Phishing a threat to Internet security

I recently get a mail from a spammer From: "Bank Of India" to upgrade my Bank of India account. I do not have any account, so thought of checking how phishing works in internet. And what are the common steps that needs to be taken to protect yourself.

I clicked on the link, chrome is able to detect the phishing, where as Windows took me to the log in page. It has the proper security certificate. It has the image that it secured by verisign. Where you can log in using your user details. And when I provided any user details, it gives me an error message saying account details is not correct. Clicking on any link gives me 404 page not found error. The Phisher takes the user id and password information put by me and uses it to do any activity in the bank. I was safe as I don't have any account in bank of India and was aware it is an attempt to phish.

What about the users who does not know about it? How does one differentiate genuine mail from that of a phisher?
1) Banks send personalized mail where as phishers send bulk mail.
2) Bank has domain name registered for their bank, where as phishers use name or the mail id as bank but not the domain name. Sometimes they use domain names which are close (instead of icici.com they use icicibank.org or something simillar). So if the domain name is not right, then it is possible from some phisher
3)Use mozzilla or chrome in stead of IE. One more reason why I am a Google fan. Chrome is able to figure out a phishing site from a genuine site.
4) Do not go by verisign security from the image. The image is publicly available. Check if the site is really using https and certificates are valid. In this case verisign secured page was coming from a http page.
5) Do not provide your user name and password and click on upgrade, rather check some other functionalities, and whether the pages are there.
6) Don't go to the bank site by clicking on the link from mail, rather go to it by bookmarking it. It ensures you go to where you need to.

A question: Understanding the Business of airline agents

I was booking a flight ticket from Bhubaneswar to Bangalore. I looked for the flight details in makemytrip.com. It gave kingfisher as the cheapest flight (cost was my primary concern and time being the second one).

I checked the same in Yatra.com. It also provided Kingfisher flight IT3446 starting at 12.40 PM is the cheapest one. Fairs are almost comparable. Yatra was quoting 5,660 where as makemytrip.com was quoting Rs 5663. I was looking the price at kingfisher. It was quiting 5,649 with 250 flying miles. So I decided to book the ticket using kingfisher as it is the cheapest one for the same service.

I look at the business model of makemytrip.com or yatra.com. They do spend money in writing the software, buying hardware and getting all the data and maintaining it in their database. And providing high availability (high availability costs a lot, its not cheap). What ended up is I used their service to route to the appropriate site. Had the Indian airlines cheaper in Yatra,com, I would have looked at the price in Indian airlines in stead of kingfisher.

As a business user I may not be doing the right stuff for makemytrip or yatra, but as a rational user I look for lowest price for the same service. I believe there will be many users like me who uses Yatra or makemytrip for search but not to book.

If that is the case, then mykemytrip.com or Yatra.com is not going to be profitable business. They need to provide tickets at cheaper price than the airline itself. They do provide hotel bookings at cheaper price, but I don't need it either in Bangalore or at Bhubaneswar. I am not sure if the hotel bookings can be done at the hotel's site at a cheaper price.

I am confused how the business runs for them? How do they beat up price competition from the airline itself? What are the added advantage they provide to customer, so that customer uses their site, not that of the airline.

I have no clue, if anybody has some idea, please put them forward

IPL and Pakistani Players

None of the IPL teams bid for Pakistani players for the 3rd IPL. As a cricket lover I was disappointed. As a Bangalorean I would have liked Afridi in Bangalore team. Pakistani players deserved better than being left alone.

As an Indian I am happy. Pakistan needs more than one way to be humiliated. When Pakistan does not listen to India and Indian government is incapable of taking any action, it is better to give the message in one form or other. Let the pakistani people get the humiliation. Let the message be in economic than that of a military. Lat Pakistan feel how it feels to be alienated.

IPL, Shivsena and Australian player

Currently The Shiv Sena has threatened not to allow Australian players to play in Mumbai. I am fully with Shiv Sena about we should not be silent about attacks on Indian on Australia. I am fully with Shiv Sena IPL should be patriotic. The money is spent by Indians.

But what is patriotic? Not allowing world class players play in Mumbai? handling racist with more racist way? What will be the outcome? More racist attack on Indians by Shiv Sena equivalent people in Australia. Hey Shiv Sena guys, are you not attacking on Tamil, Bihari and UP guys in Maharashtra? If so, how are the Australian guys different than you or you are better than them? The Australian attackers and you do have the same thought and represent different people. Hey Thackrey, you are worse than the Australian as you are followed by a group of people and can make your statements public. There are racists and attackers in Australia, but nobody dared to say, let us attack any Indians as they take our job. Whoever are doing it and for whatever reason are violating the law and do not have guts to make it public. You dare to violate the law and justify your statement.

I am not a fan of Australian players for their attitude. But they are the best when it comes to entertainment. IPL is more of entertainment than anything. Why should we stop them?