This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by Jeff Key. Original Post: Your parents will never be safe: Visual Spoofing Feed Title: Jeff Key Feed URL: http://www.asp.net/err404.htm?aspxerrorpath=/jkey/Rss.aspx Feed Description: Topics revolve around .NET and the Windows platform. Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by Jeff Key Latest Posts From Jeff Key

If it's not one thing, it's another.. 

The latest thing the internet evildoers are doing to confuse your parents is called Visual Spoofing.  Instead of faking URLs, these smart guys are faking the IE toolbars.  Here's the deal:  They launch a new browser window with all of the toolbars invisible and replace them with, you guessed it, toolbar images that contain a legit URL, SSL lock and so on.

Article is here.  More info and an example of Visual Spoofing is on Don Park's blog.

It's worth mentioning that XP SP2 doesn't allow turning off the status bar, but apparently that alone isn't enough.  I hope the IE team gets wind of this and disallows any content from the Internet zone from being displayed in a browser without toolbars.