No Starch Releases "Ending Spam"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact:	Patricia Witkin
patricia@nostarch.com
415.863.9900

DEVELOPER OF DSPAM EXPLAINS TECHNOLOGY BEHIND SPAM FILTERING

"Ending Spam" answers critical questions for those who want to do more
than just delete unwanted messages

June 21, 2005, San Francisco--No Starch Press, publishers of the finest
in geek entertainment, has announced the release of "Ending Spam: Bayesian
Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical Language Classification" (No
Starch Press, July '05) by Jonathan Zdziarski. This important new title
describes, in-depth, how next-generation spam filters work to identify and
dispose of spam. It cracks open the "black box" to reveal the guts of spam
filtering techniques and will be a fascinating read for those writing next
generation spam filters, sys admins who need to implement them, gearheads
who need to satisfy their desire to know how things work, and, of course,
spammers who want insights into beating the filters.

"While other titles have explored the spam business and the personalities
involved, there hasn't been a book examining the technology being used on
the front lines to fight spam--until now," said William Pollock,
founder and president of No Starch Press. "Lots of computer professionals
and enthusiasts alike want and need to understand spam on a deeper
level."

Just as with spyware and viruses, there is a constant tug-of-war between
the spammers and those who seek to banish them. For each sneaky spammer
thwarted, there are countless others devising new and unbeaten ways of
penetrating your inbox. Fortunately, the open source community and many of
its seasoned hackers have developed new solutions using approaches rooted
in traditional mathematics. "Ending Spam" explains exactly how those spam
filtering techniques work.

Author Zdziarski maintains DSPAM, a high-profile spam filter hailed on
Slashdot and Wired News that is able to achieve levels of accuracy up to
99.985 percent. In "Ending Spam," he explains how spam filtering works and
how language classification and machine learning combine to produce
remarkably accurate spam filters. Readers will gain a complete
understanding of the mathematical approaches used in today's spam filters,
decoding, tokenization, the use of various algorithms (including Bayesian
analysis and Markovian discrimination), and the benefits of using
open-source solutions to end spam. Interviews with the creators of many of
the best spam filters (SpamProbe, Bogofilter, Death2Spam) provide further
insight into the anti-spam crusade.

Other topics covered include the many low-down dirty tricks spammers use
to push their spam into your inbox, the history of spam, the current state
of the market and a detailed examination of some of the most popular open
source spam filters and how to install/use them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jonathan A. Zdziarski has been fighting spam for eight years, and has
spent a significant portion of the past two years working on the next
generation spam filter DSPAM. His research in algorithmic theory and
neural networking has led to the development of many new approaches in
language classification, and he has played a key role in designing some
popular algorithms in use today, including Message Inoculation, Bayesian
Noise Reduction, and the first functional Neural Networking algorithm for
spam filters. Zdziarski lectures widely on the topic of spam and was a
speaker at the 2004 and 2005 MIT Spam Conference.

Ending Spam: Bayesian Content Filtering and the Art of Statistical
Language Classification by Jonathan A. Zdziarski
July 2005, 312 pp., $39.95, ISBN 1593270526
Available at fine bookstores everywhere, from www.oreilly.com/nostarch, or
directly from No Starch Press (www.nostarch.com, orders@nostarch.com,
800.420.7240).

No Starch Press titles are distributed throughout the U.S. by O'Reilly
Media.

ABOUT NO STARCH PRESS: Since 1994, No Starch Press has published the
finest in geek entertainment--unique books on technology, with a focus
on Open Source, security, hacking, programming, and alternative operating
systems. Our titles have personality, our authors are passionate, and our
books tackle topics that people care about. More information is available
at www.nostarch.com.

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