When I report spam by sending it as an attachment to the address provided by spamcop, can I still report it as a mole, so I don't get any retaliation? Do I do this by reporting the spam to spamcop (so you can filter it) but not send any reports to administrators? In other words, if I don't follow up on spamcop's reply to reported spam, will that spam sender still get added to spamcop's filter?

Mole filtering only helps statistics it does not count towards blocking
What is "mole" reporting?

So how do I make use of the "mole" method? It is not clear to me. If I send reports to the administrators based spamcop's reply to my spam report, will that violate the "mole" method?

From the link you provided:
However, it has become plain that the only way to really sanitize the reports is to not send them at all. So that is exactly what we're going to do. SpamCop now offers new and existing users an option to withhold almost all data - registering reports in SpamCop's database, but never sending reports to the "ISP" ...

So how is this done?

Also, if I forward the spam to spamcop, but don't send spamcop's reply to administrators, will the spammer still get added to spamcop's block list?

Log into your reporting page. Click the Preferences tab. Click Report Handling Options. Select the appropriate radio button in the Spam Munging section.

Mole reports go to mole[at]devnull.spamcop.net (automatically), they are not sent to the offender's ISP, they will not cause an IP address to be added to the SCBL. If an IP address is already listed, mole reports *may* extend the time it is in the BL, if they provide evidence of continuing abuse. If you want to support the SCBL more directly, to contribute to initial listings, do not use mole reporting. Others here may care to comment on the risk / their experience of "retribution" from spammers but previous comment makes it appear this is not a big factor. The "game" has moved on, few of them now seem to bother getting personal about it.

The process for a mole:

1. submission by email to "secret submission address" like submit.16digitA/N[at]spam.spamcop.net

2. confirmation email -

"SpamCop has accepted 10 emails for processing
...
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=z848593401z67...fc84595ee1711fz
..."

3. following link and/or going to the members page

http://members.spamcop.net/sc

Unreported Spam Saved: Report Now

4. "Send" reports, see "/dev/null'ing report for mole[at]devnull.spamcop.net"

5. (checking past reports after reporting)

"Re: 86.127.15.198 (Silent report about source of mail)
Reportid: 1602090728 To: mole[at]devnull.spamcop.net"

6. go to report, pick up any addresses for manual reporting, if desired - select "Parse", see:

"...
Re: 86.127.15.198 (Administrator of network where email originates)

contact-tech[at]rdsnet.ro
abuse[at]rdsnet.ro "
..."

If you want some of your Reporting to be to actual admins and some of your Reporting to be Mole Reporting, you should establish a second Free Reporting account for Mole Reporting (and use that second account's login and submit/quick particulars), or follow StevenUnderwood's previous advice in this Topic each time you switch your one account.

Mole's are useless. If you don't want retaliation, choose to "Munge" your address. All replies will be to that munged addy, which will go to you, but the person receiving the report will not see your email addy.

...Not entirely true. See Ellen's contribution to thread "Mole Reporting is Back"...Not necessarily true. Others have noted that the SpamCop parser doesn't always catch all visible instances of e-mail addresses and there are ways of disguising your identity so that the spammer can determine who has replied. See, for example, David's (qjvgpuryy) contribution to thread "Bit of a wish list".

How do I "Munge" my address? Do you mean copy the email source instead of sending as an attachment, and remove any mention of my real email address if one show up?

...SpamCop will do this for your through its spam reporting capability. To set it up to do this, simply follow the instructions provided by StevenUnderwood, above: ....If you are sending manual reports (rather than letting SpamCop do it for you), yes!
...Side note: if you are generating your own reports, you may also wish to include the full internet headers of the spam, as most admins need that.

I do not munge
I do use SpamCop's Email Service and my only email address is Petzl[at]spamcop.net
I do not attempt to even hide this email address and have used it since last century

Fact is I do not recommend one accept an email address automatically from an ISP as they are always useless. At best nothing better than a unprotected spam magnet

My SpamCop email very near 100% does not give false positives or negatives for me. The only spam that manages to get to my inbox is where I have whitelisted whole domains that a spammer decides to use as a return address. This is simply pulled over to my VER folder using IMAP and fully reported

I have also helped have some spammers face conviction by court, a reason why I do not munge spam email also not a problem because I use SpamCop's Email Service as my only email address

In the one week that I have been using Spamcop my spam has tripled! Fortunately, after lowering the level of the spam filter and adding more international filters to the list, most of it is not getting to my inbox. The more I report spam though, the more I get into my held mail, so the reporting feature is not working. Spamcop should have the option of adding the spammer to the block list without sending any "useless" reports. The spammer should also stay on the block list for more than 24 hours. I am not going to report any more spam -- it's just not helping.

To avoid assumptions.
What method of reporting are you using?
Do you open up the spam messages before reporting them?
Note: overall spam levels seem to be increasing.
Also note, if you are using the SpamCop Email Service (which it seems like you are) then the statement "Spamcop should have the option of adding the spammer to the block list" is saying the same thing as "move them to my Held Mail Folder"
SpamCop does not automatically delete anything.
The reports help to keep the junk out of your InBox, not out of you HeldMail Box.
If the reports were "useless", then the junk would be going to your InBox

Spammers have your email address and often get this, your address, because of an ISP's incompetence.

You are best to dump or let existing email addresses become legacy after a time. Once they get into a spammers circulation spam attacks just grow and grow, a weeks reporting of spam is to early to judge the effectiveness of SpamCop. Spammers are not that bright and take time to work out who is burning them If they can work it out at all. Thats if they even bother (theirs is purely a numbers game looking for suckers)

Reporting them and their websites does deter spam However if you are starting at the deep end on a well abused email address it is best to change it Just face up to using your SpamCop Email Address It's the only email address you will ever need

Using Very Easy Reporting (VER) makes reporting very easy and quick (make sure you configure your mailhosts first. Done effectively and easily on/via your VER Web Page. Make no error by reporting you are attacking spammers using the powerful tools SpamCop provide and attack is your best defence

Thanks for your help. There is more education involved in using spamcop than I expected, but the more I learn I to use it, it seems to make it more effective. Adding more filters really helped a lot.

Same here. I use the SCMail and I haven't munged my addresses since 2003, back when I used the free service. Since I didn't see any increase in the spam, I decided to leave the addresses in tact.

I still forward my email back to Comcast so that I can use their webmail while at work. Comcast webmail is far superior to spamcop webmail as far as my needs go. If fact, half the time when I tried to use spamcop's webmail, I couldn't even read the email -- kept getting messages saying "no parts are viewable".

I'm not keen on any webmails and prefer Outlook Express

I also use (SpamCops) Webmail at work. After a bit of poking around have got it working reasonably well. So like all things one has to familiarise first

Most email is sent in html
SpamCop Webmail (in my setup) views it in plain text
Clicking the "unnamed text/html" icon shows html messages perfect

Do I need to report spam that is in the "Held Mail" folder, or is that reported automatically? I noticed there is an option to report that spam.

Moderator edit: nothing in this quetion relates to the entire quote of petzl's last post ... I removed quoted material.

There is no "automatic" reporting ... per the FAQ, rules, instructions ..."YOU" are responsible for any reports on any e-mail.

In WebMail afrer checking it is spam you can check the boxes beside the spam for SpamCops "Quick" reporting, This ensures spammers feed and update the SCBL for continued and further blocking

Without doing anything to held email it is deleted to trash folder after 2 weeks

For full reporting of spam (both IP source and weblinks in spam) It is best to do this from your VER webpage