I've been reading through a lot of the posts here, and it seems a lot of people are getting discouraged with the seeming lack of impact they see from reporting spam. People continue to report dozens of messages per day, yet the spam in their inbox doesn't really decrease.

An idea I have was to have some sort of tracking/rating system here on SpamCop, where you can sort of view your own stats compaired to that of the community. It would track things like reponse time, # of spams reported, and impact on spammers... almost like a spam-reporting rating system. It will give people, and the community as a whole a tangalbe way to track their progress... you know what I mean?

Some of us more seasoned reporters, have become aware that when it comes to spam, such statistic is irrelevant. While some see lulls and what seem to be drops in spam volume, it will eventually pick up at an even more aggressive rate. Some have even managed to shut down a spammer or two, only to have them re-emerge later. Spammers are like virulent scabbies, once you <catch> them, you have to live with them, like it or not. I can think of no medicine that will get rid of them as long as they are sheltered by irresponsible (criminal?) ISPs and they resort to neferious means to spread their disease (viruses, worms and the like).

It may be irrelevant, but I think seeing such stats would help people stay motivated to continie to report it, know what I mean?

It really rather depends on how the statistics are calculated.

Reporters can already know how many reports they have submitted - that figure is provided with each submission along with the total number of spam reports from all sources sent through SpamCop.

THere is also the wildly inaccurate average reporting time figure that is given to reporters but appears to most observers to be meaningless.

I guess the difficult thing to achieve is providing a meaningful set of figures.

Because of the large numbers involved (my most recent report indicates just short of 1.37bn reports submitted to SpamCop up to a few miniutes ago) anything involving averages takes a very long time to change.

So I applaud the idea, can you suggest a meaningful statistic that could be calculated?

Andrew

How about, for SpamCop Email System Customers, a reporting ratio consisting of the number of reported spams divided by the number of incoming emails, for the past hour, day, week, month, quarter, year, and decade, for both the individual and the class of SpamCop Email System Customers? Of course, incoming emails would have to include those transferred in by IMAP Clients, otherwise my ratio could sometimes exceed 1.00.

I think for a lot of people... making it a little bit of a game would make the monotony of reporting spam a little more fun... Things like # of spams reported, average spams reported per day, number of replies back from ISPs, etc. And have those stats public... they could even be tied into the forum (which could/should be better promoted on this site than it is...). It's funny the minor little things that will help nudge people to do something useful for the community (like reporting spam).

He's right about the little 'motivators' - look at all the people who have tried to get their 'average reporting time' down. And those who check the bl too soon after reporting and don't see the IP address there.

Miss Betsy

While I'm not sure Julian would be interested in making spamcop into a game, one thing I would like to know is when my report causes the IP to be bl'ed. Especially, to people who have been listed and consider themselves innocents, to have it seen as a game in here would not set the right tone, I'm afraid.

Maybe not quite a game... but I definately think, for the average reporter, some motivators would be very useful.

What better motivators than knowing the spammers are inconvenienced. But I do agree that having some graph or instant statistics of reports would make it more interesting.

Exactly. I run several fairly successful sites, including forums, and it's surprising how well people react to simple things. For instance, on one of my photography forums, when members get to 1000 posts, the get a little graphical medal next to their username in the forum... the same with 2000 posts, 5000 posts, and 10000 posts. People are proud to have reached those markers... something along the same lines, I believe, would help here as well...

We're not that creative here. We have Member, Advanced Member, and recently Benn There only because we could think of nothing better

I'm one of those new SPAMCOP users who is starting to get discouraged, but what can I do??? All I can do is keep reporting it. Or I can lay there and "just take it" (no way).

I'm starting to conclude that only a few punches in the faces of the spammers with my fists would deter them. Otherwise, they are unstoppable.

It wouldn't be that tough to impliment some tracking and whatnot - just some graphical representation of each reporters progress, as well as some recognition within the community.

I am not in favor of graphical icons for the person with the most posts in this forum. It would clutter up the 'help' function too much. If I read a thread where the OP seems to have been helped, I don't post my $.02 USD. Too many helpers is not a good idea.

