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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.
privacy concerns are big of course
I thoroughly enjoy wikpedia and I have always thought of new ways of using the wiki concept - here is one solution to spam without privacy concerns.
Your email interface would look at a list on the wiki page and filter out any known spam. One spam slips through and you can make a new entry at wik (like database or text page whatever). The entry could be the whole email or an algorithm but either way an algorithm would eventually be made based on a pattern to reduce the entry size (who knows the community is in control of it). Fixed the privacy concerns unless you did it to yourself.
The next great thing about the wiki is you could take that 20 bucks a month and make a donation to the wiki. Not only would you be helping thwart spam but also supporting a great dictionary, encyclopedia and all things great with the open concept.
The $20/month figure sounded a little high until I read that it is $19.95/year, not per month.
That being said, I don't know if I see the benefit of paying someone else to read my email. They even offer more expensive packages to have them categorize and summarize your mail for you, as well as discard non-spam mails that you don't want anyway. I suppose it could be useful for really busy executive types, but then can't they afford secretaries anyway?
Modded funny, but I agree 100%. Who writes these things ?? Do they start with a list of 20 words (Paradigm, leverage, diversify) and have their managers tell them those words MUST be included ?? Yeesh !
People stop trying to profit so much to help reduce or stop it...
I'm not sure who's worse anymore, the companies out there who sell services to 'help' you reduce/eliminate spam, or the spammers. (Maybe one in the same, in some instances)..
The only resolution I see to spam is good, solid legislation THAT IS ENFORCED. Country harbors spammers, cut them off from the US internet. Spammers AND the companies that hire them BOTH held equally liable. If it's a criminal act to spam, it's a criminal act to hire someone to spam.
People can write programs all day to try and stop spam, it won't matter. If someone can write a program to filter x out, someone else will find a way to get y through. It's an endless cycle.
Spam is like a virus in so many ways...
yeah and would like a bunch of buzzword bozos to READ EVERY DAMN MAIL YOU GET??????????????????
personally i just think though that they use some filters to help..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
So the first line on their front page reads:
"For the first time ever: 100% reliability in combating spam. Guaranteed."
But the first two bullet points of their TOS also read:
"You understand that there are no guarantees, either expressed or implied, regarding the accuracy, confidentiality or availability of the service."
AND
"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. "
So they guarantee to stop 100% of spam...but if they don't, that's too bad as they never claimed to anyway and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.
Some juicy info on the Palmyra Atoll:
"Palmyra Atoll Palmyra is an equatorial atoll, a circular string of 54 small, heavily vegetated islets formed by the growth of coral on the rim of an ancient submerged volcano. The 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."
So they are claiming human spam filtering from a place which is uninhabited by humans. I guess it is true that if you have a million monkeys banging on the keyboard they could actually turn out a real product.
This is a great joke, and once more Slashdot's been had.
-Rabin
I just wonder if Hemos knew that when he posted it...