back to article Microsoft researchers build spam filter for HIV

Researchers at Microsoft have discovered that tools first developed to fight email spam can be applied in helping to understand how the process by which HIV mutates to avoid attack by the immune system. Microsoft Researchers David Heckerman and Jonathan Carlson were asked to help AIDS researchers in Africa to make sense of …

COMMENTS

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  1. JDX Gold badge

    MS to save the world?

    Take that Torvalds!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I wonder...

      ... what a BSOD looks like on a human being.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Vic

      Re: MS to save the world?

      I'll believe it when I see full publication of results happening before the patent application...

      Vic.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I know they're far from the only ones

    But it's nice to hear big companies using their considerable resources for the greater good sometimes :-)

    1. Rob Crawford

      I am aware that it's not permit to give MS credit for anything, but it does warm my cold little heart to hear of of companies doing something useful with their assets & staff

  3. craigj

    Microsoft's algorithms were useful in understanding the mutation of HIV

    I knew they had to be useful for something, because they don't stop the spam I receive daily

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Spamcop

      If it offers any consolation, I managed to completely automate Spamcop spam submissions from spamtraps and high scoring spam, while also going to spam@uce.gov and coldrain.net, my rbl and firewall.

      At around 2-3,000 messages per day it's a drop in the ocean, but it gives some satisfaction.

      Given that only 1 or 2 spams survive, which are then reported manually, I'm really wondering why the scum still bothers.

      Even with spamcop sending billions of alerts to ISPs, the vast majority of them do sod all.

      It's high time for some laws with teeth.

      1. Franklin

        "Given that only 1 or 2 spams survive, which are then reported manually, I'm really wondering why the scum still bothers."

        'Cause it pays. Even a vanishingly small rate of return is still profitable when you aren't paying any expenses to speak of. And the number of folks dumb enough to believe that if they send a bunch of Russian mobsters their credit card number, they will actually get Viagra from Canada in return is surprisingly high.

        "Even with spamcop sending billions of alerts to ISPs, the vast majority of them do sod all."

        'Cause it pays. Abuse teams at ISPs not only don't generate revenue, they COST revenue. ISPs make money from hosting sites, irrespective of what the content of those sites may be. They have a powerful financial incentive to support spammers. Some of that money going to the Russians also ends up in the ISP's pocket, so why would they do anything about it?

  4. JDX Gold badge

    Maybe they should talk to Google

    Would you take a vaccine from MS... no chance of a hotifx!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Now...

    ...if they could only find a way to GIVE the Spammers HIV...they just might have something there.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Great idea

      Microsoft with an HIV-injecting app, what a wonderful thought.

      That would make every Patch Tuesday a highly exciting game of russian roulette - with all of Western Civilization under the gun. Oh, and a lot of China as well.

      Note : the icon is sarcastic.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    "developing therapies and possible vaccines"

    What are the odds the vaccines will be shelved in favour of lucrative lifetime drug therapies?

    /tinfoilhat off

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about..

    All those PS3's just sitting there unused most of the time?

    Sony should offer an "Adopt-a-PS3" or takeback scheme, send in your old broken console in any condition including numerous fragments and get a new one for less money.

    AC/DC

  8. Brian Hall
    Alien

    "Instead of trying to every possible variable and possible correlations the reapplied spam filtering algorithm created the basis of a more elegant search. "

    Thangkew, Yoda. Much English speaking you don't?

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