Those of us plagued by the onslaught of tens if not hundreds of unwanted emails greeting us as we open up our email accounts have some hope for respite in the form of Bayesian spam filters. For years spammers have been able to remain one step ahead of spam blockers simply because of their creativity and ability to adjust and evade blocking each time a new spam filter was developed. As a result, antispam software developers were certain of the task before them; to develop software that could continually learn from the new and creative techniques of spammers and as a result never fall behind in the spam blocking game.
Only recently, has such a solution been developed in the form of Bayesian filters. The Bayesian statistical method, upon which the filters are based, works on the premise of dividing emails into categories. The software takes a log of the emails which you choose to open and those you simply delete. All the while, it monitors the characteristics of both those emails you opened and those you did not. Over time, it learns from these aggregate figures. It will recognize certain words that appear frequently in those emails which you constantly ignore. The...