In case you’ve haven’t reached this (temporary) nirvana, feast your eyes. Click the thumbnail for a larger version.

The report, “Sites Offer Ways To Fight Back Against Phishing,” only actually covers one site, PhishTank, and runs just under 2 minutes long.

A few notes:

* The fun part which doesn’t appear here but was in the original broadcast was the tease before the intervening advertisements: PhishTank was the hook used to get you to stay tuned to CBS5 and watch the various election-related ads. The tease was well done, and we’ll have to get a copy.

* Those are not my hands typing, although I did do some “B-roll” footage of me typing away, or looking at the website, etc. None of that was used, which is just as well — those staged moments felt more awkward than actually talking to the producer while tape was rolling. (If it was even tape in this day and age.)

* The editing spliced together separate statements from me in a new order. Not really a surprise, and maybe the cuts are not obvious to others, but I notice. I’m not upset, but maybe it’s a reminder to keep each individual sentence as a standalone in this context.

* The folks (cameraman and producer) who came to our office from CBS5 made this process quick and painless. Overall, I’m thrilled with the outcome, even if it’s quite odd to watch myself on video.

I’m going to share my research and the final decision in a few blog posts, in the hope that (a) others might benefit and (b) others might weigh in with helpful, informed opinions. Or any other kind.

In this “table of contents” post, I’ll add links to the follow-on posts as I write them. No set length or schedule… you’re duly warned.

Purpose

Forums (aka, bulletin boards) will supplement the many instructions we’ve assembled for different ways to change your DNS settings. Additionally, forums will provide a useful place to learn about unique set-ups which we’ll never find time to document. I expect, too, that forums will serve as a unique middle ground between interesting links about DNS and fuller blog posts on the OpenDNS blog.

I considered a wiki, but I like conversations and threads, and wikis do many other things well, but not linear time. Blog software could do the job, with a bit of extra wrangling. But why struggle? The right tool for this job is forums.

Requirements

Given our environment (technical set-up, in-house expertise, etc.), here are the requirements which serve as the framework for my evaluation.

• PHP based
• MySQL DB
• Installs on your own server, not a hosted service
• Demonstrated usage; other successful installations
• Great price (read: free)
• Active developer community
• Strong security

There are other important features, but they are just that: features. I’ll discuss them later on.

The contenders

I’ll go through each one of these in future posts, but I’ll just give a quick overview here.

phpBB

phpBB – phpBB 2.0.21 – June 9, 2006

phpBB is the 800-lb. gorilla in terms of broad usage around the Internet. My best experience with the software is in the FeedBurner forums. A notable concern, though, is the high volume of security exploits targeted at phpBB. I’m quite certain they can be avoided, but how much extra work does that require?

Also, personally, I’m not a fan of the default forum interface. Even though I experience it all around the web, I find my eye lost among the clutter of available options, even when looking at a single person’s post. I’m quite confident there is enough customization to play with here so as to avoid this visual cacophony — but why is the default so dismal? I will note that PHPBB’s default interface may, for experienced forum contributors, be a soothing backdrop of power and customization.

PunBB

PunBB – PunBB 1.2.14 – October 15, 2006

Suggested for consideration because our talented web developer Aaron has customized PunBB before. Its philosophy aims in the right direction (simplicity), although the website look like, well, forum software. Also, the software appears to have a single developer. I’ll have to dig deeper into this in the future.

BBPress

BBPress – BBPress 0.72 – October 13, 2006

I’m a big fan of WordPress, personally and professionally. I’ve used the WordPress support forums and been happy with the experience. Those forums run on BBPress, a sibling project to WordPress. A major concern, though, is that the software hasn’t even hit a 1.0 release. Now, the team and community behind this software builds solid stuff, so they don’t indulge in verion number inflation. Still, might be a factor.

Vanilla

Vanilla – Vanilla 1.0.1 – August 21, 2006

Vanilla was suggested via a support email at work. Very interesting looking site, and I’d be lying if I said that the care taken in explaining the value of the (free) software wasn’t appealing. When a developer takes as much care describing how to get things done with his software as he does building it, that’s a good sign. I’m not clear if there is more than one developer, although the general vibe with the extensions structure feels like Mint and Pepper… which isn’t bad.

Visual appeal of the websites

I won’t spend a lot of time on this, but in my first quick scan through the sites, it was very clear where I would prefer to spend time learning about the software. Here’s the ranking: Vanilla, BBPress, phpBB, PunBB. This is heartily superficial. But if I’m going to do research on all four websites, I might as well enjoy the process.

Farther along, I’ll rate the overall quality of the websites, beyond their visual pizzazz.

Future posts

I’ll discuss each of the contenders in an individual post, looking at criteria such as:

• Installation requirements
• Security
• Admin tools
• Themes and customization
• Feeds and notification options
• Plugins/extensions
• Integration with external registration
• Posting options
• And more… I’ll update this list after I get started.

Wikipedia has a comparison of forum software which I have yet to read. I’d rather read it after I learn more on my own.

There is an impressive list of applications at Web Developer forum, but it’s just that… a list, broken down by development platform.

Next up… we’ll see.

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.