taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

I’m moving pretty much all my home sites and infrastructure from the venerable “dogma.boxhost.net” to a new host, “soman.fdntech.com”. This weblog has just made the jump. Please leave a comment if you notice anything awry.

There may be a few rough edges, since I upgraded to WordPress 2.2.2 in the process; for example, my sooper-s3kr1t “what is my name” anti-spam protocol was set to not require a preview of all posted comments, or the correct answer — in just over an hour I received 25 spam comments… so it’s good to know it’s working ;)

Tags: blog, meta, moving, taint.org

Patents: This has come up twice recently in discussions of software patenting, so it’s worth posting a blog entry as a note.

There’s a common misconception that a patenter does not necessarily need to enforce a patent in the courts, for it to remain valid. This isn’t true in the US at least, where there is the legal doctrine of ‘laches’, defined as follows in the Law.com dictionary:

Laches - the legal doctrine that a legal right or claim will not be enforced or allowed if a long delay in asserting the right or claim has prejudiced the adverse party (hurt the opponent) as a sort of ‘legal ambush’.

The Bohan Mathers law firm have a good paragraph explaining this:

…the patent holder has an obligation to protect and defend the rights granted under patent law. Just as permitting the public to freely cross one’s property may lead to the permanent establishment of a public right of way and the diminishment of one’s property rights, so the knowing failure to enforce one’s patent rights (one legal term for this is laches) against infringement by others may result in the forfeiture of some or all of the rights granted in a particular patent.

See also this and this page for discussion of cases where it was relevant. It seems by no means clear-cut, but the doctrine is there.

Tags: blog, claim, doctrine, entry, laches, law, patent, patents, property, right, software

Spam: Spam Chongqing: Spamming Experiment:

Kasia at unix-girl.com decided to run a spamming experiment on her blog. She posted a couple spams to her own blog and waited to see what would happen. In less than 24 hours she received 356 more spams.

The chongqing guys confirm this, and I’ve noticed this as well (although just in passing, I’ve never tried testing it).

Interestingly, I’m pretty sure the same thing can happen with mailing lists, if the mailing list archives are allowed to contain the mailing list’s posting address, and the list allows open posting. It works like this:

• spammer A posts a spam to the list
• spam is archived
• google finds archived spam
• list-builders B, C, D google for search terms, find archive page for that mail message
• B, C, D scrape the addresses from that page and pick up the list posting address
• they then either sell on to spammers E, F, and G, who spam that address, or they spam the address themselves
• and redo loop from the start.

One key factor is the search terms B, C, and D use. My theory is that they are intending to generate ‘targeted’ lists, and in spamming, most targeted lists are simply lists of addresses scraped from pages that show up in a google search for a specific keyword — ‘meds’, ‘viagra’, ‘degree’, etc.

Joe at chonqing surmises that it may be through the Broken Windows Theory — that spam appearing in a weblog’s comments, or in a wiki page, indicates that the administrator is asleep at the wheel and more spam can be posted with impunity. in my opinion, that’s probably more likely for google-spam and wiki-spam than for email spam, but undoubtedly is a factor.

PS: href=”http://chongq.blogspot.com/2005/04/another-spammer-owned-antispam-site.html”> wecanstopspam.org has been allowed to lapse and has been stolen by a spammer. Oh dear.

Tags: address, blog, experiment, google, list, mailing, page, search, spam, theory

Ireland: So, Sarah Carey got called up to testify at the Moriarty Tribunal, since she was involved with ESAT. In the process she notes that she ‘was slightly freaked out when the Chairman, in the process of reprimanding me for leaking information, made reference to my media activities AND my website! So are they reading my blog?’

Sounds like it…

She definitely deserves bonus points for the tagline.

Tags: blog, bonus, chairman, esat, information, ireland, moriarty, process, reference, tribunal, website

Open Source: Forbes: Linux’s Hit Men.

The dispute, which was leaked to an Internet message board, offers a rare peek into the dark side of the free software movement–a view that contrasts with the movement’s usual public image of happy software proles linking arms and singing the ‘Internationale’ while freely sharing the fruits of their code-writing labor.

(Here we go again — the old ‘free software is communism’ line, cf. the ‘Give Communism A Try!’ / Nazi Penguin posters SCO made up earlier this year.)

The article goes on to bemoan how software companies who write proprietary extensions into GPL-licensed software, have to comply with the terms of the license.

