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Letter to SpamCop:

SpamCop or MailWasher Please do not publish the number listed below:

SpamCop User ID: XXX

SpamCop Validation Key: Is enter properly.

I have been sending my email to submit.MYID Code[at]spamcop.net

I registered for the SpamCop forum and my name and pass word is not letting me in.

I have been sending reports on a daily basis to SpamCop and have not gotten a confirmation back so I can vlidate weather or not it is spam.

I use SPAMCOP for my one and only DNS blacklist server for MailWasher. It has been working very well untill I upgraded.

My lastest version of MailWasher is 4.0

No REPLY.

Letter Sent to MailWasher:

First alert is not very effective according to the mounthly reports you have been sending me. I do not mind reporting my spam to your company to help you out. My provider should be taking care of these but has failed. As fare as I can see it also takes SpamCop a long time to get on the band wagon to add my submissions to their DNS server since All that I have been using was SpamCop DNS, ATT and FirstAlert through out the whole trial period. It would be nice if you guys would start your own black list DNS server for free for MailWasher users. Then you can expand your data base input to selling First Alert. Here in USA most providers already have this service. It may not be as good as you like it but it works. Mailwasher gets what my provider misses and this is what I feel USA needs. This is what I think and feel is where the market is at in the United States.

Received no reply.

Second letter sent to Mailwasher same as above:

Reply From MailWasher:

I'm not sure why you're not getting the confirmation emails back. Maybe you need to talk to SpamCop about this.

Thanks for the suggestions, they are appreciated.

Regards

Andrew

Firetrust Support

Third EMAIL to MailWasher:

I had gotten Email from spam Cop said I sent them a Virus when reporting spam I did not do this on purpose the email had a sender that I did not know and the subject looked like spam addvertisment to get you to open it. This is the hole idea is to get rid of spam and keep VIRUSES off your computer. Maybe they shut me off for some other excuxe. I cannot get anyother responce from them. Not a very friendly bunch of people. I have given up on spam Cop try to help their cause out and their paying customers and me using their DNS black list server is not worth the hassel to get this going again. I think spam Cop lets you have a trial period then finds some excuse to keep you off their system so if you really like it you will pay for their service. If it is too much of a hassel I drop it and find something else. I am surprise I stuck with your comany, your product trial version worked so well at the start, I had to purchase it. I give up. Since your company have seams to have some sort of agreement with spam Cop see if you can forward my messages to their technical group and keep me posted on whats going on? Your company would not have put the spam Cop tab on there if they didn't, would they? Make the change as I suggested and call it spam Reporter, even let me report it to First Alert will be good. I may not use it, but It will help your company.

Jim

Reply from MailWasher:

Hi Jim

Maybe in the future there may be an option to report to ISP's. The SpamCop forums are the only way to get support from them, so you will have to try this avenue again sorry.

Regards

Andrew

Firetrust Support

Can anyone please help?

Jim

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There are plenty of folks that might offer to help. but you're going to have to do better at describing what you need help with. Drop all the Mailwahser stuff, as this doesn't seem to be your SpamCop issue. Focus your next post on stating what your SpamCop issues are, what you've tried to resolve those issues, and at least include your system set-up, computer, OS, e-mail app, what type of SpamCop account, what you are actually submitting ... in general, those little tidbits of data that just might help someone figure out how to help you.

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I am 51 years old. I was brought up on Fortran and Basic in 1972. Left for a while and built a couple of 386,486 and 120 pentium. I am currently using XP professional with a 2 gig celeron 520 RAM. I am on DSL with AT&T. Stays on all the time for various reasons. I am running 2 computers with a router that has a firewall internally. The second computer is for telenet connections only. I dont use email on that machine. The first computer has the problem, thats the one I use for email and the family uses it for what ever.

