Words Matter: False-Positive or Trapped Email?

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Created on Monday, 23 August 2010 11:00

Written by Peter Brockmann

It seems that in our ever-technical society we increasingly use a technical term to describe something, except that term doesn't really mean much except as a way for engineers to spot other technical types in a crowd or in a conversation. This report reviews exactly such a circumstance in email processing markets.

[[False-positive]] is a statistical term (also known as Type I or alpha error) to explain those circumstances when a test on the subject generates one of two inappropriate results - when the test says yes the subject is infected when in fact they are not. (The other inappropriate result, the beta-error or Type II error is that the test fails, but the subject is infected).

Technical terms aside, in email security markets, the industry uses false-positive to describe those circumstances when the filtering software identifies a good email as junk.

This report uses the results of a study of 204 business user and seeks to begin the industry transition to TRAPPED EMAIL as a more appropriate synonym for false-positive email.

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