Re: address@hidden: Evaluating bsf as a GNU project]

[Cristian Gutierrez]

Error log for Alvaro Herrera; dumped on Wed, Jul 02, 2003 at 04:31:35PM -0400:
> On Wed, Jul 02, 2003 at 03:56:00PM -0400, Cristian Gutierrez wrote:
> > Hello boys!
> > 
> > Check this out... :)
> 
> This is really nice.  I'd love to be the author of a GNU package... hey,
> we'd be better than Gonzalo Navarro, who wanted to make his nr-grep the
> next version of GNU grep (I dunno if he succeeded) :-D

Yeah, I've heard of that (wasn't one of their undergrad thesis students
[aka SLAVES] doing precisely that?. Let's hurry up, then! :)


> 
> _However_ I think we have to improve the software _A_LOT_ before it's
> "ready to be a GNU package".  I can put some effort after my final
> report for cc69f is done, maybe in two weeks.  I'd be really ashamed
> to put a lousy package on GNU.

I agree. I don't even believe that it's probably going to be approved in
its current state... although I think they're actually more committed to
check the disclaimer, licenses of requiered packages and other legal
stuff rather than performing a complete QA process... ;-)

BTW, I shall inform you that I've re-trained the version Ricardo
currently has installed in anakena (dunno about version number, *sigh*),
with my 47 MiB legit and 26 MiB spam e-mails mailboxes (took an entire
night in a 1GHz PIII), and I've happily saw an entire day of no false
positives and just _one_ false negative (of about 10 legit and 20 spam
emails).

The one that made it through the filter uses an html-comment obfuscation
technique, so their triggering words are efectively masked. See an
example:

A<!,A n3[FAi9,,0n,$[SF0,S>s se<!,A n3[FAi9,,0n,$[SF0,S>en on
N<!xxcgeymabxvigksg icmhngaaqulet>B<!xxcgeymabxvigksgicmhngaaqulet>C,
C<!xxcgeymabxvigksgicmhngaaqul et>B<!xxcgeymabxvigksgicmhngaaqulet>S,
C<!xxcgeymabxvigksgicmhngaaqulet>N<!xxcge ymabxvigksgicmhngaaqulet>N,
and even O<!xxcgeymabxvigksgicmhngaaqulet>p<!xxcgeym
abxvigksgicmhngaaqulet>rah.<br>

It's actually rendered as: "As seen on NBC, CBS, CNN an even Oprah."
(don't even ask what has been seen so much, is quite embarassing to
describe!)

So I guess we fell short with this implementation (dunno about Aldrin's
improved one). As you may already guess, this is easily fixed using an
actual text-only HTML renderer (rather than removing the HTML part and
hoping there is a text-only one), like "lynx -dump". But we also know
that it's certainly a too heavy dependancy on other piece of
software... so, what Perl modules are we left with? HTML::Parser or
something alike?

Like Alvaro, in about 2 weeks I'll be also more available to the project
(and to the rest of my life, indeed). It may be convenient to have a
'light' meeting within this period to discuss further development lines,
so when we have enough time on our hands we can use it effectively. Any
suggestions about this?

Glad to see the project alive again! :-)

Cheers!

-- 
Cristian Gutierrez                                 Linux user #298162
address@hidden           http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~crgutier

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students
that have had prior exposure to BASIC; as potential programmers they are
mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." -- Dijkstra