On Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:14:52 +0200 mouss <mo...@ml.netoyen.net> wrote:
> RW wrote: > > The term false-positive can apply to any test. A test for ham > > that matches a spam is a false-positive, it's a matter of context. > > spam too can be (re)defined. and actually any term. but it is assumed > here that we talk about spam detection. so false negative means "miss" > and false positive means "false alarm". this is the common terminology > inherited from intrusion detection. The term comes from statistics, not intrusion detection. I don't know much about the latter, perhaps people in that field are a little sloppy in their usage, more likely all the tests are expressed as tests for intrusion, so the same kind of issue doesn't arise. The source of your confusion is that you are mixing-up the terminology of the overall classification and individual test results. Think of this way, in a fingerprint comparison the meanings of TP, TN, FP and FN are obvious and intrinsic to the test, it would be absurd to switch them around depending on whether it's evidence for the defence or prosecution.
