Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Email services and users are constantly trying to find a better way to filter out spam.  The current word filtering isn’t too bad, but spammers have found easy ways around them.  There might be a new way of figuring out which messages are spam, and which are not, all relying on the time they come in.

A new study from Northwestern University and Yahoo Research shows that it’s possible to determine who sends out email at which times.  According to the study, there are two distinct groups of people who send out emails, those who send email during working hours, and those of us who send email from the moment they wake up to the minute they go to sleep. 

Most people tend not to stray from their standard pattern very often.  Spam sent by bots, however, tends to have irregular patterns, which can potentially indicate to filters that the emails are in fact spam.  It could even lead to potential notification by the email provider to end users that their accounts are being used to send out spam.

The study also goes on to point out that there are particular usage patterns of the Internet in general that could be used to the advantage of other websites.  Sites could use the usage patterns of their visitors to better determine who to market to.  It’s an interesting idea, and one that could possibly help Google AdSense determine what it’s users want to see.  In addition to using the small cookies introduced back in March to track interests, perhaps it could also use time stamps to help determine what to market to each individual person.

Read [Wired]