Path: news.net.uni-c.dk!newsfeeds.net.uni-c.dk!howland.erols.net!europa.netcrusader.net!63.208.208.143!feed2.onemain.com!feed1.onemain.com!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!165.113.238.17!pln-w!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews1 From: "Terry Austin" Newsgroups: comp.lang.basic.visual.misc,comp.lang.beta,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: RACIST RADIO HOST PIG - Off Topic Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 15:32:22 -0700 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 40 Message-ID: <9ec52n02t80@enews1.newsguy.com> References: <9e8cnc$mv14475@news.qualitynet.net> <3B0803BB.9D17B87E@eton.powernet.co.uk> <3B09337E.B27906D5@eton.powernet.co.uk> <3B096448.963B99B8@my-deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-718.newsdawg.com X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: news.net.uni-c.dk comp.lang.basic.visual.misc:478939 comp.lang.beta:12892 comp.lang.c:526296 comp.lang.c++:593213 "CBFalconer" wrote in message news:3B096448.963B99B8@my-deja.com... > Richard Heathfield wrote: > > > > Zy Baxos wrote: > > > > > > I've always wondered what the random-looking garbage at > > > the end of stupid spam posts was - I always assumed it > > > was rot13 or a variant thereof. How does that work as a > > > counter-counter-spam measure? > > > > Some newsfeeds will filter out duplicate articles. The pseudo-random > > gibberish inhibits this process. > > > > > Ob on topic question: > > > > > > How would one program a counter^3-spam measure against > > > this in VB? > > > > Given the number of newsgroups to which this is cross-posted, I cannot > > imagine an answer which is both comprehensive and topical. As a minor > > observation, however, one possible avenue to explore would be to look up > > all words longer than, say, N characters, and check them against an > > English dictionary. If fewer than P percent are found, then reject the > > article, or at least pass it on for human inspection. The discovery of > > appropriate values of N and P is left as an exercise for the discerning > > ISP's anti-spam team. :-) > > Interesting idea. It will also tend to reject code postings which > contain no discernable blanks, and are thus intrinsically > unreadable, if we make words blank/tab/EOL delimited. In fact, we > might simply reject postings containing word lengths in excess of > some suitable limit. Plays hell with obfuscated source though. > You say that like it's a bad thing. Terry Austin