It’s all a bit of an obvious dig — but I am looking forward to the follow-up article — that’s the one where the author bemoans how commercial software companies send out their ‘enforcers’ to extort money from companies who don’t bother paying the royalties and runtime license fees their licenses require.

PS: Hmm, ’software prole’ — maybe I’ll adopt that in the same way
Suresh has adopted ‘lower-middle-class Unix sysadmin’:

The other title came from a spammer who asked Ramasubramanian what she’d done that made him report her to her ISP.

‘I gave her a standard set of links and information on why spam is bad, and took the time to explain all this to her. She then asked me what I did for a living. When I replied that I was a Unix administrator at an ISP, she blew up and said, ‘I thought you were a successful businessman and marketer, but you are only a lower-middle-class Unix sysadmin. Don’t you dare talk to me like this!!!”

Oh look, Suresh has a journal, too; I never realised. Cool.

Tags: blog, forbes, fud, linux, names, sco, suresh, tagline

Every now and again, someone says ‘to fix spam, we must ditch SMTP and start all over again’. Eric Rescorla describes why this is not the case.

Great blog — I think I’ll add that to my list. (found via Ed Felten.)

Tags: blog, case, ditch, fix, list, smtp, someone, spam

Someday, Ben will set us up the blog, and there will be much rejoicing. In the meantime, I can only quote this one in full, as he hits it on the head:

OK, I know you find this the most boring thing ever and would prefer to find new ways of air-conditioning your chipsets, but, come on! The human drama is nigh Shakespearean.

This guy is pretty good:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/

But, really, RHAT’s filing stands alone. It’s a thing of beauty, as 27-page legal filings go. They give them both barrels; failing business, FUD, insider stock dumping …

http://lwn.net/images/ns/rh-complaint.pdf

ben

Tags: air-conditioning, blog, drama, filing, guy, head, meantime, nigh, rhat, thing

Just taking a look around blogs.linux.ie to see who’s set us up the blog recently; here’s the results:

• unfortunately quite a few folks seem to have got bored and left off around mid-April. Ah well.

• Quite a few lively blogs to add to the blogroll.

• There’s also a burgeoning population of teenage Malaysian blogs, bizarrely enough! planet_aiie, whoelse and corexified. Big slipknot fans it seems.

• Malaysia’s not alone in this — here’s a Jamaican guy. Must be the flag on the favourites icon; green and gold on a black background — that’s more linux.jm than linux.ie. ;) Unfortunately for my patois, he stopped updating in April. Sufferation! Oh well, I’ll just have to stick with the Sizzla for my lessons.

• a Phillipino blog, too!

Just figuring this one — it seems linux.ie is free and easy to set up a blog at, doesn’t have ads, and does decent RSS with full <content:encoded> blocks. All in all, that makes it a pretty good blog platform when you think about it. Fair enough!

Tags: aiie, april, blog, blogroll, linux, look, mid, planet, population, whoelse

I’ve just copied in a new image for the blog entry on the Joyce bridge; this one’s much sharper.

Ah, hell, might as well reproduce it here again, it is very pretty after all:

Isn’t that lovely?

Tags: blog, bridge, entry, hell, image

Slate with a fantastic article about Salam Pax:

His latest post mentioned an afternoon he spent at the Hamra Hotel pool, reading a borrowed copy of The New Yorker. I laughed out loud. He then mentioned an escapade in which he helped deliver 24 pizzas to American soldiers. I howled. Salam Pax, the most famous and most mysterious blogger in the world, was my interpreter. The New Yorker he had been reading–mine. Poolside at the Hamra–with me. The 24 pizzas–we had taken them to a unit of 82nd Airborne soldiers I was writing about. …

I needed a new interpreter to fill the gap for two weeks or so, and the colleague mentioned that he had just met a smart and friendly guy named Salam. I quickly traced Salam to the Sheraton Hotel. Salam–this is his real first name–was sitting in a chair in the lobby, reading Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. I knew, at that moment, that I would hire him.

… we’ll all be hearing more from Salam: He has signed up to write a fortnightly column for the Guardian, and he continues to blog. He also continues to be surprised by the reaction to his work. When he was told by the Austrian interviewer that his fans had begun making ‘Salam Pax’ T-shirts and coffee mugs, his response was frank–’Are you kidding?’ Nobody is kidding. The coffee mugs are for real, and Salam Pax is for real.

Thanks to Ben for another top tip. Ben, start a blog!

