Hello,

I just started reporting spam cause I am sick and tired of it.
Today I reported one and shortly there after I got a mail from spamcop autoresponder saying this:
SpamCop is now ready to process your spam.

Use links to finish spam reporting (members use cookie-login please!):
http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=12345678 (fake id number of course!)

I get confused when I read:
1) SpamCop is now READY to process your spam.
AND
2)Use links TO FINISH spam reporting.

1)Does this mean that the process only starts if I do something?
2)Does this mean that I got to mail each of the email addresses listed at the bottom of the email, or does spamcop do that for me?
I have not got time to follow up, so if I got to do more, I rather just trash more.

I think it is cool to get a lot of info about the spam and also to see that it says:
"Yum, this spam is fresh!"

Keep up the good service!

This might sound harsh at first read, but many people miss this point about spamcop:

When you send YOUR messages to spamcop, YOU do need to aprove what spamcop has found to send YOUR reports.

It is actually the reporter making the complaint directly to the ISP. Spamcop is the tool to easily determine where those reports should go and to prepare those reports. It also protects your identity (as best it can) against retribution for that reporting.

The basic 3 step process is:
1. Email your messages to your secret address or paste them into the web form. Both of these processes get the spam from your possession into a form the parser can do its work.

2. If emailed, you will get an email in return (as you did) stating that the report is ready to process. This is basically telling you that spamcop has received the email and has done some preliminary processing to determine that the message is in the correct form. This same process is gone through in real time when n the web site. Ultimately, you will end up at the reporting window through either process.

BTW, that link does NOT contain your secret code and can be useful to others in determining any problems you are seeing. However, if you have not either reported or cancelled the report, others could do it for you which could be a problem if the report is oncorrect.

3. Look over where the reports are going. Especially check for reports that are heading for your ISP. You can use the technical details to "check the work" of the parser if you think there might be a problem. Then you can choose to modify the list of report recipeints and send the reports to the addresses checked or cancel all the reports for any reason.

Reasons could include the reports heading to your ISP and you think the parser stopped too early, you notice this message is the output of a virus (which are not reportable via spamcop) or some other reason that you should not report the message per the rules of spamcop.

If reporting all of your spam is a problem, consider only reporting a small subset. For instance the most recent 10%, or all of the porn, etc. It is, of course, up to you how much spam you report, since they are YOUR reports.

Hope this helps.

Hi, M.R.!
...As are we all, my friend, as are we all! Note, though, that your reporting spam will not, in the short term, reduce the amount of spam you receive. What it will do is to alert unsuspecting administrators that they may have compromised machines on their network and potentially add IP addresses (identities of ISP and e-mail servers) through which the spam is sent. These events, we hope, will prompt those administrators and ISP and e-mail providers to take action to stop the spam.

...Not exactly. By reporting the spam (I assume from the fact that you received a return e-mail from the SpamCop autoresponder), you've already started the process. However, the process is not yet complete.

...Yes. Although it's not quite that hard because once you've gone to the web site to continue the reporting process for the first spam, once you complete it (caution: be sure that the e-mail addresses to which SpamCop offers to send reports aren't obviously [to you] wrong -- for example, your own ISP abuse desk) there will be a link to the next one (so you don't have to go back and forth between the web page and the e-mail from SpamCop).

...No problem -- just report what you have time to do. There are a number of different strategies -- start with the newest spam and work backwards, report only spam from certain sources, report only spam of certain types are some examples. Any help is appreciated! <g>

That is what I was afraid of. Problem is that I seriously think this is not explained well enough at your website. I know of a webseminar where people are told to send in the spam, but no one mentioned that one has to click the link of the autoresponder and then select where to report it to. I dont even think that the arrangers of the webseminar know this themselves.
I dont know if this is the right place for constructive criticism, but I think that the people behind spamcop.net do a great job, but being a person that wants to report spam, I had a hard time finding out how to do, and this part of the "complete" reporting was not mentioned or clear enough. The pages (on the website - not here) about this are a bit "crowded" and maybe use a bit too nerdish language for normal people that would like to do something against spam. But I must say that I am happy that some people use their time and efforts for such noble tasks.



