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Repurposing Anti-Spam Tools For Detecting Mutations In HIV

Posted by timothy on from the metaphors-are-like-geese-in-a-cider-factor dept.

chicksdaddy writes "Security researchers often use language and metaphors from the natural world to describe problems in the virtual world. (Consider 'virus,' and 'worm.') Now it turns out that the links may be more than just rhetoric. Microsoft Researchers say that tools they developed to detect spammers' efforts to avoid anti-spam filters were also great at spotting mutations in the HIV virus. A report from Microsoft Research in honor of World AIDS Day yesterday described how Microsoft Researchers David Heckerman and Jonathan Carlson were called upon to help AIDS researchers analyze data about how the human immune system attacks the HIV virus. To do so, they turned to tools and algorithms developed at Microsoft to detect and block spam e-mail in the company's Hotmail, Outlook and Exchange e-mail products."

8 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Never mind that! by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    The really big news here is - Slashdot has finally ditched the Gates "Borg" icon!

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    #DeleteChrome
  2. Maybe the "natural world" by Spy+Handler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    is also a created simulation. If so, then of course viruses in both computers and nature will share common characteristics.

    BUDDHA: All is illusion
    NEO: There is no spoon

    1. Re:Maybe the "natural world" by cultiv8 · · Score: 3, Funny

      MICROSOFT: We have an API for that

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      sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
    2. Re:Maybe the "natural world" by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Interesting
      If not a simulation, would you believe a hologram:
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      It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  3. Insightful by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Come on gang, this is pretty cool.

    To re-adapt the tech that picks up Nigerian Scams and send it to pick up HIV strains is pretty neat. I sure as **** didn't see that app.

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    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
    1. Re:Insightful by masternerdguy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Personally I find some of those nigerian spams awesome. I got one that claimed that the first Kenyan on the moon was trapped in orbit and they needed money to build a rescue vehicle.

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      To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
    2. Re:Insightful by JSG · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, I've seen some classics too.

      For a while I actually deliberately allowed stuff from the "Lads from Nigeria" through and put in its own inbox for everyone at the firm to laugh over. I created a second specially trained SA Bayesian classifier in front of the main filter to siphon this stuff off.

      It was trained on a hand crafted corpus gleaned from a mailbox of stuff behind a sacrificial Exim daemon on its own connection that strangely runs really slow but not too slow to put off the spammers.

      SA can be made to work in very strange ways. Perhaps I ought to get out more ...

      Cheers
      Jon

  4. Making a spam filter play chess. by Colin+Smith · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://dbacl.sourceforge.net/spam_chess.html

    Now that's cool.

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