Gotta love that AT&T

[Andonyx]

Giant US telco AT&T has patented a technique for bypassing a certain kind of spam filter.
Patent 6,643,686, granted on November 4 2003 and filed four years ago, details a "system and method for counteracting message filtering", which covers:
A system and method for circumventing schemes that use duplication detection to detect and block unsolicited e-mail (spam). An address on a list is assigned to one of m sublists, where m is an integer that is greater than one. A set of m different messages are created. A different message from the set of m different messages is sent to the addresses on each sublist. In this way, spam countermeasures based upon duplicate detection schemes are foiled.

http://theregister.co.uk/content/6/34035.html

[michaellee]

uh...are you sure they still are calling themselves A T & T? In my part of the woods, they proudly are named "Comcast". I think they meant "CONcast".

[Andonyx]

Originally posted by michaellee
uh...are you sure they still are calling themselves A T & T? In my part of the woods, they proudly are named "Comcast". I think they meant "CONcast".

I'm in Chicago.

I know the ISP wing of AT&T went to Comcast, but I thought their Long-Distance was still AT&T. At any rate the patent is filed under the Name of AT&T, so maybe it's a "Doing business as, type scenario."

[michaellee]

I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area. After renaming, their rates increased 20%. So I am thinking of changing my name, and increasing my rates by 20%. Oh that's right, I don't run a monopoly....

[bignickel]

Brilliant! So now we have the big boys doing their best to help clog up the Internet with information on nose trimmers, herbal viagra, and millions awaiting me in Nigerian bank accounts.

I can't understand why they would want to do this, unless it's part of a move to go after some other company years down the line who uses similar tech (and then shake them down).

Curiouser and curiouser...

[ShowMe]

Originally posted by bignickel
Brilliant! So now we have the big boys doing their best to help clog up the Internet with information on nose trimmers, herbal viagra, and millions awaiting me in Nigerian bank accounts.

I can't understand why they would want to do this, unless it's part of a move to go after some other company years down the line who uses similar tech (and then shake them down).

Curiouser and curiouser...

I read (no link, sorry...too lazy to find it again) that they want to patent the technology so they can sue spammers that use it to circumvent spam filters.