November 27, 2008, 3:46 AM — Bayesian filtering is one of the most effective and intelligent solutions to combat spam email nowadays. Spam is a problem faced by all email users and it shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon; in fact, the number of spam emails is increasing daily. Added to this, spammers are becoming more sophisticated and are constantly managing to outsmart ’static’ methods of fighting spam.
The techniques currently used by most anti-spam software are static, meaning that spammers simply examine the latest anti-spam filtering techniques and find ways how to dodge them, usually done by simply tweaking the message a little.
This gave anti spam developers a new challenge - come up with a new anti spam technique; one that was familiar with spammers’ tactics as they change over time, and one that is able to adapt to the particular organization that it is protecting from spam. The answer lay in Bayesian mathematics leading to a technique known as Bayesian filtering. More info on Bayesian spam filtering
