or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification
 
See larger image
 
Tell the Publisher!
I'd like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification [Paperback]

Jonathan Zdziarski (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

List Price: $39.95
Price: $30.36 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save: $9.59 (24%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Only 3 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).
Want it delivered Monday, January 30? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Book Description

July 1, 2005

Join author John Zdziarski for a look inside the brilliant minds that have conceived clever new ways to fight spam in all its nefarious forms. This landmark title describes, in-depth, how statistical filtering is being used by next-generation spam filters to identify and filter unwanted messages, how spam filtering works and how language classification and machine learning combine to produce remarkably accurate spam filters.

After reading Ending Spam, you'll have a complete understanding of the mathematical approaches used by today's spam filters as well as decoding, tokenization, various algorithms (including Bayesian analysis and Markovian discrimination) and the benefits of using open-source solutions to end spam. Zdziarski interviewed creators of many of the best spam filters and has included their insights in this revealing examination of the anti-spam crusade.

If you're a programmer designing a new spam filter, a network admin implementing a spam-filtering solution, or just someone who's curious about how spam filters work and the tactics spammers use to evade them, Ending Spam will serve as an informative analysis of the war against spammers.

TOC Introduction

PART I: An Introduction to Spam Filtering Chapter 1: The History of Spam Chapter 2: Historical Approaches to Fighting Spam Chapter 3: Language Classification Concepts Chapter 4: Statistical Filtering Fundamentals

PART II: Fundamentals of Statistical Filtering Chapter 5: Decoding: Uncombobulating Messages Chapter 6: Tokenization: The Building Blocks of Spam Chapter 7: The Low-Down Dirty Tricks of Spammers Chapter 8: Data Storage for a Zillion Records Chapter 9: Scaling in Large Environments

PART III: Advanced Concepts of Statistical Filtering Chapter 10: Testing Theory Chapter 11: Concept Identification: Advanced Tokenization Chapter 12: Fifth-Order Markovian Discrimination Chapter 13: Intelligent Feature Set Reduction Chapter 14: Collaborative Algorithms

Appendix: Shining Examples of Filtering

Index


Frequently Bought Together

Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification + SpamAssassin: A Practical Guide to Integration and Configuration + SpamAssassin
Price For All Three: $87.87

Show availability and shipping details

Buy the selected items together
  • In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details

  • SpamAssassin: A Practical Guide to Integration and Configuration $34.72

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    This item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details

  • SpamAssassin $22.79

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Editorial Reviews

Review

A highly recommended read for anyone in charge of controlling spam in a corporate environment. -- Midwest Book Review, September 2005 (http://www.midwestbookreview.com/mbw/sep_05.htm)

Does a good job of addressing advanced, complicated issues, but putting it in terms that readers can grasp. -- Netsecurity.about.com, August 29, 2005, http://netsecurity.about.com/od/5/fr/aabrendspam.htm

Does a great job educating us on logic and thought taken to combat this SPAM blight on the Internet. -- MacCompanion, August 2005, 5 out of 5 stars

Highly recommended read for anyone in charge of controlling spam in a corporate environment [and] on their own system. -- Readers Preference, readerspreference.com/reviews/endingspam.html

IT managers who want a better understanding of how anti-spam products work should shell out the $39.95 price at once. -- eWeek, July 25, 2005

If you’re looking for a primer on how the anti-spam battle is fought, you can’t do much better. -- InfoWorld, July 14, 2005,

Leads the charge against what has become a very significant challenge to both productivity and sanity -- Book News, September 2005 (http://www.booknews.com/issues/sci-current.pdf)

Not only enjoyable but actually captivating. -- Linux Magazine, October 2005 (http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/59/Book_Reviews.pdf)

The first book explaining the fine details of the theoretical models and machine-learning algorithms implemented in these filters. -- Slashdot, August 15, 2005

This book is down, and dirty, loaded with information, and will make your head-hurt (in a good way). -- MyMac, August 29, 2005, mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2074

About the Author

Jonathan Zdziarski is better known as the hacker "NerveGas" in the iOS development community. His work in cracking the iPhone helped lead the effort to port the first open source applications to it, and his book iPhone Open Application Development taught developers how to write applications for the popular device long before Apple introduced its own SDK. Jonathan is also the author of many other books, including iPhone SDK Application Development and iPhone Forensics. Jonathan presently supports over 2,000 law enforcement agencies worldwide and distributes a suite of iOS forensic imaging tools to obtain evidence from iOS devices for criminal cases. He frequently consults and trains law enforcement agencies and assists forensic examiners in their investigations.

