Time for a Smile

Book review: An Innkeeper's Discretion This collection of stories about guests who stayed at Woodhaven Country Lodge ranges from humorous to poignant, with non-judgmental sensitivity to varied lifestyle choices. David is an excellent storyteller, whether he's recounting the care, feeding, and capture of an armed robber; a visit by guests who don't leave home without their pet ducks; or coping with the illness and death of his same-sex spouse. David is now hard at work on Volume II, scheduled for publication in May, 2004. He invites all innkeepers to submit tales of unusual guests; if he selects your story for publication, he'll send you five free copies and acknowledge your submission at the back of the book. To order, send a money order payable to David McKinstry for $11.25 in U.S. funds ($14 Canadian) to cover book, taxes, shipping. Contact information: David McKinstry, 29 Taylor's Road, RR#2, Little Britain, Ontario, K0M 2C0; 705-786-0762, or e-mail woodhaven@sympatico.ca.

Travel Trends

Predictions on the future of spam: Filters are making spam messages harder and harder to decipher, according to George Johnson's article in the New York Times To evade the filtering software, he notes, text messages are littered with intentional typos, turning them from sales messages into gibberish. Here's a recent example:

"To: Sandy@BedandBreakfast.com
Subject: u this damn fatty, becareful

Dyapex will bring you fasster results while at the same time giving you moree energy and a better mood. You can lossee up to 3-7 pounds EVERY WEEK! You can't go wrong with the dieet patch, the weiight drops off fast and without any work on your part.

While I won't deny my need to drop a few pounds, who would respond to such a message?

As Johnson explains: "Measured in bits and bytes, the sheer volume of spam may not have diminished. But advanced filtering software, which learns to recognize the mercurial traits of junk e-mail, is having an effect. The spammers' messages are becoming harder and harder to decipher."

At the recent MIT 2004 Spam Conference, Johnson reports: "For all the recent talk of suing spammers and compiling a national do-not-spam list, most speakers were putting their hopes in technological, not legal solutions. The federal government's new junk e-mail law, the Can Spam Act, barely rated a mention." An alternative opinion came from Eric Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative. According to Wired News, he said that a "technology that recognizes legitimate senders may prove more efficient at curtailing spam than existing filters, which only work on messages that have been downloaded to servers and PCs."

Meanwhile, back at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Bill Gates also focused on identifying the sender, according to Paul Geitner, AP Business Writer: "Gates said Microsoft, is working on a solution based on the concept of 'proof,' or identifying the sender of the e-mail. Of the several spam-blocking methods available, Gates said that 'the most promising was a method that would hit the sender of an e-mail in the pocketbook. People would set a level of monetary risk -- low or high, depending on their choice -- for receiving e-mail from strangers. If the e-mail turns out to be from a long-lost relative, for example, the recipient would charge nothing. But if it is unwanted spam, the sender would have to fork over the cash.'"

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