There is a place where people can see how many posts have been made by registered users and there are some who are interested in that. However, if there were encouragement to get more posts, then posts would be made just to make posts and IMHO, would confuse the person who came here for help. In addition, the way it is now, the more posts indicate that that person is probably a reliable 'help,' a regular who knows what is happening (myself excluded - my rating is based on the number of posts I made in the beginning of the forum to keep the focus on helping the newbie though I do read enough that I am not hopelessly out of it).

This forum (with the exception of the Lounge) should not be particularly active, hopefully, because it exists for those who need help.

Miss Betsy

Well it doesn't have to be hooked up to the forum... but on the reporting page or whatnot. That being said, I think you're wrong about the forum just being there for help. The forum itself can help build a community, which is what will keep something like spamcop.net alive in the long run.

I'm with “thebassman” on this one - I arrive 30 mins early for work every morning to allow myself enough time to report the daily spam.
Whilst I see the level of spam decrease for a short period, it nearly always returns to the same level (or worse).

Although I see some signs that ISP's are taking the matter seriously, more often than not, you are lucky to even get an auto reply to your reports. Although this is an issue for the ISP's and not Spamcop, i'm interested in the idea of having an incentive - my time is too valuable to spend 30 mins a day for nothing.....

There could be other motivators, but points for the number of posts should only be for the Lounge. Creating community is always a good thing, but for somebody who wants help, they want an answer, not a community.

I won't be much help because I don't respond to motivators, but I am not disagreeing with your ideas in general. I just don't think extraneous posts in the help groups would be beneficial. I suppose you could have 'vote for best answer' contest or something.

Miss Betsy

I think you misunderstood me... I'm not saying it has to do with anything to do with posts... that was just an example of something that I do on my own sites. In the case of SpamCop.net, it wouldn't even need to have anything to do with the forum... just a graphical representation, along with ranks or something, of spam reported, yadda, yadda, yadda would help the average user to show that they're making a difference.

Just an idea...

If a website is referenced in the spamvervised e-mail, a way of confirming that it has been shut down would be fantastic. I know that you could just go and check the site yourself to see if it is still up, but SpamCop records these sites as part of the reporting process. In the same way that websites like FriedSpam hammer the sites until they are shut down, could SpamCop visit them anonymously to check if they are still up; and if they are not, send an e-mail to those who reported the site?

No, I don't think I misunderstood you. You want to have little motivators to get and keep people interested. There are two areas - one is spamcop reporting (where notification to the reporter that this report triggered a bl listing, for instance) where motivators might make people more interested in reporting spam consistently. and the other area is the forum where people who get support from the community are more likely to stay interested in spam reporting and may even come up with alternate suggestions to support spam fighting (there have already been threads in the ng and the forum about ways that others handle their spam problems including a lengthy thread on the use of FriedSpam).

I agree that it is a good idea and that some people are interested in motivators. Since I am not interested in motivators (a personality trait - not a criticism), I won't be much help in finding what would be good ones.

Creating community is always a good idea which is why the Lounge was created because it happened naturally on the ng's and there, a separate ng was created because those who came for help and technical discussion complained. And the spamcop technical discussion was separated later from the main group. There had already been a help group established that did not contain discussion, but only answers to questions and was supposed to not contain any than polite, helpful answers. If people got into a flame or a general discussion about spam, they were asked to move it to the main group to avoid cluttering up the answers. The help group became primarily for newbie questions and the spamcop group was where the techies hung out and answered questions about spam and spamcop from other techies (and still do - the web forum has replaced the help ng for newbies, but those who know more about the internet still visit the spamcop ng for help and discussion - it is a more rough and ready environment - few apologies there).

So I don't think using a motivator that rewards the number of posts is a good idea in the help groups. In the Lounge that's fine (if it could be done separately). And other motivators would be ok with me. I have a feeling though that the old line spam fighter is like me and isn't interested so you might not receive a lot of encouragement from the old timers.

Miss Betsy

Is there currently a way to just see how many spams you've reported?

Not off the top of my head, but the fictitious number "umpteen zillion" comes to mind in my case.

