Al writes "A team of researchers at the Georgia Institute for Technology say they have developed a way to catch spam before it even arrives on the mail server. Instead of bothering to analyze the contents of a spam message, their software, called SNARE (Spatio-temporal Network-level Automatic Reputation Engine), examines key aspects of individual packets of data to determine whether it might be spam. The team, led by assistant professor Nick Feamster, analyzed 2.5 million emails collected by McAfee in order to determine the key packet characteristics of spam. These include the geodesic proximity of end mail servers and the number of ports open on the sending machine. The approach catches spam 70 percent of the time, with a 0.3 false positive rate. Of course, revealing these characteristics could also allow spammers to fake their packets to avoid filtering."

Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes "A 2006 paper by Matthew Salganik, Peter Dodds and Duncan Watts, about the patterns that users follow in choosing and recommending songs to each other on a music download site, may be the key to understanding the most effective form of "censorship" that still exists in mostly-free countries like the US It also explains why your great ideas haven't made you famous, while lower-wattage bulbs always seem to find a platform to spout off their ideas (and you can keep your smart remarks to yourself)." Read on for the rest of Bennett's take on why the effects of peer ratings on a music download site go a long way towards explaining how good ideas can effectively be "censored" even in a country with no formal political censorship.

Grant Henninger writes "Today, NASA announced their final selection for the Mars Scout 2013 mission: Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN. MAVEN will provide the first direct measurements ever taken to address key scientific questions about Mars's evolution by measuring characteristics of its atmospheric gases, upper atmosphere, solar wind, and ionosphere. The mission, estimated to cost $485M, is scheduled for launch in late 2013."

jcatcw writes "Quick, incremental updates, along with heavy user involvement, are key characteristics of the emerging software development methods championed by a new generation of Web 2.0 start-ups. A survey conducted for Computerworld showed that an overwhelming majority of the respondents said that traditional corporate development teams could benefit from Web 2.0 techniques, specifically the incremental feature releases, quick user feedback loops and quality assurance programs that include users. Fifty seven percent of the respondents said problem-solving and analytical skills will be key requirements for next generation developers. The bottom-line: corporate development teams need to get to know their users."

Albert writes "Storm shows several key characteristics, some new and advanced. It uses cunning social engineering techniques — such as tying spam campaigns to a current event or site of interest — as well as a blend of email and the Web to spread. It is highly coordinated, yet decentralized — and with Storm using the latest generation of P2P technology, it cannot be disabled by simply 'cutting off its head.' In addition, Storm is self-propagating — once infected, computers send out massive amounts of Storm spam to keep recruiting new nodes."

The venture capitalist is, of course, Richard Gorman, of Bay Partners, to whom we sent your questions earlier this week. He prefaces his answers by saying: "Thanks for all of your questions. They were very insightful and I enjoyed answering them. I also want to thank Salil Deshpande of Bay Partners who contributed to these answers and provided some healthy discussion. Salil is a successful two-time entrepreneur and is very knowledgeable."

Read on for some of the most interesting comments and exchanges on a handful of yesterday's Slashdot posts (on the age of the Universe, virtual desktops in OS X, trick photography on the Reuters wire, and AOL's latest privacy gaffe) in today's Backslash summary.

Wednesday we requested questions for Jonathan Zdziarski, an open source contributor and author of the recently reviewed book "Ending Spam." Jonathan seems to have taken great care in answering your questions, which you will find published below. We have also invited Jonathan to take part in the discussion if he has time so if your question didn't make the cut perhaps there is still hope.

twelve71 (Alan Francis) writes "Apologies in advance for overuse of the word 'pragmatic,' but Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt together form a company called The Pragmatic Programmers, and published a book I'm sure many of you have read, titled The Pragmatic Programmer: from Journeyman to Master. The Pragmatic Programmer (or 'PragProg' as it is usually referred to) is a wonderful grab bag of 'good old common sense,' but its main strength (covering a very broad range of subjects) means that the authors have left a few holes around some important details. To plug some of these holes, and provide a good grounding for those just starting out, they have recently published 'The Pragmatic Starter Kit' - a set of books covering in detail some of the basics mentioned in PragProg." Read on for Alan's review of the latest book in the kit.

npistentis writes "From an article in the Economist: It has been a long time coming. But after years of false starts, security systems based on biometrics--human characteristics such as faces, hand shapes and fingerprints--are finally taking off. Proponents have long argued that because biometrics cannot be forgotten, like a password, or lost or stolen, like a key or an identity card, they are an ideal way to control access to computer networks, airport service-areas and bank vaults. But biometrics have not yet spread beyond such niche markets, for two main reasons. The first is the unease they can inspire among users. Many people would prefer not to have to submit their eyes for scanning in order to withdraw money from a cash dispenser. The second reason is cost: biometric systems are expensive compared with other security measures, such as passwords and personal identification numbers. So while biometrics may provide extra security, the costs currently outweigh the benefits in most cases."

