How Bayesian spam filtering works

Tim Gaden — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 13:43:43 +0000

Feast your eyes on this little beauty:

This is Bayes’ formula. It is the maths behind the Bayesian filtering used by spam-catching apps like SpamSieve, SpamFire and JunkMatcher.

Process Software offers a lucid and racy explanation of how Bayes’ forumula works to keep spam out of your Inbox. You will be surprised how interesting it is. I was.

Apple Mail’s built-in Junk Filter uses a different process called “Latent Semantic Analysis”.

“Mail.app’s Junk Filter is not like the others” contains a number of links to explanations of LSA and how it differs from Bayesian filtering.spam, lsa, latent semantic analysis, bayesian filtering, junk filter, mail.app, apple mailSimilar Posts:

Mail.app’s Junk Filter is not like the others

Tim Gaden — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 15:44:09 +0000

Mail.app‘s Junk filter is not a Bayesian one like the spam catching technology in SpamSieve and many other spam-fighting apps. Instead it uses a technique called Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA).

I’ve blogged two excellent descriptions of the way this filter works in Apple Mail before, but today came across a third explanation with the imposing title, “Bayesian Nets, Latent Semantics, Despamming and other speculations”.

The post describes the differences between Bayesian and LSA and a whole lot more. It’s over two years old, but a good read and packed full of links to other resources on spam.

[via Paul's Time Sink.]spam, bayesian filtering, Latent Semantic Analysis, LSA, mail.app, apple mail, junk filterSimilar Posts:

Hawk Wings » bayesian filtering

How Bayesian spam filtering works

Mail.app’s Junk Filter is not like the others