In an ironic twist, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and America's chief spook Robert Mueller was banned from doing any online banking by his wife after he himself had nearly fallen victim to a widespread Internet racket. Just last Wednesday, Director Mueller campaigned for further public vigilance against cyber crime by speaking in front of a non-profit public affairs organization in San Francisco (i.e., the Commonwealth Club of California) and confessing that he himself was almost ensnared by a scam from the oldest trick in the online outlaw's handbook: phishing emails.

Mueller remembered when, not long ago, he got an email message allegedly from his bank that appeared perfectly genuine even to him. It asked him to "verify" his personal information the way emails of this ilk did to their many other marks. At any rate, one thing led to another, and the unsuspecting FBI chief nearly obliged to the fake email's demands, following its instructions to the letter before realizing that what he was doing was probably not a good idea.

In order to initiate a modicum of after-the-fact damage control, the director immediately changed all the passwords of his accounts and attempted to pass the event off to his wife as a moral lesson of sorts, like a fairy tale for modern times. However, she didn't buy any of his malarkey, maintained that they shared the money he'd inadvertently put into peril, and vowed that this was the last time he'd ever have a hand at using their finances over the Internet. Basically, he was banned from ever engaging in any online banking for the foreseeable future.

Reading between the lines, Mueller's message was crystal clear: Phishing scams have become a daily nuisance that can, for all intents and purposes, even prey upon someone who should know better, namely him. According to the FBI chief, the Internet chicanery of online outlaws, cyber terrorists, virtual spies, and digital criminals is no laughing matter, and constant vigilance is a must to combat these perils of the worldwide web. Then again, there were those in attendance of the seminar who were more worried about the FBI reading their email than some random and juvenile "teenage hacker".