patrickWeb

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Spam Arrest

Spam There have been quite a few stories about spam here on patrickWeb. Early in the debate -- years ago -- I took the position that the elimination of spam could be handled by technology and that laws would not work. I testified in Washington on that point and urged congressmen to resist the temptation to regulate the Internet. I still feel that way. The "do not call" legislation is a good example of good intentions that end up with a lot of exceptions and the result is we still get many calls at home that wed don't want.

Since September 2002 I have been using a technology from Cloudmark that has done a superb job. It looks at each email with some fancy algorithms and compares it to a database and with information that others have reported. If it is likely spam, the email gets put in a junk folder. The accuracy is excellent. I can't remember a case in the last four years where someone has sent me an email that was incorrectly identified as spam, and until recently, it has caught nearly all the emails that are spam. Until recently. The spammers have gotten more clever and devious. Of the 200 or so emails I receive daily, roughly 80% are spam. Of the 80%, Cloudmark used to get 99% of them but that percentage is declining. Also, I have the burden of seeing the garbage come in and also of having to empty the trash on occasion to avoid clogging up my ThinkPad. It has become time for a new approach.

When I was last in Washington, one of the FTC commissioners was advocating the idea that software makers and online service companies modify their email programs so that any email that comes from someone that is not already in your contact list or address book be treated as spam and put in the junk folder or deleted. I feel this is an extreme approach. I have met a lot of people over the years through email. I don't want to reject someone just because I don't already know them. A company called Spam Arrest has developed a really good alternative.

With spamarrest -- which I started using this week -- all of my email is redirected to spamarrest.com automatically. For everyone in my contact list (2,800+ people), their email goes through as normal. They see no difference, nor do I. If an email arrives for me at spamarrest from someone not in my contact list, an automatic reply is sent to them that says something like "Your email to John is pending delivery. Please click here to validate that you are a real person". When you click, you are presented with a web page where a word appears in a graphic image. Something simple like "cat" or "water". After you type in the word that appears you become validated as a real person -- not a robot sending millions of spam emails -- and you are added to the "ok" list just like everyone in my address book. Likewise, anyone that I send an email to for the first time is automatically added to the list.

I have resisted these challenge/response approaches in the past, but unfortunately today's environment forced me to do it. I am really pleased with the results. No more spam or junk folders and no trash emptying duties. The week before switching to spamarrest, I received an email from a person I don't know who had read something of interest in my blog and wanted to give me some feedback. This is really valuable to me. I asked her what she thought of the challenge/response approach I was considering. She said "I think that's a very good idea. People who are worth talking to, either personal or professional, will understand". From my perspective, I am really enjoying a 100% spam free world.

Internet Technology , Public Policy July 23, 2006 12:21 PM

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Burke Marks

Compass There are currently 736,425 benchmarks in the database at geocaching.com. Overall, 82,517 benchmarks have been found and recorded in 114,528 logs. In the last 7 days, 1,007 benchmarks have been logged by 407 users. Four of them were found by me in Greentown, Pennsylvania near Exit 20 of Interstate 84.

I had tried to find a 1959 benchmark named "Burke" a couple of months ago. The eXplorist 600 indicated that I was within a half-mile of and then I realized I would have to trespass on private property to get to the mark -- something I do not do, at least on purpose. I saw a sign nearby labeled Robert Burke Consulting. Upon visiting his web site and seeing that he works with Linux, I concluded he must be a nice person and likely would not mind me giving him a call. Not only did he not mind, he offered to escort me to the benchmark -- he had noticed it in the past and knew right where it was. I met Bob and his four-year old son at his driveway and off we went in his four-wheel drive truck down a dirt road and off into a field. Turns out that Bob's father owns hundreds of acres of land where the benchmark is located. Five generations of his family have lived in Pennsylvania.

Turns out that there are actually four benchmarks (Burke, Burke 2, Burke Reference Mark 1, and Burke Reference Mark 2) all within a couple of hundred feet of each other. Three were placed in 1959 and one in 1967. The descriptions given are accurate for finding them -- but don't rely on lat/lon because those are not accurate. One of them was off by nearly 200 feet. Ater many a wild goose chase, I have learned that the best way to find benchmarks is to carefully read the datasheet. Here is a typical description for finding a reference mark...

