Abstract

Spam is an annoyance familiar to most Internet users. As the amount of spam increases, many users receive more spam than legitimate email. Spammers change spam structure and spamming techniques because of filter deployment and spam filters change to detect newer spam. This project studies how spam and a popular filter called SpamAssassin have evolved over a two year period. This study reveals that SpamAssassin's effectiveness has not substantially changed over time as both it and spam have evolved.

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• Complete report: pdf (1.1 MB)

See also:

• Joe Chiarella and Jason O'Brien. An Analysis of Spam Filters. Major Qualifying Project MQP-CEW-0203, Computer Science Department, Spring 2003. (Advisors Mark Claypool and Craig Wills) Online at: /~claypool/mqp/spam/