Ending SPAM: Mini Book Review (90%/20%)

Summary
Those wanting indepth knowledge on SPAM – 90%
Those wanting help setting up a SPAM filter – 20%

Review
The full title of the book, “Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification,” gives you a pretty strong indication that this book is going to provide a depth of information.

Which stage you’re at with your ‘war on SPAM’ will dictate if this is book is a God-send or if it will leave you drowning in information.

If you’re just wanting to install something for your mail system to eliminate SPAM, this isn’t the book for you – you’ll have to wade through large amount of information, only to find that it doesn’t go into that much detail in that area.

However, if your running a complex mail system and want to know how SPAMmers actually write SPAM and therefore how you can organise an effective defence, it should be right up your street.

The book is organised into three parts – Introduction to Spam filtering; the Fundamentals of Statistical Filtering; and the third, Advanced Concepts of Statistical Filtering.

The appendix (Shining Examples of Filtering) explains some of the programs out there, how they work and interviews with the authors.

This is a technical book and more a study of the various techniques Spammers use and how to identify those techniques and the SPAM itself.

The author is convinced that advanced statistical filtering can always keep ahead of spammers, which is probably true, if only users and ISPs ensure they keep their software up to date which is more of a problem.

Conclusion
If you just want to eliminate SPAM, download some software, install it and keep it up to date. You don’t need this book.

If you really want to know what SPAM is, how to classify it and then make sensible decisions based on those classifications, then your not going to find yourself wanting with this book.

Summary
Those wanting indepth knowledge on SPAM – 90%
Those wanting help setting up a SPAM filter – 20%

ISBN 1-59327-052-6
NoStarch Press
Jonathon A. Zdziarkski