Tags: article, blog, coffee, hotel, interpreter, new, pax, salam, slate, yorker

I meant to blog about this event back in April at the time, but never got around to it. Basically, towards the end of April, there was a demonstration in Falujah in Iraq, shots were (reportedly) fired from the crowd, and US troops opened fire, killing 2 and injuring 14.

Well, Charlie Stross has saved me the bother ;) — he’s written a good summary of the historical precedent for this chain of events, and what resulted back then.

Tags: april, blog, crowd, demonstration, end, event, falujah, fire, summary, time

wow, this is wierd.

So I did a quick blog-hop, as you do. First, I visited Bernie’s interim weblogs.com blog (thanks for the link B! BTW, this looks cool).

From there, I hopped to Micheal O’Foghlu’s site, and finally settled the question – yes, he is related to Cormac O’Foghlu, who I used to work with ;)

On to Sean McGrath’s blog, where I came across an interesting link to DemoTelco — a nifty site where anyone can set up a blog and write entries via SMS messages. Set up by a Dublin company, Newbay.

Cool. To check it out, I took a look at one of the blogs on the ‘most popular’ sidebar, and what do you know — it’s Caelen King’s foneblog!

Lots of (er, frankly bizarre) pics of Caelen and Barbara. Given the shots of Euro coins and crappy Dublin weather, I guess they’re back from their round-the-world trip, then…

Sure enough, it notes:

We are back in Ireland and back at work - Our Really Big Adventure is over

Know that feeling. :( Still, at least they went to the bother of finishing up their travelogue. I think I’ll take a read over that in full when I get a chance…

Tags: blog, btw, caelen, com, cool, link, micheal, question, site, wierd

TidBITS weighs in. They cover the issues very well, and also have noticed the problem that arises when a C-R system decides to challenge e-commerce notifications — like your air travel e-tickets, for example.

Found at Gary Robinson’s blog, where he also links a couple of taint.org items, cheers Gary ;)

Also, from /.: the House of Lords debates the etymology of ’spam’. Quite funny:

Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, do the Government have any plans to restrict unsolicited faxes? My fax paper is always being wasted by people who send me faxes I do not want. I do not know whether they could be called ‘corned beef’ or something, but I have had enough of them.

Plus another anti-spam Senate bill, from Rep. W.J. ‘Billy’ Tauzin (R-La.) and F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.). This one is apparently riddled with loopholes: ‘this is yet another bill . . . attempting to get rid of the porn and the scams, but really clearing the way for legitimate companies to spam,” said John Mozena, co-founder of … CAUCE.’

Tags: air, bill, blog, example, found, problem, spam, system, tidbits, travel

Did Russians Use Blog To Aid Iraq? Some slightly paranoid theories, IMO. Interesting to note, though, that Stratfor reckons it was written by GRU (or ex-GRU) staff.

The bottom line of the article, more or less, is that it was written by some ex-GRU people who possibly wanted to help the Iraqis, who indirectly received the intelligence from folks still employed by the agency.

Interesting snippet:

Denisov said ‘a high-level source’ told him that sensitive information being promulgated in the Russian media, Iraqwar.ru included, was one … item on the agenda during Bush national security advisor Condoleezza Rice’s meeting the day before at the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin.

Tags: aid, article, blog, ex, gru, imo, line, staff, stratfor, use

Wow. A spammer has already scraped my blog and caught that one-use cdt_comment_go address I posted a week or so ago. That has to be a record. Ah well, Bayes and the SBL are catching it nicely…

The spammer in question is artprice.com, aka. artlist.com, aka a bunch of unrepentant spammers who’ve been out-and-out spamming for years, from France. Nothing worse than a full-time spamhaus. My consolation is that if they do this after August, I can prosecute them for it, since France is in the EU ;)

Just for reference, if anyone finds this on a Google search: the address was a one-use disposable job, for comments on a survey, posted once, and never used for sign-ups or even to send a single mail message. This is 100% spam, through and through.

Tags: aka, bayes, blog, cdt, com, comment, record, sbl, spammer, week

I’ve been getting a very wierd attack on my sites recently, including this blog, the SpamAssassin websites, and http://jmason.org/ , whereby some luser is sending lots of requests, using made-up URLs in the referral field. Initially, I thought it was some kind of underpowered retaliation for SpamAssassin, but if that’s the case, they need to bone up a bit more on how these things work ;)

Alternatively, it could be an attempt to gain Googlejuice, by getting links from public referrer logs (my ones are).

Up ’til about a month ago, it was all porn sites. Recently, though, it’s been a selection of real domains that sound like they were put together by combining dictionary words or something.

