PhishTank
Encyclopedia
PhishTank is an anti-phishing
site.
PhishTank was launched in October 2006 by entrepreneur
David Ulevitch
as an offshoot of OpenDNS
. The company offers a community-based phish verification system where users submit suspected phishes and other users "vote" if it is a phish or not.
PhishTank is used by Opera
, WOT
, Yahoo Mail, Mcafee, APWG, CMU, ST Benard, Mozilla, Kaspersky, Firetrust, Officer Blue, Finra, Message Level, SURBL, Career Builder, Site Truth, Avira
and by PhishTank SiteChecker. The Mac OS X
password management utility 1Password can enable PhishTank in any Mac browser supported by 1Password (currently Safari, Camino, Firefox, OmniWeb, DEVONagent, NetNewsWire, WebKit and Fluid).
PhishTank data is provided gratis for download or for access via an API call but only under an extremely limited, restrictive license as described below.
are used above to indicate that although the data on the PhishTank web site and delivered through its API may be available free of charge under certain specific conditions, PhishTank's employment of the term "open" in marketing materials, releases, and past marketing postings and in documents on its web site may differ significantly from the term's conventional usage within free/libre/open-source software
, as may the characterization of the site's and API's content as "community data"; see the distinction between gratis versus libre
.
which unfortunately may confuse some readers into thinking that the data delivered by the site is released under the Creative Commons, which is not the case at all as the restrictive conditions laid out in the passage above differ radically from the broadly permissive conditions provided by Creative Commons licenses.
Phishing
Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT...
site.
PhishTank was launched in October 2006 by entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
David Ulevitch
David Ulevitch
David A. Ulevitch is founder and current CEO of OpenDNS and founder of EveryDNS.Ulevitch, the youngest child of Susan and Richard Ulevitch, was born and raised in Del Mar, California. Ulevitch's technology career started at an early age when he began working for ElectriCiti, a small regional ISP...
as an offshoot of OpenDNS
OpenDNS
OpenDNS is a DNS resolution service. OpenDNS extends DNS adding features such as misspelling correction, phishing protection, and optional content filtering...
. The company offers a community-based phish verification system where users submit suspected phishes and other users "vote" if it is a phish or not.
PhishTank is used by Opera
Opera (web browser)
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...
, WOT
WOT: Web of Trust
Web of Trust is a community-based website reputation rating tool that uses a traffic-light style rating system to give Internet users additional information about a website before they visit it...
, Yahoo Mail, Mcafee, APWG, CMU, ST Benard, Mozilla, Kaspersky, Firetrust, Officer Blue, Finra, Message Level, SURBL, Career Builder, Site Truth, Avira
Avira
Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG is a German antivirus software company. When founded, the company was called "H+BEDV Datentechnik GmbH". Its antivirus applications are based on the AntiVir scan engine also known as "Luke Filewalker" , first launched in 1988. For aesthetic reasons, the name was...
and by PhishTank SiteChecker. The Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
password management utility 1Password can enable PhishTank in any Mac browser supported by 1Password (currently Safari, Camino, Firefox, OmniWeb, DEVONagent, NetNewsWire, WebKit and Fluid).
PhishTank data is provided gratis for download or for access via an API call but only under an extremely limited, restrictive license as described below.
PhishTank definition of "Open"
Scare quotesScare quotes
Scare quotes are quotation marks placed around a word or phrase to indicate that it does not signify its literal or conventional meaning.- History :Use of the term "scare quotes" appears to have arisen at some point during the first half of the 20th century...
are used above to indicate that although the data on the PhishTank web site and delivered through its API may be available free of charge under certain specific conditions, PhishTank's employment of the term "open" in marketing materials, releases, and past marketing postings and in documents on its web site may differ significantly from the term's conventional usage within free/libre/open-source software
Floss
Floss may refer to:* Dental floss, used to clean teeth* Embroidery thread, machine or hand-spun yarn for embroidery* Fairy floss or candyfloss, alternative names for cotton candy* Rousong, i.e. meat floss-Computing:...
, as may the characterization of the site's and API's content as "community data"; see the distinction between gratis versus libre
Gratis versus Libre
Gratis versus libre is the distinction between two meanings of the English adjective "free"; namely, "for zero price" and "with little or no restriction"...
.
Regarding the rights of the public to use PhishTank's data, as of 2011 the site's terms of use agreement states the following:
The text of the terms of use agreement itself is licensed under a Creative Commons licenseCreative Commons licenses
Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...
which unfortunately may confuse some readers into thinking that the data delivered by the site is released under the Creative Commons, which is not the case at all as the restrictive conditions laid out in the passage above differ radically from the broadly permissive conditions provided by Creative Commons licenses.
In 2006, on a blog that had posted an article describing PhishTank, David Ulevitch stated in a comment that the terms under which data was submitted to PhishTank were,
Despite the fact that this quoted contractual passage actually grants Mr. Ulevitch and his own company rights to use the content rather than anyone else Mr. Ulevitch characterized the above condition as one that is "very open and let’s [sic] anyone use it for any reason, commercial or non-commercial". Clearly, such a policy is not reflected in the 2011 terms of use which grants only to individuals with PhishTank accounts a limited license "solely for your personal and non-commercial use", specifying restrictions to that use such as mandatory inclusion of a variety of notices and requiring "express prior written permission" for any other reproduction, copying, or distribution.However, outside of contractual agreements with the user, as of March 2011 the PhishTank site's FAQFAQFrequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...
page contradictorily states,
Yes.