Problem is Spamcop will not let me submit my spam useing the email address that they gave me when I registered for the free service. Mailwasher connection tells me that it was unable to send the message. I have been using spamcop for 6 mounths now with out a problem. until 6 weeks ago when I updated Mailwasher. Mailwasher says to contact Spamcop. :-( About 2 weeks ago I got a responce from Spamcop that I sent them a virus. I did not know that. I just sent them email that looked like spam by the topic and who sent it. I am very care full of that. Why 2 weeks ago I get a responce about the virus and 4 weeks before that no responce? After the Virus mail from Spamcop I still cannot report spam via the email address.

Jim

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Mailwasher does not except submit.MYID Code[at]spamcop.net as a lagitamate email address for Spamcop. Mailwasher accepts MYID Code[at]spam.spamcop.net. I have not tried to just send it as regualr email where you got to properties highlight all the routing info then past it on the email manually Like I use to do with SamSpade. I like to use the automatic mode so it does it for me once I check the boxs to bounce, delete and report.

Jim

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...once I check the boxs to bounce....

No, No. No, No!

PLEASE do not use the Mailwasher "bounce" feature!!!!!!

It does not truly "bounce" messages the way the Mailer Daemon does. What it does is to send an email that looks like a bounce to the *sender* in the return path which is FORGED by the spammer (usually one of the names on his mailing list).

What you are doing is annoying (and sometimes scaring) innocent users who not only get spam directly from the spammer, but now get it passed on by you.

Please TURN OFF the bounce feature on Mailwasher IMMEDIATELY.

You will have to contact the deputies about not being able to send to spamcop. If you sent a virus, you may have been suspended for a time (I don't know that but there are fines and suspensions for errors, IIUC). There was also another question about Mailwasher recently, but I don't remember where it is relevant to your question.

Miss Betsy

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Mailwasher does not except submit.MYID Code[at]spamcop.net as a lagitamate email address for Spamcop. Mailwasher accepts MYID Code[at]spam.spamcop.net. 

Why submit the spams to your code [at]spamcop.net when your code [at]spam.spamcop.net is the proper address?

I have not tried to just send it as regualr email where you got to properties highlight all the routing info then past it on the email manually Like I use to do with SamSpade. 

Why not try submitting a spam to your submission address as you previously did in order to determine if the problem lies with SpamCop or Mailwasher?

I like to use the automatic mode so it does it for me once I check the boxs to bounce, delete and report.

Nice, since virtually every spam comes with a forged return address I imagine the forgery victims really appreciate you bouncing your spam to them.

About 2 weeks ago I got a responce from Spamcop that I sent them a virus.

Could it be that your account was disabled because you violated SpamCop's TOS?

http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/264.html

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Spambo:

--Could it be that your account was disabled because you violated SpamCop's TOS?--

What is this? How do I prevent it? What did I do? I am clue less!

OK Next spam I get, I will send it myself and not Mailwasher.

I have declaired war on spam. If it came from them and they do not know it maybe it will wake them up and find out some spammer is messing up their computer. Some people do it them selfs using lagitamat address to make money but too stupid to figure out that they have to hide themselves. Who knows? The inocent always get hurt durring a war. It seams I am going at it blindly from the last comments. I have been at war for over a year. Sam Spade was some help since the number of spam was increaseing faster than I could keep up with it. It was work and not fun anymore. I hated to email people cause it took too long to filter out the spam.

Miss Betsy:

--You will have to contact the deputies about not being able to send to spamcop. If you sent a virus, you may have been suspended for a time (I don't know that but there are fines and suspensions for errors, IIUC). There was also another question about Mailwasher recently, but I don't remember where it is relevant to your question.--

What do you mean by this?? I have no idea what your talking about and how to correct it. If there are fines and suspensions because some person sent me the stuff that looked like smelled like spam and was a virus, doesn't SPAMCOP stop the people who sent it to me rather penilize me for it? How can I prevent sending them a virus? What do I look for or what am I missing in their reply's?

The bounce mode had reduced my spam in half. People should use Spybot or Adware to clean their computer out from that spam generating guarbage. Citys and towns do not except picking up other City guarbage so why should I except their generated spam? I reject it and send it back! Right? I was getting 30 spam messages a day.

