Spain: Phishing and 21st century tales
Nowadays, the Internet is a key reference for many aspects of daily life. It is one of the best ways of staying abreast of the latest news; it can be used for business transactions or even shopping, with web stores becoming increasingly popular.
However, as with all good things in life, the Internet is also a point of reference for illegal activities, such as child pornography, a problem that has been around for quite a while, but which has grown with intensity and speed with the advent of the Internet; or software and music piracy, which uses the Net to spread itself widely and rapidly.
When it comes to financial fraud though, the problem has not only increased, but has also acquired new forms. Swindlers, criminals and fraudsters of all shapes and sizes, from all sectors of society have been around for time immemorial. However, the Internet has helped create yet more, and with head-spinning speed.
The easiest way to obtain money is to steal it, and the quickest way to steal it is through Internet fraud. Phishing is now a classic form of stealing users’ bank details through emails, a con-trick which many unsuspecting users have fallen for.
Undoubtedly, users defrauded in this way would not have fallen into the trap if the attempt to swindle had been made differently. For example, imagine a well-dressed, dependable looking sort of individual approaching someone in the street outside the door of a bank's branch. This individual identifies himself as a member of staff from the bank (in spite of being in the street) and asks the other person for their credit card for status verification. It is highly unlikely that anyone would actually agree to this.
Credit card users are well aware of the risk of leaving a card in someone else's hands, just as children know that they should not accept candy on the street or open the door of the house to strangers. They know this for two basic reasons: because their parents have taught them so and because they have learnt this in many different children's tales.
Until recently, most people's social skills (such as not providing bank details) were actually based on children's stories. Unfortunately, there are no tales nowadays that warn of the dangers of the 21st century or teach the new social skills required today.
Children's tales are designed to educate children in a way that is not reliant on experience. It is much better to talk to a child about a shepherd who made threats about the arrival of a wolf than wait for the child to discover the consequences of lying, and for those around her to pay these consequences.
When Perrault published his tales, he always included a small text at the end of each tale, clearly explaining the moral of the story. If he were still alive today, it would no doubt be called “An Educational Guide for Parents and Educators”; however, in Perrault’s time, in the 17th century, morals were more popular than educational guides. The beginning of the moral of the tale “Little Red Riding Hood” is set out below:
“Here we can see how adolescents and, in particular, elegant and beautiful young ladies are unwise to heed certain people, and how it is not surprising that the wolf ends up eating so many of them.”
However, far from even a minor role these days, children’s tales have been all but forgotten. The tradition of oral teaching is practically non-existent and printed stories are used more to teach reading than for any moral purpose.
It would not be a bad idea to reproduce children's tales so that future generations do not fall for the fraudulent tricks that we adults are victims of. One could talk about hackers (“Little Red Riding Hood and the Hacker”), the problems of piracy (“The Emperor's New DVD”), identity theft (“Rumpelstiltskin”), frauds (“The Webmaster of Hamelin”) etc.
Shall we play?
Once upon a time there was a little girl who browsed the Internet in her home. She always had a very pretty red mouse with her computer, which is why everybody called her “Little Red Mouse”.
One day her mother said, “Little Red Mouse, I would like you to connect to the bank and make a transfer to the account Grandma has in the Cayman Islands”. Little Red Mouse connected and a pop-up immediately appeared requesting, for security purposes, that she enter her current account details.
Without hesitating, Little Red Mouse went for her credit card and connected to the site for security verification. When she entered the site, she saw that they were asking her for many things and started a chat with someone she thought was her grandmother, but in reality was the hacker who had fooled her with a web page similar to the bank’s…
- Grandma, why have you changed your server IP?
- For greater presence on search engines.
- Grandmother, why does the bank need my credit card?
- For greater security.
- Grandmother, why do you need the entry data for my current account?
- TO STEAL YOUR MONEY!!!
And Little Red Mouse had all her money stolen from her current account. When she went to the bank to demand her money, all the records showed that she had withdrawn it herself with her secret bank details. And as for the hackers, they lived happily ever after in the Seychelles.
Moral of the story: “We can see that not all web pages are as reliable as we might think, and the unwary who believe that banks verify data by email will end up in the jaws of the hackers-wolves.”
If we were to tell this story to our children, maybe in the future they would not let spyware be installed in their computer or send their bank account details to anyone requesting them in an email message. Can we not reassess the way in which we educate our children and young people?
