Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language 

Classification reviewed by Robert Pritchett  

Author: Jonathan A. Zdziarski 

http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/catalog/view/au/1861

No Starch Press 

555 De Haro St., Suite 250 

San Francisco, CA 94107 

1  800 420 7240 or 1 415 863 9900 

Fax: 415 863 9950 

info@nostarch.com

http://www.nostarch.com/

Booksite: 

http://www.nostarch.com/endingspam.htm

$40 USD, $54 CND,  28 Net UK,  35 Euro 

Published: July 2005 

Pages: 448 

ISBN: 1593270526 

For SPAM Geeks or wannabees. 

Strengths: Anti SPAM solutions for programmers. 

Weaknesses: None found. 

Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification by 

Jonathan A. Zdziarski goes soup to nuts with history, examples and concepts and algorithms 

used to counteract the nefarious (yes, nefarious!) activities of those who inundate us with 

unsolicited advertising for products we have no business ever buying. 

The book for the most part is built like a charcoal filtered water system. It guides us through the 

fine parts and pieces (statistical filtering) needed to reduce the flow without cutting off legitimate 

Email and drinkable water at the other end.  And Jonathan Zdziarski does a great job educating 

us on logic and thought taken to combat this SPAM blight on the Internet.  

Chapter 7 gets into problems, solutions and why they are important, what works, what does not 

and more importantly, why. 

He is interested in getting as close to 100% effectiveness as possible. Interested in tokenization, 

Bayesian analysis or Markovian discrimination?  It's all here. 

There are 3 Parts on filtering in 14 Chapters and one Appendix that gets into open source 

solutions including one the author has created (DSPAM). That Appendix is where the meat is 

closest to the bone. There is a process for beating back the hoards and this book provides the 

methods required to get there. 

  MPN, LLC 2005 macCompanion 

Page 30 

August 2005, Volume 3 Issue 8