Using Mailwasher to bouncing spam reduced it in half. Reporting spam to SpamCop and ATT over a 3 month period reduced my spam to 1 or 2 a day. numbers are starting to increase again. One more each mounth, cause a good spammer is at work getting around a system slowly. I had enguaged a couple more DNS Blacklist servers in the MailWashers options since I have been having troubles with SpamCop.

Jim

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Using the fake bounce function in any end-user spam product is abuse, and a violation of your ISP's terms of service because it is spoofing a role account that you are not authorized to use.

The makers of an anti-spam product either know that the feature is fraudulant or they are not qualified to make a product that works with the SMTP protocol.

Your fake bounce message is doing one of the following:

1. [Most likely]

Not being delivered, and if it is relayed through your ISP's mail server ends up in their undeliverable e-mail queue, if they bother to maintain one.

2. [Next highest probability]

Being sent to some innocent victim, most of which do not know to file an abuse report to your ISP on receipt of it.

3. [Rarely]

Being sent to the spammer, where is easily determined to be a fake bounce, and you have just confirmed to them that they can get their spam delivered through your ISP's mail server. A few will remove your name from the spam run, but many will just send more spam.

A real bounce message is normally generated by the orginating mail server when the receiving mail server rejects the message with a 5xx code.

Anything else, the spammer can assume is a fake bounce.

About the only thing that stops a spam run is when the ISP terminates a spammer. Any relationship between your bouncing spam and a reduction in the spam you receive is a coincidence.

Read the story of Nadine

http://www.spamresource.com/nadine/

Now I do not have a virus scanner, so I generally assume that anything that has one of the common Microsoft executable or scri_pt types are viruses, and now I know that password protected ZIP files are viruses from reports on various usenet forums.

The viruses also typically cycle through a fixed set of subjects and plain text portions of their messages.

Sometimes the parser will detect a virus, and has depending on the version, it has either offered to report me to the deputies, or refused to make any report.

Sometimes though it is hard to detect if what you have received is the result of a virus, as some viruses arrive with out their payload, and others are stripped by one of the mail relays that they go though, sometimes replaced with a notice and sometimes not.

In general, if you make an honest effort to not report viruses through spamcop, the deputies seem to be understanding about this issue.

There are a few ISPs that will complain to spamcop if they receive a virus report instead of a spam report as it could cause their main mail server to get listed.

Based on other reports from deputies, those are the incidents that will cause them to take action against an account. I do not know what it takes to get the account restored, you will need to contact them about that.

-John

Personal Opinion Only

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Merlyn:

Yes it is I. The one and only! Who are U? do not reconize the name.

WB8TYW:

You for got to add if you just delete it the Spammers know your good email address is still active...... A no win situation.

My son's friend's computer got a virus one day. I was getting 20 email spam form that account alone each day. He kept telling her that her cpu had a virus. She did not do anything about it so I bounce it a couple of weeks nothing happened I used SamSpade and reported each and every spam I got from her. They, Yahoo, shut down the account. People just do not get it even the inosent.

You see ATT kept letting spam get into my account. What ever filters they used did not work. I called them repeatedly with no action. Finally I got some one from ATT and told me to try Mailwasher so I did. They finally switched over to another type of filtering system stuff is still got through. I opend a different email address with them and do not use it. So far for 6 mounths no mail and no spam. Problem is with my personnel long time established email address.

John you said "In general, if you make an honest effort to not report viruses through spamcop, the deputies seem to be understanding about this issue." I did make an honest effort. When they sent it to me I did not understand it so I sent it back thinking that they needed to do something about it. How do I get incontact with them and see this correspondance?

If ATT shuts me down cause their system cannot keep off the spam or viruses off my account I do not know what to do next. Mailwasher is my only line of defence. I do not see some one else doing something that my provider should have taken care of in the first place. Because of spam spammers induced a new generation of software to combate it. How do we know that the spammers are the same people selling the anti spam services or anti spam software companies?

