Skype 3.0 Beta is Up

Skype 3.0 is also today's IT Blogwatch topic, and on the Ferris Research blog.

PC World Offers Dangerous Spam Advice

Meet Steve Bass. Steve blogs at pcworld.com. Watch Steve blog. Blog, Steve, blog. Steve just blogged a bunch of spam filtering resources. Unfortunately, his list is heavy on the challenge/response FUSSP meme. Ooops!

For the record, Choicemail's "unknown-sender registration" and the "bounce" features of MailSnoop and MailWasher are really terrible ideas. (Don't forget that the "sender" of spam is almost always forged.)

I do wish consumer-focused journalists like Steve wouldn't promote these features -- he'll get his readers blacklisted, causing their email not to go through.

Update: Steve has responded. (If you're looking for the debate between me and Jeff Hendrickson, click here to read the latest discussion and follow the link at the end.)

For more background, see:

• Spamcop's backscatter page
• Why Challenge/Response Is Bad
• Here We Go Again
• Another Anti-Spam Tool To Avoid