On Monday, OpenDNS launched PhishTank, a community anti-phishing site with a free, open API for getting the data everywhere it might help. The response was gratifying. Skim the 51 mentions (and counting) so far. Thanks to the still-impressive distribution of the Associated Press, a single article made it to many, many more outlets than I tagged at del.icio.us.
There’s still a lot to do, but seven days in, there are almost 2,000 submissions to the site.
PhishTank is a complement to our core business, with no revenue expected from the free community site. But the investment we’ve made (mostly time, some money) is certain to be repaid in (a) better data for OpenDNS (and the rest of the Internet) and (b) broader awareness of OpenDNS.
Also — and this makes me pretty happy — it’s almost addictive to take action against phishers. The interface and design makes it practically fun to do a good deed. One of the goals was to think of verifying phishes as a game. It’s not Doom, of course, but the right design goal certainly helped us start off on the right foot.
And the discarded taglines that are “floaters,” dead to the world were worth sharing.