Quick Reporting
"Quick Reporting" is probably the quickest way to report
spam emails to SpamCop. This mode of reporting has some advantages and some other disadvantages. This article will try to explain the advantages and disadvantages of the "quick reporting" feature. The decision whether to use it or not is left to the SpamCop user.
What is it?
"Quick Reporting" is the mode of reporting in which ONLY the source of the
spam email is
reported to the determined spew source and the
SCBL. Other things such as
spam websites in the body of the
spam email etc., are not reported. In fact, the body of the
spam email will not be processed at all if you do "quick reporting".
Advantages:
- "Quick Reporting" is well ... Quick! It is fast and relatively painless.
- Depending on the email client, multiple messages can be reported in a single shot.
- It is basically a one step process. There is neither any need to visit the SpamCop website to confirm the emails, nor is there any need to wait while SpamCop processes the spam emails. Once you submit all your spam emails, You are Done!
Disadvantages:
- Quick reporting is very limited in scope. It only looks at the headers of spam email and informs the owner of the IP address from which the spam email originated from. Nothing in the body of the email is looked at.
- Quick reporting can be very DANGEROUS. If everything is set up properly, and if it works correctly; it is great. However, if anything goes wrong, or if you are not careful, or if you do not know what you are doing; then you can literally blacklist your own ISP or other innocent ISPs. In the end, the careless use of "quick reporting" can cause many problems for the other users of the internet as well as for SpamCop. Due to these aspects of the "quick reporting" feature, it is currently disabled by default.
What to do before enabling the "Quick Reporting" feature?
- Configure MailHosts for your Reporting Account.
- Make sure that your ISP will not be blacklisted when you report spam to SpamCop. This should be checked, for example, by reporting spam to SpamCop using the web interface (Full Reporting) and verifying that the messages are being parsed correctly.
How to enable "Quick Reporting" feature?
The feature can be activated by sending a request to service@admin.spamcop.net asking them to enable it.
How to use "Quick Reporting" after it has been enabled?
Let's say your secret spamcop email address is submit.SECRETCODE@spam.spamcop.net . Then to quickly report your spam emails send them to quick.SECRETCODE@spam.spamcop.net . In other words, your quick reporting email address is obtained by simply replacing "submit" with "quick" in your secret spamcop address. Without enabling "quick reporting" feature if you submit spam to quick.SECRETCODE@spam.spamcop.net you will get an error message. If "quick reporting" is enabled, then you will receive a confirmation message which shows the details of SpamCop's
parsing analysis...
Is there any limit on the number of spam emails reported through "Quick Reporting"?
Usually in "Quick Reporting", spam emails are forwarded as attachments. A maximum of 100 attached messages not exceeding 100 KB seems to be the limit. However those numbers are not affirmed by Spamcop officially. So this is all speculative. If you are experiencing problems, just lower the number of attachments (to say 20) in each email sent to quick.SECRETCODE@spam.spamcop.net .
As mentioned at the start of the article, using or not using "quick reporting" is entirely up to you. But if you decide to use it, make sure that you have read the disadvantages section of this article.
For
SpamCop Email Users: please note that the "Report as spam" command in
WebMail is a form of "quick" reporting.
For the source of this statement,see Don's post in the
SpamCop Forum http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=7733&view=findpost&p=52799∞
It should also be noted that even though your SpamCop Email account uses a form of quick reporting internally, quick reporting is not automatically part of your SpamCop Email Account, it must be requested using the same process discussed above if you want to use it outside of the SpamCop applications which include
VER,
MobileWebMail and
WebMail.
Other useful links
http://wiki.castlecops.com/SpamCop_Report_Considerations∞ (now dead)
The Forum version of the SpamCop FAQ entry
What is Quick Reporting?∞
The Forum version of
Quick reporting set up∞ An extended discussion base of the following question posted by a new user:
reading the posts, I'm just getting VERY confused as to how I can set up the quick reporting.
Also see:
The following forum posts are definitely worth the time reading:
Don D'Minion - SpamCop Admin - Reply regarding activating Quick Reporting∞ - Forum topic name:
newbies question.., is there a easy way to report ..
Don copied and pasted the same reply in the following forum topic as well:
Reports∞
Note: the above links point directly to Don's posts which are post# 22 and post# 5 respectively. You may find reading the entire threads interesting if you do not get wrapped up in the flamming and personality issues that are raised.
CategorySpamCopGlossaryWikiQ
CategorySpamCopReporting
CategoryHowTo