How not to get fooled
Scams, passwords and privacy, explained by how they actually work
Why do phishing emails still work on careful people?
They do not target carelessness — they target context, arriving at a moment when the request they make is exactly what you were expecting.
Why can't a website tell you your forgotten password?
A well-built site never stored your password in the first place — only a one-way scramble of it, which can be checked against but cannot be turned back.
Why do websites need cookies?
The web was designed to forget you between every click, so a cookie is the note the site hands you to carry back, because it has no other way to know you are the same person.
Why can't websites read files on your computer?
Browsers run every page inside a deliberately powerless sandbox, because the alternative — letting arbitrary code from strangers touch your filesystem — would make visiting a link as dangerous as running a downloaded program.