On Tuesday 07 October 2003 23:27, Alan Shutko wrote: > In my experience, still really, really good. I haven't been getting > any additional false possitives, and I haven't been missing any more > spam than normal.
I see. Well, I haven't read up on how the Bayesian filter works (though I have been studying quite a lot of Bayesian statistics in astronomy, I have friends who belong to the Bayesian school of thought in statistics rather than the more common frequentist), I haven't even read Paul Graham's paper. However, intuitively, you would have to use a finite number of characteristics to filter on, and characteristics are computed from ham and spam. Given the finite number of characteristics, if you used them to both classify spam and viruses, it will necessarily be less characteristics to classify either, and so, your statistics is less favourable, and therefore the probability of error increases. Obviously, my intuition may be wrong (that's when it starts getting interesting, usually), or the effect may be neglible. I'd love to see it studied and quantified, though... Allthough I might not have time to read it anyway... :-) Cheers, Kjetil -- Kjetil Kjernsmo Astrophysicist/IT Consultant/Skeptic/Ski-orienteer/Orienteer/Mountaineer [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage: http://www.kjetil.kjernsmo.net/ OpenPGP KeyID: 6A6A0BBC -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]