data(spam)The first 48 variables contain the frequency of the variable name
(e.g., business) in the e-mail. If the variable name starts with num (e.g.,
num650) the it indicates the frequency of the corresponding number (e.g., 650).
The variables 49-54 indicate the frequency of the characters `;', `(', `[', `!',
`$', and `#'. The variables 55-57 contain the average, longest
and total run-length of captial letters. Variable 58 indicates the type of the
mail and is either "nonspam" or "spam", i.e. unsolicited
commercial e-mail.
"nonspam" and 1813
classified as "spam".The ``spam'' concept is diverse: advertisements for products/web sites, make money fast schemes, chain letters, pornography... This collection of spam e-mails came from the collectors' postmaster and individuals who had filed spam. The collection of non-spam e-mails came from filed work and personal e-mails, and hence the word 'george' and the area code '650' are indicators of non-spam. These are useful when constructing a personalized spam filter. One would either have to blind such non-spam indicators or get a very wide collection of non-spam to generate a general purpose spam filter.