Well, my response was intended to be tongue-ni-cheek, but since we're considering this...

Originally posted here by MsMittens
Forced? How are they being forced into this belief?
Well, by the fact that your average user tends to be too dumb to learn to watch for phishing.

Ok, well, support-desk-born bitterness aside, perhaps it would be more objective to say that your average user doesn't have the technical grounding to understand what to watch out for in phishing attacks, and doesn't have the motivation to learn. Lectures simply lead to glazed looks and nodding and smiling in the hope that you'll go away. There are otherwise intelligent people out there who have been using computers for years, who are still uncomfortable with install programs.

As specialists in the 'IT' field, we forget how big and scary and confusing it is to the uninitiated.


Originally posted here by MsMittens
And who would administer this? Who would pay the cost for this? How would you prove whether someone has taken the training or not? How are you going to enforce that people take this training.
[/B]
The same as driving licences, TV licences and all of the other governmental ripoffs that plague our existence. The user pays a yearly sum for the licencing costs (plus skimming, payoffs and monopoly abuse as per standard practice) and receives an official card or certificate.
For enforcement, perhaps ISPs could be required to ask for certification before supplying a connection to a household (If there is a certificate holder in the house, he/she would be responsible for the behaviour of those in the house). I suppose it would have the enforcibility level of a driving license. Spot checks, maybe?

Originally posted here by MsMittens

There are tonnes of schools that already teach this kind of ethics as well as trains people on how to prevent this. However, most of the people attending are ones that want to be in a computer-related job (e.g., technical support, administrator, etc.). It's everyone else that we need to be concerned about.

We have to be somewhat realistic about whatever training that users are given. And, based on my own experiences, I find that users take the path of least resistence. This includes training. So rather than force them to do something they aren't interested in doing, why not show them something in an environment they already want to use? (e.g., run TV ads during primetime shows that appeals to the user). [/B]
As much as I like this idea, I have to say that TV ads are horrendously expensive in their own... and they are a dead cost, with no potential ROI (at least, not directly). A certification system would have potential income for the authority, with admin charges and fines... assuming the authorities would front the initial setup charges.

Anyway, a silly ideal that sounds nice. I still think it'd work, though...