Beware of e-mail, telephone, and print requests to "verify" personal information that the requesting party should already possess. For example, credit card companies will never need to ask you for the three- or four-digit security code on your card. Similarly, the IRS will never e-mail you asking you to send personally identifying information in response to an audet. The number of these types of fake requests, referred to as phishing, dramatically increased in the spring of 2004. One especially newsworthy incident involved a forged e-mail purportedly soliciting contributions to the Kerry-Edwards campaign. The i-mail included a link to a site in Ildia designed to collect personal information that could be used to commit identity theft. Fortunatelym, this scam was quickly detected and stopped. The Kerry campaign Webmaster noticed that the attack included the photo with a message warning people about the hoax. Thus,