Priscilla Oppenheimer writes "Annlee A. Hines' book Planning for Survivable Networks, is quite a page-turner. Yes, that's surprising for a technical book, but I found it to be true. I was fascinated by the stories of real companies (Lehman Brothers, the Wall Street Journal, and others) that survived the 9/11 attack and resumed business quickly. There are also stories from other disasters, both man-made and natural, and information on companies that were not able to quickly resume business. The author summarizes the stories with explanations of what went right and what went wrong, with advice on developing your own disaster recovery plan." Read on for the rest of her review.

jukal asks: "I am building a contact database about open source activities and their contacts in large companies. It will be a kind of 'mindmap' positioning each of the big players, listing their key characteristics, their publically stated views on Open Source, and possible connections between the activities of the companies. Could you provide me with a helping hand to get started. Yes, I am doing this for the purposes of Openchallenge but I believe many others would benefit as well. I would like to map the open source world from the 'corporate viewing point' :) Post the details - or anything you got - here, or directly to me [/. profile] And as there will anyway be someone saying 'Go Google It Yourself' - If you think it's Google-able, give it a shot. If this has been already done, then that would be excellent!"

An anonymous reader writes "In this technical article at LinuxDevices.com, Matchbox project leader Matthew Allum introduces his creation Matchbox: a small footprint window manager for PDAs and other resource-constrained embedded devices. Allum recalls why he decided to embark on the project, outlines its key objectives, describes its architecture and unique characteristics, and ponders its future. Cool piece of software; good read."

Nat Friedman often seems to live in the shadow of his famous coworker, Miguel de Icaza, but today it's his turn to shine. You asked Nat questions last week. This week he answers, in detail, with lots of links, touching on subjects ranging from Gnome's future directions to how Microsoft is dealing with Linux as a competitor to Windows.

An Anonymous pre-Consultant asks: "I'm considering starting my own software consulting firm and was wondering if people would be interested in sharing their own experiences in trying such a thing. I've wanted to do this since 1995, and have read numerous books (Bernard Kamoroff's _Small Time Operator_, etc.). I'm fairly young, in my 20's, but have a good track record, and strong oral and written communications skills. I feel like I can make it happen but am a bit lost as to whether or not there are any specific resources for those who wish to consult as software engineers, and what strategies should be used to construct a client base. I'm not sure that my contacts are as diverse as they should be."

Quite a while back we asked Dan Ravicher, a young attorney who is personally interested in Open Source and Free Software licensing issues, a bunch of questions on the subject. We waited and waited for his answers, and the wait turned out to be worthwhile because Dan ended up writing what amounts to a legal FAQ for Open Source and Free Software developers. This is important reading for anyone involved in any way with Open Source or Free Software development.

Like Open Source and p2p, "multimedia" is a term that gets tossed around a lot, but in this case it's hard to find a coherent theme behind it, or a commonly- accepted definition. As Randall Packer and Ken Jordan point out in Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, the surprisingly readable, history-minded and idealistic volume of essays published this week, multimedia by its very nature is "open, democratic, nonhierarchical, fluid, varied, inclusive -- a slippery domain that evades the critic's grasp just on the verge of definition." It's important, too. (Read more.)

Dare Obasanjo contributed this piece about a subject that probably only a very few people have ever taken the time to consider, or had to. Below he asks the musical question "Why aren't you using an Object Oriented Database Management System?"Update: 05/04 02:11 PM by H :This is also running on K5 - yes, that's on purpose, and yes, Dare, myself and Rusty all know. *grin*

In some ways, the Net Revolution, like most others, is a sad and strange story to be told: one of almost unbelievable and rapid change, excitement, opportunity and disappointment. It's also a story of a great backlash, growing doubts, and broken promises. Technologically, the network has proved to be one of the fastest growing phenomena in the history of invention. But politically and socially, few of the early hopes for it have materialized, and the counterattack is underway. Is the Net Revolution out of touch with human beings? Second of a series. (Read more).

Adventurous reader Duncan Lawie, throwing himself in the way of the books being hurled at you by well-meaning bookstores, wrote this review of Mission of Gravity. If your taste in Science Fiction runs to the adventurous and thoughtful, Duncan may just turn you on to a work he says is "elegant and simple."