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Subject:Persuading people to take the right action From:<wongword -at- ozemail -dot- com -dot- au> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:49:25 +1100
Now if you were trying to persuade people to be careful would you use this approach of focusing on the wrong action and describing the correct action in a less prominent location?There are 7 such headings.
Do you have any references about the desirability or otherwise of this type of warning? Does it depend on whether you see this as a pure warning (what ever that might be) and that advice on what to do is secondary?
I really doubt that this is good communications. There are scare campaigns that some people say are good and others say not to use. But this isn't a scare campaign. It warns you about what you may do wrong.
It isn't even like a visual with a big red cross through the wrong action.
Irene Wong
Publishing Manager
"7 Common Mistakes People Unknowingly Make When Using the Internet that Can Lead to Identity Theft"
Mistake #1: Hand over personal details to a phisher.
Phishing -- grabbing your personal details by taking you to a phony website that often looks genuine -- is perhaps the biggest online cause of identity theft.
It usually starts with an email seemingly from an organization or someone you know, inviting you to click on a link that takes you to a site you'd expect to see. Here you'll be asked to enter sensitive information about yourself, often supposedly to "confirm" your details.
Instead, you're really giving them away to a thief.
A recent study by the IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force found that in 2007, 19 of the top 20 companies that were the supposed senders of phishing emails were in the banking industry.
What to do: Don't click on any link in an email. Instead, visit the real website via your browser, or email or call your friend and confirm the contact. Be especially wary of emails that supposedly come from your bank.
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