All the attempts have come from IP address 216.127.68.58, owned by Everyone’s Internet, Inc. in Houston, TX:

216.127.68.58 - - [31/Mar/2003:00:01:53 +0100] “GET / HTTP/1.1″ 200 72143 “http://www.aircheckfactory.com” “User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)”

Here’s the domains in question:

• AIRCHECKFACTORY.COM
• ALTOTECHNOLOGY.COM
• BAIDYANATHINDIA.COM
• NXTCENTURY.COM
• TIMEART.NET
• WOTEVA.COM

Perhaps they’re recent lapsed domains which the spammer has picked up. Otherwise, what’s the connection between Baidyanath (a manufacturer of Ayurvedic products in India, thx Suresh) and ‘woteva’ (which sounds like ‘whatever’ in a UK english accent)?

I’ve whois’d them all, and they all seem to share two things: the name ‘Robert Woodley’ (or its initials), and the number (772) 594-2421. Area code 772 is – guess where — Florida. They should just cut to the chase and put ‘The Spammer State’ on their numberplates.

The pages on those sites are automatically-generated using what looks like USENET postings and google image search results, with a link to Commission Junction.

None of the names are in ROKSO, it seems. Do they ring a bell with anyone reading?

Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 13:20:06 -0800
From: (spam-protected) (Justin Mason)
Subject: whois details on referrer spam

Registrant:
Michael Lewisham
RW Internet
PO Box 4723
Grand Cayman,  8621
Cayman Islands
Registered through: ozwebsites 
Domain Name: AIRCHECKFACTORY.COM
Created on: 03-Jan-03
Expires on: 03-Jan-04
Last Updated on: 03-Jan-03
Administrative Contact:
Lewisham, Michael  (spam-protected)
RW Internet
PO Box 4562
Grand Cayman,  7238
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- 
Technical Contact:
Lewisham, Michael  (spam-protected)
RW Internet
PO Box 4562
Grand Cayman,  7238
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- 
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM
Registrant:
Michael Lewisham
RW Internet
PO Box 4723
Grand Cayman,  8621
Cayman Islands
Registered through: ozwebsites 
Domain Name: ALTOTECHNOLOGY.COM
Created on: 29-Dec-02
Expires on: 29-Dec-03
Last Updated on: 29-Dec-02
Administrative Contact:
Lewisham, Michael  (spam-protected)
RW Internet
PO Box 4562
Grand Cayman,  7238
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- 
Technical Contact:
Lewisham, Michael  (spam-protected)
RW Internet
PO Box 4562
Grand Cayman,  7238
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- 
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM
Registrant:
Robert Woodley
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 401
Grand Cayman,  7651
Cayman Islands
Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: BAIDYANATHINDIA.COM
Created on: 09-Jan-03
Expires on: 09-Jan-04
Last Updated on: 09-Jan-03
Administrative Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Suite 205
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Technical Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM
Registrant:
Wanker Engineering
PO Box 9816
Auckland,  3522
New Zealand
Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: NXTCENTURY.COM
Created on: 21-Mar-01
Expires on: 21-Mar-04
Last Updated on: 21-Mar-03
Administrative Contact:
Engineering, Wanker  (spam-protected)
Wanker Engineering
PO Box 9816
Auckland,  3522
New Zealand
3530912167      Fax -- 
Technical Contact:
Engineering, Wanker  (spam-protected)
Wanker Engineering
PO Box 9816
Auckland,  3522
New Zealand
3530912167      Fax -- 
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.LYNXWEBHOSTING.COM
NS2.LYNXWEBHOSTING.COM
Registrant:
Robert Woodley
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: TIMEART.NET
Created on: 16-Mar-01
Expires on: 16-Mar-04
Last Updated on: 16-Mar-03
Administrative Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Suite 205
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Technical Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4634
Port Vila,  8621
Vanuatu
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM
Registrant:
Robert Woodley
PO Box 4573
Grand Cayman,  871251
Cayman Islands
Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: WOTEVA.COM
Created on: 16-Mar-00
Expires on: 16-Mar-04
Last Updated on: 16-Mar-03
Administrative Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4573
Grand Cayman,  87125
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Technical Contact:
Woodley, Robert  (spam-protected)
Robert Woodley Internet
PO Box 4753
Suite 205
Grand Cayman,  87125
Cayman Islands
(772) 594-2421      Fax -- (772) 594-2421
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS2.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS3.MYDOMAIN.COM
NS4.MYDOMAIN.COM

Tags: attack, blog, com, luser, referral, spamassassin, spammer, urls, wierd, woteva

So it looks like Sarah Carey, a good friend of me mate Lean, has a blog, and it’s a great one too! Excellent. Added to the Irish blogroll on the right.