REFERENCE MARK 1, A STANDARD DISK STAMPED BURKE NO 1 1959, IS CEMENTED IN A DRILL HOLE IN TOP OF A 2 X 3 FOOT BOULDER IRREGULAR IN SHAPE AND PROJECTING ABOUT 2 INCHES ABOVE THE SURFACE OF THE GROUND. IT IS 85.9 FEET SOUTHEAST OF AN 8-INCH TRIANGULAR BLAZED MAPLE TREE, 72.8 FEET SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF A STANDARD METAL WITNESS POST AND MARKER, 37 FEET SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF THE CENTER OF A TRACK ROAD AND THE MARK IS ABOUT THE SAME ELEVATION AS THE STATION

The disks were all readable, although there is some corrosion. All are in plain view and the main mark (Burke) has a witness post. If you ever noticed a 3-4 foot long orange stick in the ground with some wording on it, that would be a witness post. It says basically, there is a benchmark nearby and don't mess with it! The marks would have been useful to surveyors and civil engineers decades ago, but with the advent of inexpensive and accurate GPS devices, they have become unnecessary. In spite of this, they are fun to find -- 72 for me so far and only three-quarters of a million or so to go! Lastly, remember the Honda ads from years ago -- "You meet the nicest people on a Honda"? Well, this past weekend I discovered the same thing about looking for benchmarks. If you need any systems or Linux consulting in the northeast Pennsylvania area, pay a visit to Robert Burke Consulting.

Other patrickWeb stories about benchmarking

Benchmarking , Hiking July 12, 2006 01:55 PM

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Scandinavian Cruise

Scandinavia The cruise started in Amsterdam, Holland and sailed to Copenhagen, Denmark for the first stop. The main attraction there was Tivoli Gardens, a very nice amusement park with numerous gardens and restaurants. The next stop would be Stockholm, and the Century headed for the high seas and cruised at roughly 23 miles per hour -- pretty fast for an 815 foot, 70,606 ton ship with 2,500 people on it. The approach to Stockholm was scenic as we passed many small islands to get to the port. In Stockholm, the "old town" is the place to be, where cobblestone pedestrian streets are lined with shops and cafes. Just before departure I hiked up to the city's highpoint and found a micro geocache hidden behind a stone in a rock wall.

After cruising into Helsinki we enjoyed walking in the city center and having lunch at a nice cafe. The next morning we arrived in St. Petersburg, Russia for a two-day stay, beginning with a very early departure for Moscow (see "Flight To The Kremlin").

St. Petersburg is sometimes called the Venice of the North or the Paris of the East and it was the primary destination of the trip. There were many excursions available. Many people toured a palace that was the summer residence of Catherine the Great, a czarina who ruled Russia for about 50 years. There was also a subway ride to a large market, followed by an afternoon tea at a museum restaurant. I did not take advantage of that but I did take a subway ride in Moscow that I neglected to mention in the prior story. The subway stations -- 500 feet below ground -- were immaculate . One of them had 72 beautiful statues along the station walls. A bit different than New York!

The most popular destination in St. Petersburg is The Hermitage, the best landmark in the city and one of the early IBM "e-businesses". There is no substitute for being there in person but the next best thing is to take a virtual tour. The physical tour encompasses a complex of 5 buildings that includes a palace, a very large art museum and galleries of jeweled artifacts that showed the opulence during the reigns of czars and czarinas. Another tour included the grounds of the Imperial Palace built by Peter the Great who ruled in the early 1700s. The palace is noted for the 156 elaborate fountains on the 2,000 acres of gardens.

The next to the last stop of the cruise was at Tallinn, the capitol of Estonia, formerly part of the USSR. Tallinn It is located on Estonia's north coast to the Baltic Sea, fifty miles south of Helsinki. In addition to being a really nice medieval city of a half-million people, Tallinn has spawned an information technology industry in recent years including Skype. After leaving the cobblestoned city center where a brass band had played a nice concert, I took a detour on the way back to the ship and found two geocaches, one near the port and one in the woods.

The final stop was a familiar one -- Oslo, where I go every ninety days or so for meetings at Opera Software, where I am a director. This time was not a business trip, however, and although we only had six hours in port, we were able to visit Vigeland Park and see the 212 sculptures that depict many human life stages in bronze and granite. The rain subsided and we were able to have a cup of coffee with a Norwegian friend before heading back to the ship and sailing back to Amsterdam and then on to New York.