Re: Media enquiry

>> I'm currently writing a column in PC Authority magazine
>> (www.pcauthority.com.au <http://www.pcauthority.com.au/> ) on the  
>> new wave
>> of spam that use randomised or semi-randomised words to confound  
>> Bayesian
>> filters.
>
> I can take this, cos it's in my timezone,

Plus you speak the local language ;)

> if no-one else wants to.

Sounds good to me :)

> I figure
> the key point about the random word spam is that it's just trying to
> overwhelm the bayesian filters. Personally, I'm finding them  
> _slightly_
> effective (2 or 3 a day slip through if they hit the right words)  
> but not
> significantly more than that. Fundamentally, they still have to put  
> words in
> that sell a product, and that screws them over.

I think that people have shown that random words are pretty  
ineffective (e.g. John Graham-Cumming at 2004's MIT Spam  
Conference).  Random paragraphs (those news clippings and the like)  
are a bit more effective.  I think that image-based spam is clearly  
far superior to any sort of random-word technique, though (although  
some of the image-spam also has the random words - I'm not sure that  
really helps the spammer, though).

=Tony.Meyer