In other news, Simon Boyle got in touch to mention that the Saddam’s top tips for tourists interview in the Fermanagh-based Impartial Reporter was actually written by an contemporary of ours at TCD by the name of Maria Rolston. Apparently she’s good mates with my mate Wooder, too. Simon notes:

She’s the intrepid impartial reporter who wrote the story (and who’s had it reprinted minus attribution all over the world now). Oh the joys of being a first year reporter on a small local paper…

While we’re talking about small local papers, might as well note - tangentially - that Ireland’s local press has a long history of bizarre stories. One favourite, in particular, has gone down in journo legend (and Ulysses): the 19th-century editorial from The Skibbereen Eagle, which solemnly told Lord Palmerston that it had ‘got (its) eye both upon him and on the Emperor of Russia.’ Classic.

Tags: blog, blogroll, excellent, friend, interview, mate, news, reporter, saddam, touch

the (discuss) links are back, and about time too, things were getting quiet. Anyway, it’s a unified comments forum now. All posts go into one forum, instead of creating a new forum for each weblog posting. Having comments pages for each story just didn’t work for a small-scale blog — and it was impossible to see if there was any new posts for all those individual forums.

Tags: blog, forum, story, time, weblog

Thank ghod this is one experience of SE Asia I missed. I came across this blog through some random blog-hopping last night; it’s two farang tourists blogging their backpacking trip through the region. All great fun until they both catch Dengue fever:

Dengue is commonly called ‘break bone fever’, and I found out why at about 2 AM on the train. I woke up with a 102 fever, in the most intense pain I can recall having in years. Everything hurt, but especially my back and legs. Harper later described the sensation as one of having someone scrape your bones with a knife, and that sounds about right.

Jesus. I am so thankful I missed out on that particular aspect (a mild bout of food poisoning with a fever of 104 was all I had to put up with!)

Dengue fever is endemic to many parts of the region, even Bangkok , the capital city of Thailand. It gets a lot less attention than malaria, since it’s not fatal in the vast majority of cases (unless you get the rarer haemorrhagic version), but it is excruciating by all accounts, and I’ve met quite a few travellers who’ve met someone who caught it. Unfortunately there’s not much you can do to avoid it but slather on the DEET, cover up, and hope for the best.

Tags: blog, dengue, experience, farang, fever, ghod, night, region, someone, trip

Antoin (a) has a blog, yay, and (b) mailed me to note that the film I blogged about here is actually called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, and will be shown at SXSW.

If you’re going to SXSW, do not miss this movie.

Wierd about the name-change — Antoin theorises that it’s got one name for TV, and a snappier title for film distribution. Who knows?

Tags: antoin, blog, film, movie, name, revolution, sxsw, televised, wierd, yay

Dear Raed — a blog from an Iraqi bloke called Salam Pax. It’s amazing to read this; a true, educated, passionate, reasonable voice from inside Iraq.

The trenches and sandbag mountains I wrote about last week are now all over Baghdad. They are not being put there by the army; they are part of the Party’s preparations for an insurgence. Each day a different area of Baghdad goes thru the motions. Party members spread in the streets of that area, build the trenches, sit in them polishing their Kalashnikovs and drink tea. The annoyance-factor of these training days depend on the zeal of the party members in that area. Until now the worst was the (14th of Ramadan) street, they stopped cars searched them and asked for ID and military cards, good thing I wasn’t going thru that street, I still have not stamped my military papers to show that I have done my reserves training.

Totally off on a tangent, but that street-name reminds me of a line from McCarthy’s Bar (extract here):

In Germany once, in the military garrison town of Erlangen, I had a few drinks with three American GIs who were planning to visit England because it would be neat to see where John Lennon and Elvis grew up’. They also wanted to know if they could use dollars, and would the street signs be in English? I tried to tell them about Elvis coming from Tennessee, but it seemed to make them want to kill me. The Twenty-eighth Rule states: Never Get Drunk with Soldiers (particularly in countries where the streets are named after dates).

Tags: area, blog, bloke, party, pax, raed, salam, street, thru, training

Aaron’s trip to CA comes to a end in a big bang of serious meeting-up.

