The requested URL /blog/?p=851 was not found on this server. Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.Can a spam filter work even without reading the content of your messages?Since last April, the messenger app has been successfully fighting spam abuse, even as it’s been using end-to-end encryption.That encryption means that no one -- not even WhatsApp -- can read the content of your messages, except for the recipient.More privacy, however, can raise issues about spam detection. If WhatsApp can’t scan your messages for suspicious content, say for advertisements peddling cheap Viagra, then how can it effectively filter them out?“In reality, we actually haven’t seen this as a big problem,” WhatsApp software engineer Matt Jones said on Wednesday. “We actually reduced spam by about 75 percent from around the time that we launched end-to-end encryption.”Its spam detection mechanisms work by looking at unusual behavior from users in real-time, Jones said while speaking at the USENIX Enigma 2017 conference.
For instance, WhatsApp will analyze how long a suspected spammer has been registered on WhatsApp or how many messages he has sent in the last 30 seconds. To detect what activity is possibly malicious, WhatsApp has been studying the behavior of spammers who've already been banned on the platform, Jones said. That’s helped WhatsApp learned their tricks of the trade. So it’ll be on the lookout for telltale patterns, such as evidence a bad actor was running a computer script to send out a flood of WhatsApp messages. The level of spam has fallen on WhatsApp since implementing end-to-end encryption. The app is also looking at the “reputation” of the internet and mobile providers powering the suspected spammer’s messages, Jones said. That includes examining the network and the phone numbers to determine if WhatsApp has routinely blocked other spammers from related sources in the past.In the fight against spam, WhatsApp also has a key advantage over platforms such as email.
To register, users need to provide the app a phone number. That can be a hassle for spammers. “If we make things expensive for [the spammers], their business model won’t work,” Jones said.Improbable scenarios, such as a user with a U.S. phone number suddenly connecting to an internet network in India, will also set off alarms, Jones said. But the spam detection isn’t perfect, he said, and it will result in mistakes. For example, users who are traveling internationally might be flagged.The messaging app also takes a strict stance on suspected offenders. Rather than try to filter out spam, it’ll block the account where the messages came from, Jones said.For spammers, that means a quick boot from the service. But for legitimate users, it can mean being unfairly banned and filing an appeal. However, the messaging app has been introducing new measures to cut down the incorrect user bans, Jones said. Join the TechWorld newsletter! Nvidia's new Quadro GP100 GPU brings NVLink to Windows computers
WIN a HTC Vive Kit valued at $1399, take this 3 minute survey for your chance to WIN! Answer 5 quick questions and you could win a Lego Mindstorm EV3, (valued at $499). Participate in this market research and go into the draw to win a Lego Death Star, (valued at $999).Science Fiction & Fantasy At the end of Revenge of the Sith we see this as one of the final scenes: We clearly see that the first Death Star has most of the super laser dish constructed and a lot of the reactor core and super structure is in place. However, in Rogue One, we see this: This is the Death Star that we've come to know and love in A New Hope, so what is with the discrepancies between them? Was the one in Revenge of the Sith just a prototype, was the dish a placeholder and the real one was put back in? Same Death Star, different dishes Pablo Hidalgo was asked about the dish on Twitter, and he replies cryptically but intelligibly: @LucasACox1 In RotS, the death star has the laser dish already.in rogue one, it's being installed.
@pablohidalgo I'll just leave it at this: The laser dish in Rogue One is the one that works. There are multiple confirmations that they're the same station, rather than one being a prorotype: Hidalgo has said multiple times on Twitter that the Death Star itself took twenty years to get functional, not to build; @pablohidalgo There's one specific part that took years to perfect. It's not like it took 19 years to build the whole thing. Even as the Clone Wars raged, the Death Star secretly took shape in space above Geonosis. Access to the former Separatist world was restricted, with very few in the Imperial hierarchy allowed to know about the battle station’s construction. The canon novel Catalyst (the prequel novel to Rogue One) depicts a continuous construction process from 21 to 17 years before A New Hope, and the novel Tarkin indicates that the construction was still ongoing by 14 years before the film. It's hard to provide evidence for this without citing most of Catalyst, so you're going to have to trust me.
Whether the original dish was a placeholder or not is unclear, but Hidalgo's implication is absolutely clear: the dish we see at the end of Revenge of the Sith is non-functional (or, at least, non-properly-functional), but the one in Rogue One actually works. I don't think the dish is being "installed" as much as repositioned or configured. It could just be in the middle of positioning for maintenance, calibration or aiming. Moreover, I would imagine that being able to remove or at least create a space to work behind it would be important to its development. But here's a little more context around the dish's use and capabilities from Catalyst: The plan, in any case, called for assembling the dish in space and maneuvering it by tug and tractor beam into the gargantuan well that had been framed into the sphere’s upper hemisphere—the dimple, as some referred to it. The parabolic dish also had to be engineered to telescope away from the hull to facilitate the aiming of the composite beam proton superlaser some of the Special Weapons scientists were proposing.