser)
into displaying what looks like the legitimate URL in the status/message
bar, but which really is not. Uses special characters that have a defined
meaning in URL syntax, but are not displayed, and not widely knowm.

Perhaps I'm spoiled by Eudora, but I don't even click on an emailed
link unless the preview of what it's going to launch to
Explorer/whatever shows up with proper English characters, and a real,
known, sitename.
You can still get fooled -- even Eudora could display what looks like a
valid URL when it is bogus. The only way to be absolutely sure would be to
copy the URL to an ascii text editor that doesn't understand what a URL is
supposed to be, and cxheck that way.


Boils down to if it doesn't seem/look right, it's not. Any question,
just launch the browser yourself and go to the site directly.

--
Jay.
(remove dashes for legal email address)