I read his blog using the rss2mail mail-based news aggregator he wrote (I live in e-mail, especially while I’m still on the wrong side of dialup), and I think this is the most homepage-link-laden blog entry I’ve ever read. 45 links, count ‘em! Wow, I hope he can keep all those name-to-face mappings clear ;)

In other news: it seems that football (proper football, played with feet, ie. soccer) is bad for you: the World Cup penalty shoot-out caused a surge in heart attacks for England fans (New Scientist). Ban Football Now!

Tags: aggregator, bang, blog, dialup, end, football, mail, news, side, trip

I’ve just found Gary Robinson’s blog, which is a bit silly, as boasts the primary source after Paul Graham’s‘A Plan For Spam’ paper for modern Bayesian spamfiltering techniques. I’d only read Gary’s page describing the Robinson-combining technique, but he’s been doing a good job of blogging the anti-spam world in general recently. Hence, he’s made the blogroll ;)

Some choice links from his blog:

First off — Jon Udell points out why reply-to-whitelist systems are Bad:

The email thread that provoked this message will soon dissolve. Including x@y.com might have been useful, but the moment has passed. If I urgently need to contact x@y.com , I may have to grit my teeth and register to do so. But no ad-hoc communication is going to make it over that activation threshold.

And a different kind of whitelist — the IronPort Bonded Sender type, from Whitelists: the weapon of choice against spam (ZDNet):

After a one and half months of testing, IronPort identified hundreds of thousands of false-positives. At that rate, the mail generated by IronPort’s customers alone, which make up a small percentage of the total amount of e-mail that traverses the Internet, is resulting in over one million false-positives per year.

Hmm. Well, I’m not 100% convinced here — I did see Amazon.FR, who are apparently Bonded Sender customers, send a promotional mail to a mailing list. I also saw several reports from other places regarding the same mail. How often does a mailing list order goods from an e-commerce site? (But, having said that, that’s the only Bonded Sender issue I’ve seen in about 6 months — so let’s put that down to teething issues, or someone on the list who decided to act up when ordering some goods.)

Spamland.org, a new Wiki for spamfiltering.

Debra Bowen, a California State Senator, is proposing a hardcore new anti-spam bill. “It would bar unsolicited e-mail advertising and allow people who receive it to sue the senders for $500 per transmission. A judge could triple the penalty if he or she decided the violation was intentional. … ‘The ($500) fine’s really intended to get a whole generation of computer-savvy folks to help us do the enforcement,’ Bowen says. ‘Getting rid of spam is never going to be the district attorney’s first priority and it shouldn’t be.”‘ She notes also that she’s “seen estimates that it could grow to 50 percent in the next five years.” Too late — it’s already there, as far as I can tell.

FWIW, I like the sound of this — she’s requiring that commercial e-mail senders have an existing verified-opt-in relationship beforehand. Sounds good to me.

And finally, a very interesting set of tests on Robinson-combining strategies. Very interesting, that is, if you’re implementing a Bayesian spam filter. Otherwise quite boring. ;)

Tags: blog, bonded, choice, com, ironport, list, mail, mailing, sender, spam

If you’re wondering what happens to non-US-resident programmers when they run afoul of the US’s ludicrous copyright laws (namely the DMCA), take a look at Danny O’Brien’s blog entry from the Elcomsoft trial, covering Dmitry Sklyarov’s evidence.

Tags: afoul, blog, copyright, dmca, elcomsoft, entry, look, non, trial, us-resident

blog is a Good Word — official. From Bayesian analysis of my mail spool, blog shows up 1525 times in non-spam mail, and never in spam.

Tags: analysis, bayesian, blog, good, mail, official, spam, spool, word

Mozilla fans (and people who want to see how anti-aliasing is doing getting into Mozilla HEAD) may find Chris Blizzard’s blog worth tracking.

Tags: blog, head, mozilla, tracking

I’ve added titles to this blog, since RSS looks silly without them. But I am not going back through all those entries… argh…

Tags: argh, blog, rss

Aaron shares his rss-by-mail script. My reaction (cut from mail): “Together with my Mailman-archives-to-RSS script, and my blog (which is updated by mail), soon the semantic web will run entirely on SMTP…” (cackles evilly).

Well, maybe not yet — but it’s getting there. a bit.

Tags: bit, blog, mail, mailman-archives-to, reaction, rss, script, smtp, web

A great idea for a blog — “who would buy that?” — featuring auction oddities from all over the web. There’s some absolutely horrific tat to be found out there…

Tags: auction, blog, idea, tat, web