It's not political, but the International Business Times has an interesting story about the rise of "spear phishing": personalized spam.

A new study by Cisco Systems Inc. found an alarming increase in the amount of personalized spam, which online identity thieves create using stolen lists of e-mail addresses or other poached data about their victims, such as where they went to school or which bank they use.

Unlike traditional spam, most of which is blocked by e-mail filters, personalized spam, known as "spear phishing" messages, often sail through unmolested. They're sent in smaller chunks, and often come from accounts the criminals have set up at reputable Web-based e-mail services. Some of the messages are expertly crafted, linking to beautifully designed Web sites that are bogus or immediately install malicious programs.

I suppose this will mark me as a naif, but I had never thought of this particular bit of criminality.  On hearing of it, though, it strikes me as obvious--and bound to grow.  According to the article, personalized spam only represents four-tenths of a percent of all spam, but if it's much more effective and less likely to be caught by a spam filter, then smart criminals should quickly add it to their arsenals.  And as immense databases full of personally-identifying information proliferate ever-wider, there will be more targets.  We live in interesting times.