Mail-Host Configuration of your Reporting Account
...is the procedure of "training" the
SpamCop parser to identify the mail-hosts / e-mail servers that "your" e-mail travels through on its way to your InBox. The primary purpose of configuring your account is to help the
parser ignore the mailhosts "you" use to receive your mail while trying to identify the "source" of the message without falling victim to some spammer forgery and manipulation of the spam headers that might point to
innocent ISPs; as well as to help prevent folks from reporting themselves or their own
ISPs. Nothing is foolproof, blindly trusting any tool is silly, so the requirement that you verify the parser analysis and
report targets is still a mandatory part of the agreement between you and
SpamCop. It has been stated that performing this configuration on your account will be mandatory at some time in the future.
Note: it is mandatory if you desire to use QuickReporting.
If the
parser happens to get "fooled" by a forged header on one of your spam
reports, or you happen to report your own
ISP; you may find that you are no longer able to use your reporting account until you complete the Mail-Host Configuration process. The account suspension should not be considered to be punitive, but rather an attempt on the part of
SpamCop management to make sure that the
SpamCop Reports are as accurate as possible. See
MyReportingAccountHasBeenSuspended for more information.
Probably the most commonly asked question regarding SpamCop Mail-Host Configueration is "Do I have to register each and every email address I use?
This is also problably one of the most practical questions being asked in light of the following statement which is displayed each time you use the Mail Host registration process:
Please remember to register all your email accounts.
For the pupose of the previous statement, email account and email address are two totally different things. A single email account may have multiple email addresses, but a single email address can only be related to a single email account. If you have multiple accounts with a single
ISP you can generally consider them as a single account for
MailHost purposes, unless those accounts are in different geographic areas in which case it might be possible for the
ISP to be using a different set of mailhosts to process the mail in the different geographic areas. As an example, if you had an Yahoo account setup in London England and a separate Yahoo account setup in Las Vegas Nevada you should register one email addresss from each of those accounts.
So back to the original question, the real answer to the question is NO. - You do not have to register each and every email address. And repeating, it is probably a good idea to register each email account you have unless you know that each account is using the same mail servers (Mailhosts) to process your mail.
An interesting point to remember is that no email address is actually registered at all. What gets registered is the host name that is used for the specific email address. A general rule of thumb would be to register one email address per domain used.
Note: if you have multiple domains that are using the same set of mail servers, then only one address from any one of the domains would be all that is needed.
Yes we realize that the preceeding has been very repeditive, but it has been done so on purpose to try to provide an answer to this very frequently asked question that all users might understand.
Another question that comes up is "How often should I re-register my addresses? This is a bit more complicated, but for most users the answer would be never. The rule of thumb would be, if in doubt then re-register. More specificly, any time there is a change in the hosts used to process your mail, those new hosts need to be registered / re-registered. One very important fact to remember about Mail-Hosts is that they are "global". So when one user registers a host, that updated information is automaticly used for every other user.
Probably the most important thing to remember about the Mailhost configuration process is that is an imperfect automated process that is not capable to properly processing all accounts. There are situations where one will have to get a deputy involved to get your account set up correctly. Corporate email accounts that forward mail internally without adding the "correct" entries to the email headers frequently require the assistance of a deputy to configure their Mailhost entries. The following Forum topic reveals another example that required the assistance of a deputy to "fix" a properly registered Mailhost entry:
http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8291∞
A lot of users get confused as to just what the four Mailhost entries listed below mean.
Mailhost name:
Email address:
Hosts/Domains:
Relaying IPs:
So here is an attempt at explaining it:
Mailhost name: This is a generic name used to identify a group of host names that are used to process mail for multiple email addresses. It is also a "global" name, meaning that it is not unique to your account. There is only one set of Mailhost names which are shared by all users. The registration process does two separate things; 1) It tells SpamCop which Mailhost Names should be used for your reporting account and 2) does a query to check if the Mailhost name you are registering needs to be updated. The name that you enter here when registering actually only gets used if the specific set of hosts identified have not previously been registered by another users. Also note that the name displayed may change over time or be split into multiple groups.
As an example, when I registered my Earthlink account, I typed in
Earthlink as the answer to the question
What is the standard name of this email provider - for instance, hotmail.com might be referred to simply as "Hotmail"? The name that actually was displayed after registration was
Mindspring.
Today my Mailhosts listing has one entry for
Mindspring and a separate entry for
Earthlink with the displayed email address for both being exactly the same. Which brings us to the second Mailhost displayed entry.
Email address: This is nothing more than that last address you used when registering the Mailhost name indicated above it. The displayed address serves no purpose at all for SpamCop. It is there simply for your bennefit if you are using multiple Mailhosts to be able to tell which Mailhost name relates to the last email address you registered.
Hosts/Domains: This is the complete list of host names used by the Mailhost name indicated above it. Many users get confused by the dropdown box thinking it is a selection box. It is not. It is only a means to save screen space. Clicking on the box will display the complete list which is in no specific order. If you are using any of the major
ISP's for mail services you can simply ignore the entries. If you manage your own mail servers, then you will want be be sure that they all are listed.
Relaying IPs: This is probably one of the more confusing entries. Let start with with it does not list. It does not list the
IP addresses of the Hosts/Domains listed above it. What it does list is the
IP addresses of additional servers/devices used to relay mail but do not have specific host names for the purpose of processing the mail and that might otherwise be identified by the
parser as a possible source of the message you are trying to
report.
Forum FAQ entries:
How do I configure Mailhosts for SpamCop?∞ (taken from the "Official FAQ")
CategorySpamCopGlossaryWikiM
CategoryMailHostConfiguration
CategorySpamCopReporting
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