I got a friend that says he reports many every day (he referred me to spamcop), and I would like to know: what happens if he sends in the report, but does not click the link or take any more action? Is his report useless? (if yes, then I will show him the reply on this forum), so he can decide to stop reporting or to take that last part also. I think he reports around 10+ a day.



Ok , I think I will report once a day, if the mail is adressed to one of my domains. ( I also get mail forwarded from an IT company I work for.)

Thank you for the information!

If what you say is true, then your friend needs to know that all he's accomplished is submitting a spam to the parsing tool ... there is no "report" until "you" look at the list of targets identified by the parsing tool and make your decision on whether or not you agree with those results. If you hit the "Send" button there, now you're talking about a SpamCop Report.

...Well, I don't have anything on my website about this (and you can't see my website, anyway, since it's behind my employer's firewall). Please note my sig: "A Happy SpamCop.net user (not an admin)." <grin>
...Yes, constructive criticism of this sort is on topic here (well, maybe more appropriate in the "Lounge" forum rather than this "Help" forum) and you aren't the first to have this problem or to suggest something to "fix" it.

Please tell me in yes or no to this question:
When I send in the spam with my (first) mail, does that put that isp/host on the black list of all those that subscribe to the spamcop service?

The reason I joined was that I thought that when I reported (even its not complete with the 1st mail only) then it would black list the isp or host of that spammer, and that way effectively stop spam for all who's isp or hosting company is subscribed to spamcop. That way I might stop the spam-mail I reported from reaching thousands.
And even if the spammer had stopped sending then at least the isp/host would realize the problems with having an open relay and maybe loose customers, who do not want to be cut off from email cause their host has open relays.

How far do I need to go with the reporting process before an isp / host gets blacklisted?

... and to the other: I noticed that you were not "offical spamcop staff" but forgot it when I started writing, besides I think that the spamcop people read this and then can consider it.
Sorry if I annoyed you. No offence intended.

None taken.

All the way. This may just sound like semantics but there is a crucial difference between SUBMITting spam and REPORTing it. The first stage (mailling it in or pasting into the web-page) is submitting, pressing the 'send report' button is reporting. As Wazoo says, it's only then that we have a report. You, as reporter, are responsible for reviewing and reporting; merely submitting has no value. If it helps, I submit and report only spam less than 4 hours old and/or that which gets through my filters. This works out at about 10-15 per day or 20% of all I receive.

NO

...No.
...(Unsolicited further answer:) In fact, even taking the final step and submitting the spam will not necessarily get it on the SpamCop block list (which is a good thing, else competitors or evildoers could get an IP address on the blocklist even though no spam were really going through that machine). There is a complicated formula that SpamCop uses to determine whether or not an IP address will be listed, which takes into account a proxy for total e-mail traffic through the IP address, e-mail sent to "spam traps," number of different SpamCop reporters and number of spams reported. More information is available at SpamCop FAQ: What is on the list?.

...Yep, those are more or less the right reasons for participating as a SpamCop reporting user.

...Right up to the point where you click the button labeled "Send Spam Report(s) Now".

...No, I was not in the least annoyed or offended. I appreciate your apology, though. <g>

Thanks for all the replies and I am now aware of what is required to do my part of blacklisting an isp and host and that merely sending in the email is TOTALLY 2000% USELESS if I do not also click the link in the autoresponder mail from spamcop.net and then scroll down and then check the listed sources and avoid ticking my own isp and host in case they were listed.

Thanks for all guyz, and I think I will report one or two every day, but only those that come in while my computer is online, so I know they are YUMMY fresh :-) and possibly can hinder some to be sent out.

I will also let my friend read these messages and then he can decide what he will do.

Take care and lets be SPAMCOPS and recruit some more!!!!

I had to reconfigure my .muttrc macros for this recently due to loss info and server migration.

I had understood that there was a way to automate the reporting process such that you didn't have to visit the URL for each message. For example, I don't really care if microsoft.com/hotmail.com sees my real email address - and sometimes the level of spam I receive makes visiting and clicking somewhat daunting.

Hi forrie, maybe you were thinking of Quick Reporting (link)? You need your Mail host configuration set up before using that - you possibly do have already. Does any of that look useful?