In the run-up to USA mid-term elections for governors and other state officials, as well as the races for national legislators (senators and the representatives) false email to lure a person to respond has increased. This baited hook is called "phishing" (to distinguish the deadly catch from water-based 'fishing'). This screenshot gives one small sampling of the lures being used, concentrated on a couple of topics.
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| Set of phishing attacks with diverse subjects line to attract attention. Email software judged these as spam automatically. |
The themes indicated by "sender" or by "subject line" include diet and weight loss offer, health insurance plans, marijuana medicinal derivative, time-share resort property troubles, retirement offers for investment, penis enlargement, and veterans' benefits assistance. In other words, the topics revolve around body improvement (weight loss, pain management, insurance, or sexual betterment) or property and entitlements (veterans' benefits, resort properties, retirement scheme).
Since online shopping data and other traces of a person's demographic and spending habits (locations, amounts, subject matter) are bought and sold, sometimes with accuracy and other times bogus in the types of products or services to pitch to the person, the above illustration does not reflect the full spectrum of bait used in phishing for all email users in the society. But still, it does give a sampling of the sorts of appeals made to one's person or one's (financial) prospects. Perhaps 10 or 100 years from now there will be other topics and methods of digitally deceiving people.
