What is SpamBayes?
SpamBayes is a tool used to segregate unwanted mail (spam) from the mail you want (ham). Before SpamBayes can be your spam filter of choice you need to train it on representative samples of email you receive. After it’s been trained, you use SpamBayes to classify new mail according to its spamminess and hamminess qualities. It’s best to train on recent email, because your interests and the nature of what spam looks like change over time. When SpamBayes filters your email, it compares each unclassified message against the information it saved from training and makes a decision about whether it thinks the message qualifies as ham or spam, or if it’s unsure about how to classify the message. It then adds its classification to the message, either by adding a header (X-Spambayes-Classification: spam|ham|unsure), modifying the To: or Subject: headers, or adding a “Spam” field to the message. Depending on which SpamBayes application you are using, it may then filter this message for you, or y
Spambayes is a tool used to segregate unwanted mail (spam) from the mail you want (ham). Before Spambayes can be your spam filter of choice you need to train it on representative samples of email you receive. After it’s been trained, you use Spambayes to classify new mail according to its spamminess and hamminess qualities. To train Spambayes (which you don’t need to do if you’re going to be using the POP3 proxy to classify messages, but you’ll get better results from the outset if you do) you need to save your incoming email for awhile, segregating it into two piles, known spam and known ham (ham is our nickname for good mail). It’s best to train on recent email, because your interests and the nature of what spam looks like change over time. Once you’ve collected a fair portion of each (anything is better than nothing, but it helps to have a couple hundred of each), you can tell Spambayes, “Here’s my ham and my spam”. It will then process that mail and save information about different
