A man of ordinary sanity doesn’t need sophisticated e-mail filters for egregiously unconvincing messages from someone lodged in a war torn African country, informing the recipient of how the sender miraculously found him, of all Homo sapiens, and a deal worth millions awaits him. But, unfortunately enough, perfectly sane people do fall prey to such messages, and don’t fare too well against the slightly more plausible fake eBay and Paypal e-mails either.

eBay and its cognate company Paypal have tied-up with internet behemoth Google to immunize Gmail users from phishing attacks. Fraudulent e-mails, claiming to be from eBay or Paypal, would be purged by using DomainKeys and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). However, Paypal admits that the technology still needs some polishing. DomainKeys has been used for a while now and, in fact, most Yahoo Mail users might recall e-mails from some major domains including Paypal having a stamp of approval from Yahoo Domain Keys: Yahoo Domain Keys has verified that this message was sent by XYZ.com. All said, this is a good move.

Tip: If you want to be absolutely sure about your precious Paypal and eBay accounts, don’t ever click through to these websites from links embedded in emails, no matter how credible they might appear to your untrained eye. Also change your password as often as you can, preferably, as often as once a month.

Despite all the Web 2.0 rhetoric the internet still has no sure-fire answer for rampant phishing frauds. Microsoft, PayPal and Google – the who’s who of the internet – have laid the cornerstone of the Information Card Foundation to confront some of the most daunting and taunting online security challenges. The organization has as its immediate goal to replace each individual’s myriad of online passwords with a single ID card.

Such an ID card will be a person’s key to the internet and will only transact information absolutely necessary for accessing a website. It can certainly put a lid on phishing fraud. The technology required for these information cards is present as we speak but there aren’t enough compatible websites. Also don’t forget it is easier to treasure – or even venerate - a single all-purpose ID card than innumerable passwords.

Did You Know: eBay-owned online money transaction major PayPal has been offering a cheap security device called Security Key, which is effectively a key generator, since early 2007 to its customers. Security is paramount for PayPal as any lapse or breach can result in serious monetary damage to its users. PayPal offers this device for $5 to all its users except business members for whom it is free.