Human-Powered Spam Filtering

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by Hemos on Monday September 20, 2004 @03:04AM from the interesting-concept dept.

arturs writes "A company called eProvisia started an unusal business: they filter out spam not by using complicated algorithms, but human beings... It costs around $20/year - is the war against spam over?" It's an interesting idea - the privacy concerns are big of course, but how would this stack up to, say SpamAssassin or a suite like Barracuda's Spam firewall. We tested the Barracuda device - great integration of OSS software, with a nice interface. Update: 09/20 15:12 GMT by J : Corrected price of Spam Eradicator.

26 of 343 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Buzzword Bingo by Lord+Grey · 2004-09-20 03:05 · Score: 5, Funny

From the company's "About Our Company" page:
Privately funded in 1993, now with customers in 40 countries* and over $67 million** in cash reserves, the company experienced a phenomenal growth and continues to aggressively pursue new frontiers in order to meet or exceed the needs of most demanding customers by providing a scalable, seamless, comprehensive offering.
Leveraging our paradigm-shifting product line with state of the art technology developed by a dedicated team of professionals, we offer a significant competitive advantage on the diversified but fragmented market of best of breed anti-spam solutions.

These people score a 9.8 out of 10 in the Buzzword Bingo game. That second paragraph, in particular, would keep me as far away from them as possible.

--
// Beyond Here Lie Dragons
1. Re:Buzzword Bingo by AndroidCat · 2004-09-20 03:10 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Ah man, I just needed "synchronicity" or "win-win situation" to fill my card!
  
  --
  One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
2. Re:Buzzword Bingo by The-Bus · 2004-09-20 03:13 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Damn it, I almost had a double diagonal if they had said "enterprise" and "legacy" --- drat!.
  
  --
  Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
3. Re:Buzzword Bingo by Aliencow · 2004-09-20 03:16 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  . ** - Palmyra Atoll dollars.
4. Re:Buzzword Bingo by spellraiser · 2004-09-20 03:19 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I hereby propose a new mathematical function. It is called BSD (no relation to the OS), short for BullShit-Detector.
  The calculation of BSD is simple. Its domain is the set of all strings. The range is all real numbers from 0.0 - 1.0. To calculate BSD(s) for string s, simply take the length of s (call this l). Then, divide the number of of characters that contribute to the actual, non-bullshit content of the string by l. This is the value of BSD(s).
  To give a pertinent example, it is plainly apparent that BSD('Leveraging our paradigm-shifting product line with state of the art technology developed by a dedicated team of professionals, we offer a significant competitive advantage on the diversified but fragmented market of best of breed anti-spam solutions.') = 0.0.
  It is my hope that this will leverage the ever-expanding work of linguistics researchers around the world in utilizing paradigm-shifting methods for significantly empowering their abilities to detect bullshit.
  
  --
  I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
5. Re:Buzzword Bingo by Clay+Mitchell · 2004-09-20 03:33 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Well, if they are reading everybody's spam, they are going to be damn good at spitting out buzzwords.
6. Re:Buzzword Bingo by Aggrazel · 2004-09-20 03:35 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Worse than that, click on the signup:
  
  The minute your mail starts flowing, a dedicated team of over a hundred trained Screening and Preselection Specialists, working 24 hours a day**
  
  ** - Timezone differences may apply.
  ....
7. Re:Buzzword Bingo by myc_lykaon · 2004-09-20 03:46 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  It also sent the Wankometer bananas.
  See the result here
8. Re:Buzzword Bingo by maxwell+demon · 2004-09-20 04:43 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Well, if a state had the advancement of art as first goal in its constitution, it could rightfully considered a state of the art, couldn't it?
  
  --
  The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
9. Re:Buzzword Bingo by drakaan · 2004-09-20 05:13 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Somebody kill him. Kill him now.
  
