More on Bayesian Spam Filtering

michaeld writes "The "Bayesian" techniques for spam filtering recently publicized in Paul Graham's essay A Plan for Spam doesn't actually seem to have anything Bayesian about it, according to Gary Robinson (an expert on collaborative filtering). It is based on a non-Bayesian probabilistic approach. It works well enough, because it is frequently the case that technology doesn't have to be 100% perfect in order to do something that really needs to be done. The problem interested Robinson, and he posted his thoughts about trying to fix the problems in the Graham approach, including adding an actual Bayesian element to the calculations."

Comments

What happened to IBM/Redhat Article

[bashly]

Sudden change of agenda?

Re:Mmmm, I wouldn't try it

[frovingslosh]

Actually, he did have an open relay, he just wants to hide behind a lame claim that it wasn't open because the spammer had to lie to use it! Imagine that, a spammer lying. He was a lawyer, and we know they never lie ;-). IMHO he got a lot less punishment than he deserved.

And what was the reported problem he cried about? Not an overload on his network, that was not his complaint. But his domain name being blacklisted. With good reason, IMHO. He was running a server that spammers used, and could even see this when the people he invited to test his system got right in. He then claimed they misused his system because they gave a false name and suggested he should sue them!

Maybe this guy was just too stupid to block a port on an incoming firewall to keep the outside mail server users out. It seems unlikely though, particularly if he had the ability to set up a mail server (supposedly for the use of his own local network). It sounded more to me like there was a good chance he knew exactly what he was doing and wanted to set up a server for spamming, and was blowing smoke when he got black holed.

Getting black holed will not be a problem for a dummy server that never actually sends mail (the black hole people are not out there port scanning like the spammers are). Even if your dummy mail server were to be blacklisted, so what? That in no way would affect your normal e-mail that you send through your service provider.