Spam Filter Geared to Handle HIV, Soon

Inventor of Microsoft's spam filter perceives that the principle operating to keep spam out of inboxes can as well work to keep the AIDS virus at bay.

David Heckerman, who is a doctor apart from being a Microsoft researcher, shifted his attention from protecting email systems to protecting body systems, and has been working for the past seven years to prepare an HIV vaccine.

AIDS Virus is Barred from Several Areas of Genes
In a major development, scientists of the German Cancer Research Center have now shown that the AIDS virus almost entirely spares particular sites in the human genetic material.

"We have an adversarial situation going on between spam filters trying to block the spam and the spammers changing and mutating," the Age quoted him as saying.

"And in the case of HIV, we have the immune system fighting the virus and HIV mutating to try to get through," he said.

According to him, the key to fighting spam and HIV is the same - find the part that absolutely can't mutate - what he calls the Achilles' heel - and attack there.

People With HIV Dementia Harbor Distinct AIDS Viruses in Cerebrospinal Fluid
Research has shown that when the HIV infects the central nervous system, it can lead to the development of a severe neurological disease called HIV-associated dementia (HAD).

"It mutates a lot, but it can't mutate to where it stops functioning... if it does do that, we win," he said.

The work now is to find the point up to which the virus can mutate, and beyond which it will die.

No More Spam SMS, Thanks to SMSAssassin
There is a reason to rejoice for cell phone users, thanks to the ingenuity of technology wizards from the capital of India, we can now boast of a software.

Herckerman and his team are crunching enormous amounts of data with the help of thousands of computers in order to find clues to where that point may be.

"I think it is a solvable problem, but we have a lot of work left to do... But I'm working on this every day, and I'm hopeful," he said.

Spam Emails Claiming Celeb Deaths Spreading Virus, Invisible Spyware Online
Internet security experts have warned that a number of spam emails claiming death of A-list celebrities actually contain a virus or invisible spyware.

Source-ANI