  --
  "Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
With a personal touch by mod_critical · 2004-09-20 03:05 · Score: 5, Funny

I wonder if they ever verify their decisions with you:

Mark,
This is Eric, your spam d00d. You got a message about fisting, you into that? Let me know, thanks!
-- Eric
1. Re:With a personal touch by PhotoBoy · 2004-09-20 03:08 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Yeah I was thinking that, how well does this solution work for non-graduate drug addicts who have erectile disfunction problems and need a loan?
Now here's a job... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-20 03:05 · Score: 2, Funny

That I would not mind outsourcing to the indians and chinese!
Imagine a .. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-20 03:07 · Score: 0, Funny

Can they be used for other tasks? Like, what sort of frame rate can they get in Doom3?
It is by spam alone I set my mind in motion by Colonel+Cholling · 2004-09-20 03:17 · Score: 4, Funny

What the article doesn't mention is that this "human-powered spam filtering" consists of Mentats who have been specially trained to use the latest Bayesian filters, and who bear the Imperial conditioning against deleting important messages.

--

I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
synergy! by H8X55 · 2004-09-20 03:27 · Score: 4, Funny

synergy!

I was waiting for synergy to pop up there somewhere...

What's a mission statement, About Us page, or memo from management without synergy?!?
Palmyra Atoll dollars by Colonel+Cholling · 2004-09-20 03:29 · Score: 4, Funny

Even better the $67 million dollars in cash reserves are in Palmyra Atoll dollars; I wonder what the exchange rate is?

One Palmyra Atoll dollar = 17 pieces of mithril, or approximately twenty kilograms of fairy dust.

There's no such thing, people. This is a joke.

--

I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Hmmmm. by modifried · 2004-09-20 03:31 · Score: 2, Funny

"... working 24 hours a day**..."

"** - Timezone differences may apply."

Damn. I was all excited about the fact that they worked 24 hours a day, but I live on the west coast.
Re:hilarious by Colonel+Cholling · 2004-09-20 03:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Coincidentally, $67 million Palmyra Atoll dollars is the estimated value of that Free Dell Desktop PC that's just waiting for those who click on your .sig.

--

I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Re:Party like its... by secolactico · 2004-09-20 03:36 · Score: 4, Funny

[the address]...Palmyra Atoll (Uninhabited Sovereign Territory)

This is thge odd part. How can an uninhabited territory be sovereign. According to the CIA Factbook it is a National Wildlife Refuge managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Also, it says it has no economic activity. What the heck would back Palmyra Atoll's dollar?

--
No sig
Re:Having RTFA... by crowdozer · 2004-09-20 03:37 · Score: 2, Funny

Yah I bet a small nature reserve island in the middle of the Pacific has a sweet broadband connection and population to facilitate such a business. Perhaps they are training monkeys to sort your spam. That would explain the price.
Re:ideas? by HTH+NE1 · 2004-09-20 03:42 · Score: 2, Funny

I thought this up long ago when address munging was in its infancy on Usenet. I referred to it as hiring a secretary.

They'd better not be applying for a patent.

--
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Re:hilarious by Umbro2 · 2004-09-20 04:20 · Score: 2, Funny

With all your attention focused on annoying us with your free ads for a DellPC (who wants one?) or an IPod (who doesn't already have one?); you missed the best one:
These people are "working 24 hours a day (Timezone differences may apply)"
Re:Filtering using spelling checker... by Andrewkov · 2004-09-20 04:26 · Score: 2, Funny

Unfortunately that would block email from most of my friends...
Re:Filtering using spelling checker... by Tar-Palantir · 2004-09-20 04:49 · Score: 3, Funny

I take it you've never seen how my 12-year-old sister and her friends type.

OMG tht is sooo cool!!!1 rlly? no way!! ... you get the idea. It's enough to make a spell-checker turn in its dictionary.
Re:Party like its... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-20 05:05 · Score: 1, Funny

Yes, but does Cingular have terms like these
"(1) Warranties and waivers... LCC may choose to share any information acquired in the course of providing its services .... You henceforth void your reasonable expectation of privacy, and your constitutional rights to a fair and speedy trial."

(lots of stuff chopped, but it just makes it worse if you read the whole thing.)
I was in the process of signing up (I have a serious junkmail problem)...