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January 31, 2007
SpamSoap Update #1
A quick update since my last report on my current spam filtering setup.
Last week, I received over 87,000 inbound emails. Roughly 86,000, or 99%, were spam. About 1000 messages made it through SpamSoap and my other server-based spam filters, and were delivered to my client-side email program. Of that, 20% was still spam. My client-side Bayesian spam filter caught the bulk of those, leaving only a couple a day for me to delete manually. So, I'm still seeing better than 99.9% accuracy in catching spam (but not legitimate personal messages).
One glitch did crop up last week. Some spam goes around my server-side filters by bypassing the normal Internet mail-handling protocols (the MX record, for those who know what that means). Since no legitimate external messages do that, I set the mail preferences on my hosting server to throw those messages out. A problem arose with some emails that a coworker sent to one of my email aliases. Because they were coming from someone on the same web hosting account, they didn't have the MX record, which is only for outside mail. For about a month, those messages went into a black whole, and I didn't even know it.
I've added more intelligence to the rules that throw away the non-MX mail. The co-worker's messages now go through, although I'm still seeing some odd cases where this doesn't seem to work. It's only a problem for mail from inside my company to certain email addresses. So, not crippling, but annoying nonetheless.
Other than that, things are still working very well. The scary thought is that the volume of spam is still going up. It wasn't that long ago that I marveled at getting 1 million spams a year. At this rate, I'll get at least 5 million in 2007. And there's no end to the growth in sight.
At 10 million spams per year, 99.9% filtering accuracy still means 25+ spams a day I have to handle manually, which is starting to get problematic again. Hopefully by that time I'll be closer to 99.99% accuracy, but who knows. I remember just a few years ago when 80% accuracy was state of the art -- today that would be worse than useless at my volume of spam. It's an arms race, and the spammers keep ratcheting up the volumes and the deviousness.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:52 PM | Comments (1)
Kevin the Talking Head
I appeared on the PBS "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" show yesterday, talking about the Microsoft Windows Vista launch. The transcript and live audio are online if you're interested.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 2:24 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2007
A new Y2K bug?
From the IT person for my department:
Congress changed Daylight Savings Time from the first Sunday of April
(1st) to the second Sunday in March (11th).This is new, many computers, Palm Pilots, Blackberries, cell phones and
software may not yet be equipped to handle this change.We are beginning to run into trouble with scheduling events in the
Outlook calendar between March 11th and April 1st. Depending on which
computer you use to look at the event you may see the event occur an
hour earlier than you had intended.If you notice that any of your devices display a meeting at the
incorrect time let me know. I will work with you and my colleagues in
Wharton Computing to fix things so the correct time is displayed.I would recommend that for any appointment you put into an electronic
calendar for this time that you include the time of the appointment in
the subject of the appointment. Rather than scheduling a meeting titled
"Meeting with Lowell" you should schedule a meeting titled "12 noon
meeting with Lowell."You may also want to keep a close eye on your home video recording
devices, Airplane / train tickets, Concert tickets, etc. to avoid any
surprises.
Quite an interesting unintended consequence of the daylight-savings change (which, as I understand it, was done to save on energy usage). It shows just how brittle some aspects of our life can become as we rely increasingly on machines.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:19 AM | Comments (1)
Off the blog
Sorry for the radio silence the past couple weeks. I'm teaching introductory law to six parallel sections of MBA students, about 400 in all. It's actually a lot of fun, but all-consuming during these few weeks.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:17 AM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2007
FCC White Spaces Proceeding
Comments are due next week in the FCC's white spaces proceeding to open up unlicensed use of broadcast spectrum.
I've been too busy with other things to focus or talk much about this proceeding, but it could be incredibly important for the future of communications. If the FCC does allow for non-interfering unlicensed uses in these bands, it will make possible a range of new services beyond what we see today with WiFi. The propagation characteristics at these low frequencies allow signals to penetrate walls and carry farther than in the high-frequency spectrum where WiFi operates.
A number of major technology companies as well as public interest groups like the New America Foundation have been doing great work to carry the torch on this one. While I remain a bit skeptical that they will take the leap, I hope that the FCC will realize the potential opportunity.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 5:20 PM | Comments (0)
January 4, 2007
HDTV vs Internet video redux
Clay Shirky responds to Mark Cuban's post that "HDTV is the Internet video killer." It's rare that I disagree with Clay, but here I think both positions are right.
Nothing is really going to "kill" anything else, as both of them are well aware. There is a future for both "HDTV" (which will become increasingly Internet-enabled) and "Internet video" (which will be delivered at increasingly high resolution). Users won't abandon the benefits of HDTV because they can create and watch their own short videos on YouTube (Mark's point), but neither will they abandon YouTube because the picture quality of HDTV trumps all (Clay's point). And the future of either form as a business still depends on monetization, which largely means advertising. The good news is that, for the moment, there's more than enough money to go around. The bad news is that the well is finite, and it won't be long before we hit the point of conflict. By that time, most companies in the video space will have operations in both the "HDTV" and "Internet video" worlds.
Clay does, however, manage to get off a wonderful line about the future of TV: "Cuban doesn’t understand that television has been cut in half. The idea that there should be a formal link between the tele- part and the vision part has ended."
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 7:57 AM | Comments (0)
January 3, 2007
A pretty good New York Times article on new search engines, which digs into the shallow next Google" meme. It concludes with a delightful quote from my former boss, Esther Dyson: "'I love Google,' she said, 'but I love the march of history.'"
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:22 AM | Comments (0)
Marketing and Social Networks
Danah Boyd has some perceptive thoughts on the future of MySpace and other high-profile social networking sites. Including this gem: "Every PR organization and marketing arm is leeching onto MySpace like a blood thirsty vampire. Problem is that vampires kill their prey."
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 9:17 AM | Comments (0)
A Defense of the AT&T/BellSouth Deal
Tim Wu responds to critics of the AT&T/BellSouth network neutrality conditions.
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 8:09 AM | Comments (0)
January 1, 2007
Happy New Year
Best wishes to all for a wonderful 2007!
Posted by Kevin Werbach at 5:35 PM | Comments (0)