Jonathan is also a full-time Sr. Forensic Scientist, where, among other things, he performs penetration testing of iOS applications for corporate clients.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 312 pages
  • Publisher: No Starch Press; 1 edition (July 1, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1593270526
  • ISBN-13: 978-1593270520
  • Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,413,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

 

Customer Reviews

15 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Actually quite entertaining, July 16, 2005
This review is from: Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification (Paperback)
The sub-title of this scared me a bit, because it sounds like heavy geek territory. A review of chapter titles raised my eyebrows a too: "Fifth Order Markovian Discrimination" - I visualized page after page of unintelligible mathematical symbols.

That's not the case at all. Actually Markovian Discrimination is a technique I've used in other programming efforts, and the author explains it in simple and entertaining language. There's nothing here that any competent programmer can't grasp.

I'm a little hesitant to call this book entertaining, although it absolutely is. I only hesitate because that might give the impression that it's more fluff than substance, and that's not the case at all. There's a lot of substance here, both in theory and in practical advice. And although the subject is definitely spam, some of the techniques and methods discussed here apply to other programming challenges as well.

The first part of the book is especially enjoyable. It's a history of spam, and I learned things I hadn't known before about spam's early days. It then segues into analysis; in a sense you get desert before the meat and potatoes.

Overall, worth reading, even by non-programmers wanting to understand more about what current anti-spam efforts are all about.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent discussion of spam, July 30, 2005
This review is from: Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification (Paperback)
Author Jonathan A. Zdziarski starts this book by giving the reader a history of Spam as well as the historical approaches to fighting Spam. This is followed by a very practical guide for the serious Spam fighter; including details on statistical filtering, tokenization, Markovian discrimination, and Bayesian filtering. Although it is very technical in many respects most readers should be able to comprehend the text if they read carefully. Readers who already understand the basics of filtering and email analysis will find it both easy and educational to read.

The author includes an excellent section on spammer tricks and how they get past fileters as well as what to do about it. This section alone makes the book worth the price. Ending Spam is a highly recommended read for anyone in charge of controlling spam in a corporate environment as well as on their own system.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Nice overview ... but leaves you wanting more, September 18, 2005
By 
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification (Paperback)
Ending Spam from Mr. Zdziarski is a well written BASIC and easy to understand INTRODUCTION to get a technical overview of todays spam fighting solutions on the market.

Also it is written on the cover that it is f.e focused towards developers, network admins etc. I would consider the target customer to be IT Managers, or other curious people who want to get an overview.

Thats what it does and it does it very well in my eyes.
The book provides simplified, abstract overviews of some available spam filters solutions.

The book is provided into 3 parts

- An Introduction part to spam filtering (Chapter 1-4)
- A part describing "Fundamentals of Statistical Filtering" (Chapter 5-9)
- an the third part describing "Advanced Concepts of Statistical Filtering" (Chapter 10-14)

Its a bit confusing that Chapter 4 has the same title than Part II. So perhaps Chapter 4 should have been part of "Part II" ?

The Chapters which I found most interesting were:

Chapter 4 "Fundamentals of Statistical Filtering"
Chapter 7 "The Low down dirty Tricks of spammers"
Chapter 9 "Scaling in Large Environments"

I am sure the author could have easily filled the book with Chapter 7 alone. The book is very entertaining and has a nice motivating writing style. You might at times find some rant about the spammers which I have chosen to ignore as it doesnt contain any valuable information or anything which I didnt know already. While I might agree to some of the authors views, I believe that the rant does unfortunately do exactly the opposite in my eyes and does give spammers credit to how they do their work.

I personally was actually looking for a companion book to "The Book of Postfix" to help me further explore new anti spam technology.
I was hoping to find overview charts, being able to compare different solutions,features, (dis)advantages. So in this sense, I was actually looking for workshop style instructions, tuning advice, troubleshooting advice etc.

The authors does explain f.e (Chapter 14) Collaborative Algorithms but he does not go into detail which products support the feature and how to perform the setup. He does provide some weblinks in his book from which the interested reader might further investigate the topic.

From reading the Chapter10 on "Testing Theory" its easier to conclude why the author doesnt go into more detail. If he would have done so, the book could have been easily 2-3 times the size.

I assume, this is partly due to the fact that the anti spam technology /products/market is still fairly young .


Summary:

"Ending Spam" gives a very BASIC INTRODUCTION to the current available Anti spam technology and some chosen products. After you have read the book you have a first vague idea what type of solutions exist. You will actually need other books to intensify the "knowledge" you have gained here.

The fact that the book is written in simple terms makes it easily acessable for a wide market, however if you are a technichian you will perhaps find that the book just doesnt contain enough "meat" for you.

I would still recommend the book for Managers which need to know only the rough details, beginners, or a first time read for newcomers.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews











Only search this product's reviews



Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 

Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   



So You'd Like to...



Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject