Systems and methods for dynamically integrating heterogeneous anti-spam filters

A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions, which, when executed by a computer system, cause the computer system to form:

• a first anti-spam filter and a second anti-spam filter configured to input an electronic communication and to compute first and second spam classification scores, respectively, for the electronic communication;
• a filter relevance calculator configured to compute a relevance of the first anti-spam filter and a relevance of the second anti-spam filter, wherein computing the relevance of the first filter comprises setting the relevance of the first filter to a value substantially equal to R=M−T×f(N,P), wherein M, T, N, P represent a training maturity of the first filter, an update age of the first filter indicative of a time period since a latest update of the first filter, a false negative classification indicator of the first filter, and a false positive classification indicator of the first filter, respectively, wherein ƒ represents a function of N and P, and wherein the second relevance is computed according to a training maturity of the second filter, an update age of the second filter indicative of a time period since a latest update of the second filter, a second false negative classification indicator of the second filter, and a second false positive classification indicator of the second filter;
• and
• a decision module connected to the first and second anti-spam filters and to the filter relevance calculator, configured to determine whether an electronic communication is spam or non-spam according to the first and second spam classification scores, the relevance of the first filter, and the relevance of the second filter.

A spam filtering method comprising employing at least one processor to perform the steps of:

• computing a relevance of a first anti-spam filter according to a first relevance parameter set, the first relevance parameter set including a training maturity of the first filter, a false positive classification indicator of the first filter, and a false negative classification indicator of the first filter, and an update age of the first filter indicative of a time period since a latest update of the first filter;
• computing a relevance of a second anti-spam filter according to a second relevance parameter set, the second relevance parameter set including an a training maturity of the second filter, a false positive classification indicator of the second filter, and a false negative classification indicator of the second filter, and an update age of the second filter, indicative of a time period since a latest update of the second filter;
• and
• determining whether an electronic communication is spam or non-spam according to a first result generated by applying the first filter to the electronic communication, a second result generated by applying the second filter to the electronic communication, the relevance of the first filter, and the relevance of the second filter.

A non-transitory computer readable medium encoding instructions which, when executed by at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform the steps of:

• computing a relevance of a first anti-spam filter according to a difference between i. a training maturity of the first filter and ii. a product of an update age of the first filter and a function of a false negative classification indicator and a false positive classification indicator of the first filter,
• computing a relevance of a second anti-spam filter according to a training maturity of the second filter, an update age of the second filter indicative of a time period since a latest update of the second filter, a false negative classification indicator of the second filter, and a false positive classification indicator of the second filter;
• and
• determining whether an electronic communication is spam or non-spam according to a first result generated by applying the first anti-spam filter to the electronic communication, a second result generated by applying the second anti-spam filter to the electronic communication, the relevance of the first filter, and the relevance of the second filter.