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False Positive -was- RE: [Asrg] Fwd: Returned mail: see transcript for details

2003-03-31 20:00:40
I hope this message leads to some consensus.  I think, unless there is a more 
concise or particularly innovative way to look at it, it looks like a good 
definition for false positive to me (as well as false negative and the s:n) 
 Some one put a pointer to this message !-)

On Monday, March 31, 2003 9:38 PM, Alan DeKok 
[SMTP:aland(_at_)freeradius(_dot_)org] 
wrote:
Vernon Schryver <vjs(_at_)calcite(_dot_)rhyolite(_dot_)com> wrote:
As others have pointed out, there is a genuine technical ambiguity in
"false positive."  Is it RD/TOTAL or RD/SPAM?  (for RD=rejected but
desired by recipient, TOTAL=total mail of all sorts whether rejected
or not, and SPAM=whatever that means).

  As an absolute number, false positive should be easy to define.  "I
went through my 'spam' folder, and I decided that 3 messages should
not have been put there."

  As a ratio or percentage, false positives are taken relative to the
desired signal, not to the total data, or to the noise.  So we have:

  MAIL   = number of emails you want to be marked as ok (not spam)
  JUNK   = number of emails you want to be marked as spam

  MARKED = number of emails actually marked as ok
  SPAM   = number of emails actually marked as spam

  FP     = false positives (number of "MAIL" in "SPAM", which should
           have been in "MARKED")
  FN     = false negatives (number of "MAIL" in "MARKED", which should
           have been in "SPAM")

  The ratio of false positives = FP / MAIL
  The ratio o false negatives  = FN / MAIL

  MARKED = MAIL - FP + FN
  SPAM   = JUNK + FP - FN

  Alan DeKok.
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