When I check my e-mail I go into the Junk mail folder. I have all of my junk mail with certain keywords appearing to be prescription related highlighted in red. I select them and forward them to my reporting address as well as the FDA. I go through the rest to make sure they are all spam and forward them to my reporting address. In the control panel I specify spam[at]uce.gov to recieve my spam reports, they is no reason they should not as I am a US resident and they are not munged. Why is it that I need to log in to the website after forwarding to press "Report Now", check the box for spam[at]uce.gov, and press "Process spam Reports" why not process them after I forward them, especially since time is an issue. I can sort my junk mail and forward it all in under a minute. I do not always have the time to log in to the web site to follow the above unnecessary steps. What are there purpose? Any option to bypass these steps? Furthermore if munging is a problem why SC should not be used to forward to spam[at]uce.gov why not make an option to not munge reports to specified addresses? Why make me go and check that box evrytime? Why not make it checked by default?

Good evening, nice to hear from you.

If I understand the question, you want to know why you need to "Report Now" after you have submitted spam to SpamCop via e-mail forwarding. I admit this stumped me the first time I tried e-mail submission (I used to use the webmail form for this purpose).

I think the answer to this question is that these are YOUR reports, not SpamCop's, and you need to give assent before they can be sent. You may not know beforehand exactly what reports SpamCop is going to prepare on the spam, and to whom these will be addressed. If SpamCop sent these automatically, it might send them to people you'd rather not notify.

For example, suppose a spam contains a "Joe Job" link falsely implicating your buddy's website; if SpamCop should prepare a report against this site, you are probably going to want to cancel it (since you know your buddy isn't a spammer and you don't want to get him in trouble). You might also want to cancel a report to a particular provider if you do not have "munging" enabled and don't want your e-mail address to be exposed to that provider (in case they decide to hand the report off to the spammer).

As far as the uce.gov issue is concerned, it sounds as though you have defined this as your own "public standard report recipient" (to use the SpamCop term). I don't know of any way to have these checked by default. There is an option to have "third party" report recipients checked by default, but the "public standard report recipients" don't fall into this category for reasons unknown to me.

-- rick

As stated above, you are to verify that the targets of the Reports are actually valid. One of the primary problems is the issue of folks ending reporting to thier own ISP, or even worse, those that get really carried away and report an e-mail that came from SpamCop.net itself. Some folks have reported requested e-mail from this Forum, some folks reported my e-mails advising of the bad situation of using their e-mail address as a Display name, some folks have even reported the e-mail notification of theor spam submittals being processed ... it simply goes on and on. Again, this review and the actual click-of-agreement/Send-button is your part of the agreement you made when you signed up for a SpamCop.net Reporting Account. Maybe it's time to review The SpamCop.net Reporting process

Quick Reporting

Sending munged data to the uce.gov address is pretty much a waste of time. If the data is going to be usd by someone in the course of prosecution, this type of editing makes it pretty much useless beyond a body count. You really want to submit that spam directly to the uce.gov address yourself.

Basically, it falls back to the previous mode of too many bad Reports/reporters. Leaving these added 'special' addresses all available at every parse, defaulted to 'checked' unfortunately means that way too many folks will add addresses, leave them 'checked' and end up sending countless Reports to an address that is not interested in or involved with that specific spam.

Reminder if you've been around long enough, pointer to those newer folks, this 'additional address list' space used to be wide open. It was due to some folks using a database once known as the "bitch-list" that filled in all known addresses for companies, ISPs, etc. This included folks like the secretary in room 207, the janitor of the building, the parking lot manager, etc., etc., etc. .. none of which would have anything at all to do with the control or administration of a corporate e-mail server. The space allotment for adding addresses was scoped way down to put a top to this kind of bad reporting.

It might be faster to use the links the system sends you when you submit by email, rather than logging in and using the "Report now" method.

- Don D'Minion - SpamCop Admin -
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But, I verrify the contents of the e-mails as being spam before I forward them. My question as to the spam[at]uce.gov address is as follows. Issue 1, munging. Allow a munging option like "Munge all reports but those to the third party specified. Issue two, it is for spam sent to recipients in the US. I definitely live in the US. I recieve 50 - 100 spam e-mails a day and do not have the time to "Report Now" after I forward the e-mails which greatly increases my average reporting time. As for "Joe Job", again I verify that all forwarded e-mails are spam before I forward them.

PS. Suggestion, to relieve the SC server why not create a software that can be updated every day / week/ hour / every time it is activated etc allowing me to e-mail the reports directly from my machine. I can use a sub-email acct that dosent take incoming mail if necessary to prevent a back lash. Wouldn't this greatly reduce the burden on SC's server? Also who ever the moron who was reporting SC's forum e-mails via SC need to be shot.

Normal Reporting is a two-step process. Submittal of your spam to the parser is just the first step. I provided a link in my last post that explains all that. I also provided a link to an alternative method of Reporting.

Most spam can be identified by the subject line (and my email software also shows the sender which is another giveaway). There are very few that need to be 'verified' as spam.

Miss Betsy

I'm sure that you do. This isn't the same, however, as knowing where SpamCop will send the reports.

If you are willing to take the risk of misdirected reports, then re-read Wazoo's post and follow the link he provided re. Quick Reporting. I think this will do what you want, although it directs reports only to the spam source (and not to any website hosting services).

-- rick

Thanks for explaining quick report. I go through the "Junk Folder" in Windows Mail and make sure that it is all junk. Between the subject & the preveiw pane it's quick. I have message rules set to Flag messages in the junk mail folder with words such as "CanadianRX" & "NoDoctorsNeeded" Those e-mails can easily be sorted by flag and are then sent not only to SC but also the FDA's e-mail address to report offeres to sell prescriptions online as that is illegal. The rest of the non-prescription e-mails go to SC & spam[at]uce.gov. I have already set up my mail server with SC and verrified my own ISP is not being reported.

...So did I. Reporting went perfectly well for weeks. Then all of a sudden my employer (who is, in effect, my e-mail provider while at work) started being flagged as the source of the spam. Bottom line: today is a good, but imperfect, predictor of tomorrow.

This would require each reported spam would need 2 URLs, one with/one without munges. This could make the disk space and database twice as large. You do the math. Keeping an un-munge copy and then stripping out the IDs when required increasing load on the processor.

On the other hand, read the several threads here with pros and cons of munge. You may change your mind about the need.

I recently changed my SC e-mail addy due to its having been harvested. I was assured that nothing would change in my account except for the address. I was incorrectly assured. My mail hosts configs disappeared, and I ended up firing off a number of reports to my own provider before I got a grip. And I was NOT using quick reporting! God only knows how long it might have gone on if I were!

-- rick

I would like to see the details of that.

Please send me the login username (email address) of the old account, and the login username on the new account, so I can check to see what happened.

Email me at: service[at]admin.spamcop.net

- Don D'Minion - SpamCop Admin -
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