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McAfee Granted Far-Reaching Spam-Control Patent

Posted by timothy on from the what-the-system-isn't-meant-for dept.

Titusdot Groan writes "Infoworld is reporting that Network Associates, makers of McAfee, have been granted a broad anti-spam patent. The patent covers "compound filters, paragraph hashing, and Bayes rules" and was filed in December of 2002. The patent appears to affect Spam Assassin, Spam Bayes and many other anti-spam products and services. As an aside Paul Graham's "A Plan for Spam" was published August 2002."

2 of 449 comments (clear)

  1. Yay for patents! by BandwidthHog · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    So I suppose the way this all shakes out is that for every spam I don't receive, I owe them a dollar?

    --

    Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
  2. God damn you freaking Americans by caitsith01 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    This is not directed solely at the parent, but "this is how it works" is NO ANSWER.

    Why can't you fix your own damn country? If you will dominate the earth you do have a certain responsibility to stop being such money hungry, corporation loving uber-capitalist, militaristic, jingoistic whores. Don't give me your bullshit about how this isn't your fault, it's the government/patent office/political system/corporations who are to blame: no, you are to blame. All of you US citizens. If this type of stuff is going on in your country, YOU have a responsibility to fix it, even if you didn't personally break it.

    While you're at it please fix:

    - the 'war on terror' which is apparently a carte blanche to all dictators and half-assed democracies around the world to eliminate human rights at their own discretion
    - international trade, which you steadfastly refuse to make even vaguely fair, especially with respect to agriculture, the only area where the developing world has any kind of competitive advantage over you
    - seperation of church and state: it took the world thousands of years to manage this, and you are happy to let yourselves be governed by a bunch of bible-thumping god botherers
    - international weapons treaties: not a problem this decade, but unchecked nuclear proliferation sure will be fun when India and China are major powers in 2020 and we find that Bush cancelled all of the significant arms control treaties
    - the FUCKING ENVIRONMENT. Waiting to see if we're really going to kill everything just in case we aren't is NOT LOGICAL, please stop trashing the Earth, it doesn't belong to you. At least build a dome over your own country and just trash the local environment. I'm on the other side of the world and I do NOT WANT TO BREATH IN YOUR SUV'S EXHAUST FUMES.

    I will accept all flames, to quote your illustrious leader, "BRING IT ON."

    --
    Read Pynchon.