Ending Spam

Bayesian Content Filtering and The Art of Statistical Language Classification

Spam is the scourge of email. Estimated claim that anywhere from 50% to 85% of the email zipping around the Internet is actually spam and spam has joined forces with other malicious software to propagate worms, phishing scams and other nasty things. Jonathan Zdziarski's book, Ending Spam, helps to shed some light on methods and techniques that can be used to end the blight of spam on your email inbox.

About The Book

Ending Spam is not overwhelmingly thick. The complexity of the sub-title (Bayesian Content Filtering AND The Art Of Statistical Language Classification) might scare some people off though.

Opening the book and reading the Table of Contents isn't much more inviting. Chapter 6 has a section called "Tokenizing a Heuristic Function" and Chapter 12 is titled "Fifth-Order Markovian Discrimination".

Still, while the book may not be right for "Joe User" sitting at his home computer just trying to figure out how to use email, it is not quite as complicated as some of the titles and sections make it sound.

Jonathan Zdziarski is a well-known expert in spam fighting. He maintains the DSPAM filter which is up to 99.985% accurate in detecting and filtering unwanted spam.

There are some math functions in the book and some lengthy talk of algorithms, but overall the book is written in terms and at a level that those with some computer experience, particularly those tasked with administering networks or email systems, should have no problem comprehending.

My Review

I am not an anti-spam expert and I don't speak fluent Bayesian, so a book like this needs to be written down to my level in order for it to make any sense at all. Jonathan Zdziarksi does a good job of addressing advanced, complicated issues, but putting it in terms that readers with an ounce of computer knowledge and experience can grasp.

The first few chapters of the book, possibly too much of the book, are devoted to an overview of the history of spam and the traditional techniques used to detect and filter spam. It is a good overview and helps to provide some foundation, but readers trying to learn Bayesian filtering or Markovian discrimination should probably already have an understanding of the essential concepts of spam.

Overall, I think this is a very good book. It is written with a style and content that is not so simplistic that you can't learn anything from it, and yet not so complex that you can''t learn anything from it either.

Spam blocking is essential in order for email to remain a viable form of communication. Getting 100% spam-blocking is virtually impossible as one person's spam is another's legitimate email, but reading Zdziarski's book wil definitely put you on the right track.