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Comment The arms race continues (Score 4, Insightful) 265

by dbosso (#48132263) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Why Can't Google Block Spam In Gmail?

I've seen a lot of recent spam campaigns that get through my basic scanning using the following tactics:
1. Careful design to not trigger Spamassassin content rules, including blocks of text to fool the bayes filter.
2, Careful omission of any identifying headers except for completely valid SPF and DKIM headers with appropriately configured DNS.
3. Real Linux mail servers dropped onto virtual hosting providers.
4. Fresh IP addresses and domains - never used domains that are not blacklisted yet and IP addresses blocks from the hosting providers that take 10-30 minutes to get blacklisted
Then they use snowshoe spam tactics to trickle them out until they're blacklisted and then move to the next domain and address.

If your address is on the lists that the perpetrators of these campaigns are using, it's really hard to avoid spam right now. Not impossible, there are some countermeasures, but vanilla Spamassassin and your standard appliances are going to have problems. I can imagine google is going to have an easier time with this because of its size and volume (=more information), but it's far from trivial.

-db
Movies

New Riddick Movie Made Possible By Games? 160

Posted by Soulskill from the this-is-why-gamers-are-scarier-than-bikers dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Scott Harris writes on Moviefone that the economics of Hollywood are often baffling, as DVD sales, broadcast fees and merchandising tie-ins balance against advertising costs and pay-or-play deals to form an accounting maze. The latest example is the untitled sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick, released in 2004 to a slew of negative reviews and general viewer indifference. Despite its hefty $105 million budget, most of which was spent on special effects, the film topped out at a paltry $57 million domestically. So how can a sequel be made if the movie lost money? The answer has to do with ancillary profits from revenue streams outside the box office. While the combined $116 million worldwide probably still didn't cover distribution and advertising costs, it likely brought the film close to even, meaning DVD sales and profits from the tie-in video game franchise may have put the movie in the black. In addition, Riddick itself was a sequel to Pitch Black, a modestly budgeted ($23 million) success back in 2000. Extending the franchise to a third film may help boost ancillary profits by introducing the Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick DVDs and merchandise to new audiences, meaning that the new film may not even need to break even to eventually turn a profit for the studio."
Space

Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242

Posted by Soulskill from the i-for-one dept.
likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."

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