Sudoku may save us from spam sudoku fights spam Tricky
mathematical puzzles like Sudoku could be the next weapon in the
fight against spam, an Australian computer scientist suggests.
Paul Gardner-Stephen from Flinders University in Adelaide is
looking for ways to improve existing spam filters, which try to
prevent unwanted email from getting to your inbox. "The trouble
is that they're not entirely accurate, so you still get some
spam in your inbox and some real mail gets bounced," he says.
His idea is to supplement existing filters with an automatic
system that requires mail servers to solve a mathematical puzzle
if they want their message to reach you. Gardner-Stephen is due
to describe the system at a meeting of the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers in Adelaide this week. He
also publishes his paper on the arXiv website. First, the mail
server computer that receives your email would use an existing
spam filter to decide how likely it is that an incoming message
is spam. If it looks suspect,