Hehe... I think even a stat like that would help the average spamcop spam reporter.... to see that you've reported 10,000 spam, etc... would be motivating. And at big milestones, you get a congradulatory email or something.

If you are a paid subscriber spam comes with no. the number of spams you reported so far. What I want to know is the ratio of reports to that of closed down spammers. Seems to me mine is getting rather small as I report more spam, like 10,000 : 1. I seem to be stuck with the worst of them.

In what form, on what screen or in what email?

Thanks!

In this form:


The bolded blue numbers on the held mail page are spam no. in sequence and represent the total no. reported (by me) so far!

Ohhh, that's the old, decrepit, dying, not-supported-anymore VER page. I never go there any more, as I thought I had no need for it. But I just went there, just for you, dra007, and it showed me that I had reported 392521 spams from Held Mail, over 20 times the number you have reported from Held Mail. And that statistic might represent just VER reports.

Actually, I believe that number represents every message that has been in your Held Mail folder, but should be a pretty good estimate (forwarding back to Inbox does not renumber the messages).

BTW, mine is 79918 right now for just over 2 years of reporting.

StevenUnderwood, I think you're right. Should I have a party when I hit 400k?

I'm always up for a party
392522 sounfs good to me

So since the counting function is already there, maybe it wouldn't be too tough to add something to the current reporting page... I think it would help keep people more interested.

I'll probably get there in a week and a half, plus or minus half a week.

One problem is that count is part of the email system which is owned by JT and the parser is owned by IronPort Systems. They are connected by name only. Also, not everyone has an email type account, so they do not have that type of count.

Oh, I don't have an email account with spamcop either, so I guess that's why I can't find those numbers... Hmmm... I still think it would be something to look into. Who actually owns and run spamcop.net?

Many moons ago, I used to BCC myself a copy of every SpamCop Report I sent and then archive those copies in a searchable manner, before that feature broke (see http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=24683 for details). I could then count the copies that had piled up for any period. Ahh, those were the days!


The following is from memory, as I don't have all my materials at hand - please correct me:

Ironport Systems owns the SpamCop Parsing and Reporting Service (having bought it from Julian), Julian basically programs and runs it, Don and Richard help him administer it, some Ironport people are doing something behind the scenes, Akamai helps protect it, the Deputies (is it just Ellen at this point?) provide first-level paid support, and us customers, volunteers, and freeloaders use it to parse spam and single lines and to report spam, use its SpamCop Blocking List (SCBL) to block spam, and help each other to help themselves through the use of these Forums and the SpamCop Newsgroups.

The SpamCop Parsing and Reporting Service relies heavily on outside sources of information, including the IP allocation registries at ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC, and the other Regional IP Registries (RIRs) around the world, the Domain Name System (dns), the Domain allocation and WHOIS registries at Domain Registrars around the world, the abuse address registry at abuse.net, and various blocklists and blacklists.

When spam is alleged to have originated from their networks, ISPs and others in charge of the private networks that make up the Internet are expected by rabid anti-spammers who report using SpamCop to: receive a SpamCop Report; Care about that Report; Acknowledge Receipt and Thank the Reporter for helping them to do their jobs; Take Ownership of the Issue raised by the Report; Investigate; Take Appropriate Action; Notify the Reporter about the Action; and Notify the Reporting part of the Parsing and Reporting Service about the Action. Sadly, they almost never meet those expectations, generally due to apathy, underfunding, understaffing, and/or underempowerment.

Jeff T. AKA jefft AKA JT owns and runs the SpamCop Email System (formerly the SpamCop Mail Service) as a service of his Corporate Email Services, along with this Forum Server, the SpamCop News Server, and their associated infrastructures, Wazoo helps him administer these Forums, StevenUnderwood and I help them moderate these Forums, and the customers, volunteers, and freeloaders help each other to help themselves through the use of these Forums, and occasionally the spamcop.mail newsgroup.

The SpamCop Email System allows its Customers to use up to a dozen selected blocklists and blacklists for filtering their email, one being the SCBL and the rest being external sources of information.

Wow... thanks for all the great info! This may be none of my business, but it SpamCop profitable? I mean, is it in a position to create partnerships and advertise a little and whatnot? It seems that the team is made up of technical people, with no marketing/PR people...

