[extropy-chat] Spam

[Spike]

> Robert J. Bradbury
> 
> On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Major wrote:
> 
> > Many of them are using the multipart/alternate MIME type...
> 
> Major is correct about the crap -- it began when Bayesian 
> filters started becoming popular.
> 
> I suspect that one could catch this with grammer filters but then they
> would just start taking paragraphs out of public News/BBS posts or
> some other similar source of human authored text...  Robert


Currently there is an arms race between spammers and
spam filters.  Clearly, both are getting far more
sophisticated, very quickly.  Robert's comment brings 
up an interesting speculation: perhaps we will soon
reach the point where even human level intelligence
will have difficulty distinguishing spam from non-spam.

Anyone who has ever purchased pharmaceuticals, penis 
enhancements or actually anything from any spammer
would be an example of a human level intelligence that
has failed to distinguish the two.  My coworker who
was bilked of 3300 bucks last month is an example of
a brilliant PhD human intelligence, along with at least
two bank employees, which failed the test.

Before we laugh this off, consider the example of my
teenage neices: they are not allowed by their parents 
to use the internet, because very their best efforts have
consistently failed to stop the porno-spam.  

Recall a Jeremiad which I posted about a year ago: 
if spammers get sufficiently sophisticated, our much-loved 
internet becomes useless, buried beneath a deep pile of 
garbage forever.  

spike