Message and user attributes in a message filtering method and system

1. Field of the Invention A method and system for filtering messages where the importance of a message is determined by analyzing the message body in conjunction with message attributes. Message body refers to the text in the body of the message, whereas message attributes convey information about the message. In another embodiment, analysis of the user's current computing environment provides additional input to the filtering system. This allows for preferentially weighting messages of user's current interests. Analysis includes computation of feature vectors and subsequent input to a discriminant function. The discriminant function provides a test statistic which is compared to a threshold. If the test statistic exceeds the threshold, the incoming message is passed by the filtering system and may be displayed to the user. In another embodiment, message body and attributes are used to anticipate significant events in a time series, such as streaming financial data.