

These are the rules - rbcoffee
http://www.internetrules.info/

======
hliyan
It's amazing how many people forget (or ignore due to convenience) rule #1.

My credit card company once called me up on some matter and the rep at the
other end tried to verify my identity using the usual method (asking me about
my mother's maiden name etc). I had to actually say "Wait, _you_ called _me_.
_You_ should be verifying yourself to _me_ ". It actually turned out to be a
legitimate call, but if I wasn't aware of this rule, a scammer might have
easily got me.

P.S. I knew this rule because most of Kevin Mitnick's exploits (as he explains
in his book) were based on this one vulnerability.

~~~
Pxtl
I once had my credit card company do the same thing - call to offer more
credit, but needed some info. Complete with a bot greeting. It was virtually
indistinguishable from a telemarketed scammer. I had trouble believing it when
I called their main number to follow up and find out if this was for real.

------
e40
I'm still blown away that most of the banks I do business with send URLs in
emails. I once tried to explain why this was a bad idea to a customer service
rep. What a waste of time.

~~~
stronglikedan
I'm just curious as to why it's a bad idea? I click URLs in emails all the
time. I just hover over it to make sure that the hyperlink matches the text.
Is there another possible security issue that I'm missing?

~~~
Eiriksmal
Check out the first sentence/paragraph of this post:
[http://feross.org/html5-fullscreen-api-
attack/](http://feross.org/html5-fullscreen-api-attack/)

(from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4629906](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4629906))

~~~
e40
I'm still baffled why I was downvoted into negative territory for my original
comment.

~~~
enraged_camel
Don't worry too much about it. I say incredibly useful and 100% correct things
all the time and people still downvote me sometimes!

------
danielweber
These are old (and Microsoft browsers are no longer made of paper), but
generally timeless rules.

A little bit of suspicion can save you a world of hurt.

~~~
eponeponepon
> A little bit of suspicion can save you a world of hurt.

Nicely put. It's just a shame that so much of the modern world works to "a
little bit of suspicion is literally the same as claiming aliens probe you
nightly".

