Re: So here it is one year later...

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Dean Anderson writes:
> On Fri, 28 Jan 2005, Dean Anderson wrote:
> > 
> > As you see, spam + ham does not add up to overall.  Its not clear what
> > these statistics mean, nor how they were calculated.  But your
> > interpretation is clearly either wrong or at least not supported by the
> > page.
> 
> Sorry to reply to my own post, but there is another point I forgot: when
> dealing with a very sample from a very small domain, that deals with a
> limited part of the internet, E.G. a domain with relatively few people who
> develop SPF, and who therefore exchange disproportionately more mail with
> other SPF users, then their email statistics on SPF usage will also be
> skewed.  In other words, this is not a random sample.
> 
> One needs to get better sample from someplace that doesn't particularly 
> cater to SPF email users, and interacts more broadly with the internet.

FWIW, those figures come from contributors at 5 different sites.  It's not
just one domain.  Some are not even spam filter developers. ;)

Ciphertrust's figures are also biased -- their customers in turn will be a
certain cross-section of email users, rather than "truly representative"
of the internet at large.

I don't think anyone has yet come up with a way to get a hand-classified
sample that can reflect everyone's use of email...

- --j.
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