I'm afraid you're right. Speaking personally, I have drastically curtailed my on-line activity. While I still do business with a handful of companies I trust, like Amazon, I no longer open accounts at new sites. I do not supply personal information to anyone; if a site wants me to "register" to view their content, I go elsewhere. I've had it with managing gazillions of user IDs and passwords. As a result I get fewer e-mails, so can more closely scrutinize what I do get for anything suspicious.

My main e-mail address has long since been compromised, so I have turned on EarthLink's challenge-response tool to supplement their spam filters and stop the madness. This pretty much keeps all unsolicited e-mail from getting into my inbox.

Finally, because of the spam tidal wave, I no longer give out my e-mail address except for very special reasons. If someone really wants to contact me, they can write "snail mail" or phone. If they don't have time for that, too bad. I guess we just won't stay in touch.

So yes, I think the spam/phishing epidemic has already rendered the Internet unfit for anything but general research. A shame, really. It showed so much promise in the early years.

P.S. I am viewing your page via the Mozilla browser. An improvement over Internet Explorer, I'm sure, but I'm still feeling paranoid.

P.P.S. I have been in the IT business for 20 years, so am hardly an ignorant "rube".

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/9235/27748#27748