Re: Spam article in SciAm

David A. Lee wrote:
> It discusses Bayesean filters

Do they say anything about accuracy relative to heuristic filters?


 > as well as a modification I've seen discussed here which creates terms
 > not by spaces, but by overlapping characters, which aparently works
 > well with asian text as well as html encoded hacks.

This would be pretty trivial to implement in SP.  If I get a chance 
maybe I'll run some experiments with it.  Especially if I implement a 
config file something like this might be a nice user selectable option.


> The other interesting idea presented I had never heard of before was a computation challenge/response system, the idea
> is that if a non-whitelisted email arrives, to send back a challange where the sender has to compute some expensive function.
> ( ideally a function that an actual person could compute trivially but also something that can be automated).
> The idea is to make sending spam computationally expensive while making sending good email non-computationally expensive.

Microsoft has been pushing this scheme for some time.  Personally I view 
it as a way to destroy the open email standards and replace them with 
proprietary ones.  How convenient for them if people have to use their 
clients and servers for sending and receiving email.  Also the cost of 
computing a response is not a problem for spammers who use zombie 
machines they've hijacked.  Seems like a non-starter to me.


> There was another scheme proposed which required a deposit into a global bank where if people received spam they could
> extract micropayment from the sender, but if it was good then you dont extract payment.
> ( Presumably even if they did it would be a small amount, say 1 cent).
> Again, the idea being to make sending spam expensive, while sending good email cheep.

I think the idea is actually to put money into ISP's (and Microsoft's) 
bank accounts by charging us for something we're already paying for.

All the best,
++Brian


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