Sorry, I'm not in a position to comment on such matters. Try asking Petzl, our resident evangelist.

Well, whomever may be in charge is welcome to contact me regarding such matters, as I may be able to, initially at least, help get that going in the right direction...

I always report from within Webmail. I hope this helps keep the SCBL up-to-date. I get only one or two spams through per day, versus 100 or more trapped in held mail each day.

Do you report your Held Mail?

What do you guys mean by "held mail"?

Actions/Folders found under a SpamCop E-mail account.

Ahhh thanks Wazoo -

Absolutely! 99% of spam gets trapped by the SCBL.

Yes - I use the SCBL but I don't have a spamcop e-mail account so had not heard of the term held mail.

Presumably it is the same as the "spam" folder in gmail, and the "junk" folder in hotmail?.....I think gmail must use the SCBL because very few slip into my inbox, I still diligently report all SPAM in my "spam" folder though....

A little off, in relation to where the thread has been heading - but as a reply to the initial subject, which is the increasing discouragement, with reporting the spam

I'd have to agree that it's getting slightly discouraging at times - especially when the amount of spam doesn't decrease, but rather increase heavily. I've gone from an average of 5-6 pieces of spam a day, to an average of 15-17 pieces. I keep reporting them, since I still believe that one man can make a difference - but I'm starting to think that we might be simply focusing the efforts in the wrong place.

The big problem are the ISPs, who don't really do sh... whenever they get these reports - despite having dedicated abuse mail-adresses. I've seen many ISPs from the inside, and they're not really inclined to do anything, until the time it involves legal sanctions.

Taking the problem a step further, it's the governments, who don't indite legal sanctions against ISPs, who don't act on spam reports - making it a law. To my knowledge, no law even exists in anything but an extremely vague form in any country. Whether it be so-called civilized countries like the States, or any European country, our laws are still providing WAY too much space to be circumvented - and by far most countries don't even have specific anti-spam laws, which can be focused on the ISPs, to force them to take responsibility.

I can't help feeling like we're fighting the symptoms here, since we're lacking the power to fight the disease, which is the governmental indifference in the majority of the worldwide countries, and safe havens in non-industrialized countries, where spammers move their production sites to, to make sure that nothing can be done legally.

We need a world police, based on the internet protocols, able to shut down entire ISPs in the intercontinental switches and the owners of the worldwide IP-adresses, if they fail to comply with generally accepted rules - but then we're back to Echelon and Big Brother, whom NOBODY wants looking over our back, whenever we do anything. Basically, we're lacking a way to really pack a punch against these annoying and criminal people, since we have no direct power over the respective governments, ISPs, or even the IP-adresses themselves. - And with the launch of IPv6, we're all going to be a lot of trouble, since the amount of adresses multiply by an insane number, creating even more play room for these criminals.

What do we do then? What can we do, each of us, to provide a better solution to this problem, apart from reporting the bad IP-adresses to the ISPs, who generally couldn't care less? Well, I'm personally up for any and all suggestions, if it brings a result.

But in the meantime, remember that this DOES serve a cause - we might not cause a lot of spammers to get shut down, but just as every spam mail we receive is a nuisance, so is every single IP-address they have to abandon to them. They have the cards, but if we're stubborn enough, we can still make a slow, very slow, turn into power, also simply by bringing awareness. These reports create a lot of publicity, and the issue is getting adressed in several places. Even in Denmark, where I'm from, a small 5 million people country, some of the political parties are discussing laws to force ISPs to block malicious IP-adresses, so somebody IS doing something in some places. Now we just need the rest of the world to help apprehend these privacy-invaders. And we'll get them, eventually. We'll get them.

Don't give up!

~Noia

How 'bout knowing that the spammers (and their associated SPAMvertised Website owner/operators) were folded, spindled, mutilated, drawn & quartered, flayed alive, dipped in hot boiling oil, and given to the Orcs for dinner?

You forgot to stone them and/or use one of those studded mallets (to tenderize the meat).

That's too quick, I would skin them slowly while impaling them (very slowly) on a stake!