As we hear more and more about DRM and other similar technologies, we encounter the need for certificates. Since this is the case, we, in supporting FL/OSS, should be aware that there is a Certificate Authority that is working within the movement. This is CAcert.org.

If you can come, the New Toronto Linux User Group meeting tonight reviews OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 new features and introduces what is coming in 2.1 plus other topics by our own Evan Leibovitch and Matt Rice.

As a followup to yesterday's thought on phishing, I thought a quick review of how to check if a message is phishing or not might be useful.

1. What is "phishing"? The best answer I found was this google link
2. What to look for? Well links that ask for updates to personal information, accounts or memberships et cetera.
3. Check any links offered to see if they actually belong to the company perportedly asking for the information. In yesterday's email example the link to developer.bellmobility.ca turned out to be in other IP space.

For the second time in two days I have received a phishing email. It is puportedly from Bell.ca but a little research shows that it is really out of the IP space of Speedware.com a Montreal based company that develops and sells business intelligence solutions. Most annoying especially after reporting to abuse@bell.ca yesterday and getting no response.

So what to do? I found no Canadian sites collecting data on phihing exercises but I did find a couple elsewhere:
http://www.antiphishing.org/index.html and
http://wiki.castlecops.com/PIRT
I reported to both.

So be warned, the attempts are getting more and more sohistcated. By way of example, here's an excerpt from the messages I received:

Let me introduce myself to the CLUE community. My name is Jim Elliott and I am the advocate for Open Computing (including Linux and Open Source) at IBM Canada Ltd. (which covers Canada and the Caribbean). I have been working pretty much full-time on Linux since mid-1998. First as the launch manager for Linux on IBM mainframes for the Americas and then since January of 2002 in my current role.

My web site is at ibm.com/vm/devpages/jelliott where you will find copies of presentations I have made at public events recently on Linux and Open Source.