Spam

[quizbag]

Has there been some sort of breakthrough in the screening of spam? I am certainly not complaining but mine has dropped to two or three a day when I used to get at least 50. Long may it continue.

[fo3nix]

The breakthrough was a number of years ago, with Bayesian filters (I can explain more if you're interested).

It's dependant on your email provider to update their spam detection system accordingly. Some still don't do it properly. Hotmail for instance has long been pretty bad at this stuff.

Gmail is current the best there is, because it takes into account email from everyone's accounts, so if enough people mark something as spam in their accounts, then when the same spam gets to your account, it's automatically marked as spam. Other large systems don't allow for this.

[quizbag]

I already use filters and always mark spam so perhaps I have just covered all the target words. Thanks for your reply.

[Twenty20]

There has been a dramatic drop, have a read of this from the BBC site from mid November

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7725492. stm

its thought it'll be on the rise again soon though!

[quizbag]

Thanks twenty20. That made fascinating reading and answers quite a few questions. Fancy being able to make a profit on such a tiny proportion of replies.