Slashdot Mirror
Human-Powered Spam Filtering
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.
Four pages, home, the product, terms of service, and about the company. The only thing they are missing is bios of the 'management team'. Even better the $67 million dollars in cash reserves are in Palmyra Atoll dollars; I wonder what the exchange rate is?
Overall, it looks like someone stole a 'dot com' idea from 1999. Anyone have a little red Corvette?
I'll stick with Spamassassin, Thunderbird.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Already baked: it's called Vipul's Razor.
Ydco co
https://sourceforge.net/projects/sa-milt-quar
I'm working on mimicking the barracuda's functionality, and have the spam quarantine working.
I apologize that sourceforge is showing no releases, the files ARE in cvs, and are stable after much testing. I'll try to get in and do a release later today.
My hope is to build a full spam firewall suite that is easy to set up and still have much scalability and control.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
Palmyra Atoll is a thousand miles south of Hawaii, an untold distance from civilization. Uninhabited by humans and wild to the core, it is the last intact marine wilderness in the U.S. tropics.
but you missed the asterisks- * - Not all currently recognized by UN. ** - Palmyra Atoll dollars. ...from http://eprovisia.dione.cc/about.html
As far as I can see, the Palmyra Atoll doesn't have it's own currency... and anyone in the world can make up their own countries.
Conveniently located in the heart of Palmyra Atoll, eProvisia LLC is the leading provider of reliable, robust, powerful and cost-efficient spam filtering solutions for world-class corporations and individual users.
Privately funded in 1993, now with customers in 40 countries* and over $67 million** in cash reserves, ....
* - Not all currently recognized by UN. ** - Palmyra Atoll dollars.
Palmyra Atoll is uninhabited, and doesn't have a currency. The phone number is invalid (nowhere has a +78 extension), and what kind of place lists in its address "Islet 7, 5 52 N 162 06 W"?
I wouldn't have bothered posting this except it seems like both slashdot and most of the people reading this seem to be taking it seriously. It's not.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
at eprovisia.coredump.cx.
.cx domain.
This site is a joke, and no more represents an actual business than that other famous site with a
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
This company can't possibly be real.
Anybody read their terms of service? You understand that there are no guarantees, either expressed or implied, regarding the accuracy, confidentiality or availability of the service. eProvisia LCC may choose to share any information acquired in the course of providing its services with other entities, and may, at its sole discretion and based on this information, take whichever actions the company, its affiliates, subsidiaries, or representatives, consider to be appropriate. You henceforth void your reasonable expectation of privacy, and your constitutional rights to a fair and speedy trial.
And their contact information. Um, Palmyra Atoll is an uninhabited pile of sand in the Pacific Ocean. "Palmyra Atoll dollars?" BWAHAHAHA.
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. That line sounds like it was generated with the Web Economy Bullshit Generator.
Thanks for the laugh, Hemos. No, I'm laughing at you, not with you.
Although he called it the 'Bologna Detection Kit' and applied it to pseudo-science. It actually works quite well here on /.
Funny i know, but actually such an app actually exists
Deloitte & Touche's Bullfighter
BullfighterTM is software that runs in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, within Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP. It works a lot like the spelling and grammar checker in those applications, but focuses on jargon and readability.
I think Yahoo's spam filtering is also human powered. It seems to be contantly getting better. I signed up for webspace with them ($20 per month) and get a lot of POP3 2G email accounts; their spam filter gets most of the spam and then I mark spam that is remaining in the inbox. Lastly I check for false positives and occasionally download the highly spam free email messages once a month or so using POP3 (I usually just use the web front-end for daily email access).
I found more information on this Island. You can checkout this for more information.
Wow, I can't believe slashdot took this seriously.
Just look at the Terms of Service in their page. This must have been put under the wrong slashdot section. It's more suited for the "It's funny. Laugh".
Terms of Service and Legal Disclaimer
By viewing pages or using products and services of eProvisia LCC, you acknowledge and consent to the following terms and conditions:
(1) Warranties and waivers. You understand that there are no guarantees, either expressed or implied, regarding the accuracy, confidentiality or availability of the service. eProvisia LCC may choose to share any information acquired in the course of providing its services with other entities, and may, at its sole discretion and based on this information, take whichever actions the company, its affiliates, subsidiaries, or representatives, consider to be appropriate. You henceforth void your reasonable expectation of privacy, and your constitutional rights to a fair and speedy trial.
(2) Indemnification. You agree to hold harmless and indemnify eProvisia LCC and its affiliates, subsidiaries, and representatives, from and against any legal claims, including liability for the company not adhering to the terms and conditions of this agreement.
(3) Choice of Law and Jurisdiction. These Terms of Use will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Uninhabited Sovereign Territory of Palmyra Atoll, without giving effect to its conflict of laws and provisions of your actual state or country of residence. Any claims, legal proceedings, or litigations regarding eProvisia LCC and its affiliates, subsidiaries, and representatives, will be brought solely in and you consent to the jurisdiction of Palmyra Atoll courts.
"What do you do?"
"I produce synergy. And books on how to cheat at Bridge."
English is easier said than done.
The cost can be brought down using automated prefiltering both with currently available commercial/oss packages and by injecting the manually verified spam data back into the prefiltering system. However, I personaly would not trust anyone to do this sort of manual filtering unless they where actually located in a country with very good intellectually property protection and privacy protection laws, and kept a very big insurence policy for data theft or they where bonded using some other method which was easily verifiable. And still I would only suggest this for personal email accounts which don't contain anything that they need to keep secret, such as my grandparents personal email account as baby photos and weather reports need not be to secure.
It was obviously designed to do that; it's a joke. And if you look up the location of their company, it's basically Gilligan's Island: an uninhabited (except for 20 Fish and Wildlife Service staff) atoll 1000 miles south of Hawaii.