Bill Gates says make spammers pay

[Red Squirrel]

I don't think this will work, but it's worth a try I suppose.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wo...world-headlines

DAVOS, Switzerland -- A spam-free world by 2006? That's what Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates is promising.

"Two years from now, spam will be solved," he told a select group of World Economic Forum participants at this Alpine ski resort. "And a lot of progress this year," he added at the event late Friday, hosted by U.S. talk show host Charlie Rose.


Gates said Microsoft, where he has the title of chief software designer, is working on a solution based on the concept of "proof," or identifying the sender of the e-mail.

One method involves a human challenge, or requiring the sender of an electronic pitch to solve a puzzle that only a flesh-and-blood person can handle. Another is a so-called "computational puzzle" that a computer sending only a few messages could easily handle, but that would be prohibitively expensive for a mass-mailer.

But the most promising, Gates said, was a method that would hit the sender of an e-mail in the pocketbook.

People would set a level of monetary risk -- low or high, depending on their choice -- for receiving e-mail from strangers. If the e-mail turns out to be from a long-lost relative, for example, the recipient would charge nothing. But if it is unwanted spam, the sender would have to fork over the cash.

"In the long run, the monetary (method) will be dominant," Gates predicted.

He conceded, however, that his prognostications have not always been on the mark. Notable misjudgments include the rising popularity of open-source software, epitomized by Linux, and the success of the Google search engine.

"They kicked our butts," he said, while promising a better next-generation Internet search engine from Microsoft, due as early as next year.

Gates said he thought Microsoft's team of software engineers was outrunning the hackers that have caused havoc by unleashing increasingly destructive viruses to attack networked computers. But he said it was tough to stay ahead. "If only the bad guys would just do the same stuff they did last year," he moaned.

While the Windows desktop operating system has become a "very powerful standard," he said Microsoft was more open today about its source code to allow other companies to develop competing products. That was partly due, he said, to the rise of Linux and antitrust actions in the United States and Europe.

Gates said he had not met with European Union antitrust commissioner Mario Monti, who is also attending the forum in Davos, but would be willing to if it would help settle the long-running EU antitrust case against Microsoft.

EU regulators charge that Microsoft's decision to tie its Media Player into Windows, which runs about 90 percent of desktop computers, "weakens competition on the merits, stifles product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice."

They are threatening fines that could reach up to $3 billion, as well as a far-reaching order for Microsoft to strip the multimedia application from Windows to give rivals such as RealNetworks' RealPlayer or Apple's Quicktime more of a chance.

The EU Commission also wants Microsoft to disclose more software code to competitors in the market for low-end servers so they can make products that work as well with Windows as Microsoft's own.

"We're doing what we can to come to some amicable settlement," Gates said.

After three days of hearing last November, the European Commission is expected to issue its decision early this year.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:1956, old post ID:16034

[manadren_it]

Making spammers pay seems good and all, but just thinking about how much the software involved would intrude on privacy, not to mention the fact that most spammers try to remain as anonymous as possible, and outcry from so called legitimate spammers, makes the whole thing seem really impractical. Right now, to me the future of spam prevent will end up being in bayesian filtering and lawsuits. Now if only the federal goverment would cooperate, instead of creating legilslation that makes it easier to spam, in the name of a step in the right direction.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:1956, old post ID:16355

[Red Squirrel]

Same here I think filtering is the only big advancement really. Artificial inteligence filtering AND keywords. Spam assassin is a good example of AI filtering, and it does a pretty good job too.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:1956, old post ID:16363

[manadren_it]

from what I understand, spam assasin uses a combination of rules based and bayesian (AI) filtering, which is probably the best. The problem with bayesian is that it needs a bunch of designated spam to learn from, so it's not all that great from the start, but gets really good over time. So the rules based filtering would kinda fill in the gaps I suppose.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:1956, old post ID:16376

[Wren]

The key word option is not working since the spammers are getting creative with spelling certain words.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:1956, old post ID:16380

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah like /|/(-R/ and stuff like that. Seriously who would buy stuff from an email like that? I find it's rediculous they bother spamming like that.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:1956, old post ID:16408