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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.
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
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.
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?
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...
"24 hours a day" * 30 days/month = 720 hours
$20 per month / 720 hours = about 3 cents an hour.
Since they say they begin "manually reviewing, hand-picking and approving important correspondence", how does this work? To pay someone $6/hour, they'd need to be reviewing at least 200 mailboxes simultaneously. My confidence level of their accuracy under these circumstances would be considerably -lower- than a software solution.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Look at this about page.
Im going to include their footnotes on that pge in parentheses and bold.
Privately funded in 1993, now with customers in 40 countries(Not all currently recognized by UN) and over $67 million(Palmyra Atoll dollars) in cash reserves, the company experienced a phenomenal growth
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.
Actually, LLC's are the smart way to do a partnership. In a partnership, all principles enjoy equal responsibility for mishaps. In LLC's, all principles enjoy shared responsibility.
I guess the best way to sum it up would be to quote my Business Legal Environment professor: "...and I hope that now you all have a clear understanding of partnerships. Now let me give you a word of advice, never form one."
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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 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.
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?!?
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.
Why can't we use spelling checkers to filter spam? It seems all the spam now uses mispelled words and numbers in words to trip other filtering methods. So measure percent words mispelled or with numbers in them and above a particular threshold consider it spam.
Not only that, but the contract is "governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Uninhabited Sovereign Territory of Palmyra Atoll, ..."
This is a great joke, and once more Slashdot's been had.
-Rabin
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.
I immediately realised such a business would never thrive, because:
Yes, it's a hoax. Which could be immediately deduced from the fact that it is not viable business (especially with the price they quote).