AT&T's famous excuse is that "Spammers are getting smarter."

John I will considder your comments. Thanks.

Jim

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How can I get the deputies to reinstate my account? How do I find out if they took action against my account and why? I do not know what it takes to get my account restored, how do I contact them?

I am a vitum, I think of a spammer planting a virus on an email sent to me and forwarded it to SpamCop just thinking it was spam. These spammers are gettin smarter everyday. If I am right I must have been hitting them hard enough with SpamCop to come up with such a thing.

Don't ever think that Spammers are not reading what is going on with SpamCop. Remmber, SpamCop is a threat to them!

I understand now what Mailwasher is doing by bounce email back to them. Yes it may be in violation, yes it creats more spam going to spammers and the inocent. What does it take to get them stop sending spam to us and putting stuff on our computers to help them send out more spam? By using blcklists to just delete the spam? What is the difference between not bouncing the spam and just deleting theSpam? One says you are definatly there, the other says you may not be there.

What other recourse is there?

Jim

Jim

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What is the difference between not bouncing the spam and just deleting theSpam? One says you are definatly there, the other says you may not be there.

The confusion about 'bouncing' is because there are two ways to 'bounce' messages.

The first way is to reject the email at the server level before the DATA part of the message is received. This is done by a code message back to the sending server - that the sending server translate into an email message and sends to its user who actually sent the message. This is the part of the email process where administrators use the spamcop blocklist and the messages that tell the user that his mail is blocked due to spamcop. This method always returns the email (bounces) to the actual sender.

The second way is for the receiving server to accept the email (including the DATA portion which contains the message). Then the email can be 'filtered' using content filters. Or somehow the blocklists can tag the email as it is accepted, then the tagged email goes to a special folder (Held mail on the spamcop email service). (I am a little vague about how it does this because I just learned how the different bounces work)

If the email has been accepted, it is no longer possible to know who the sending server is (without parsing the headers, either yourself or with software such as spamcop's). In the good old days, people who wanted to send an email from work, but wanted to get the reply at home, could put the home email address in the From: or return-path and get the bounce or reply at home. However, the spammers ruined that function of email by forging the return path so that they would not get bounces or angry replies from their victims who had cancelled the account or replied. The second kind of bounce is actually a special kind of email.

What Mailwasher does is make an email look like the kind of email that a postmaster would send in reply to a non-existent email address. If it went to the spammer, it would be a good idea. However, the only way to make sure it really goes to the spammer is to use the first bounce since spammers started forging the return path. Mailwasher can't use the first kind of bounce since it doesn't filter the incoming email until /after/ it has been accepted by the server.

All content filters are nothing but automatic Just Hit Delete. They are necessary to separate the real email from the spam, but there is nothing you can do with the spam after separating it except delete it or report it. For people who don't know how to parse headers, the only way they can report it is to use spamcop. And even for people who know how to parse headers and choose the correct IP address, spamcop does it faster.

Reporting spam is a good idea because for those who care, they are alerted to their spam problem and they try to fix it immediately. (a VirusCop would also be an excellent idea since 9 out of 10 abuse desks notify the user and insist that they fix their infected machine immediately.)

Unfortunately, there are those who are incompetent or irresponsible and do nothing about their spam problem. So there is the blocklist that blocks that IP address until they do fix the problem.

people like yourbuddy believe that JHD, since it solves the problem for them with a good content filter, is the answer. So do the spammers because that allows them to continue to spam.

The only other workable alternative at this time to JHD is to use a blocklist at the server level. The problem is that legitimate users are also blocked - especially if reporters do not follow the rules or are careless. Therefore, spamcop will fine or suspend reporters if they submit reports that are not spam.

You will need to write to service <at> admin.spamcop.net to see why, or if, your account can be restored.

Miss Betsy

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Betsy Wow!

So now I see why bounce is ineffective! I was sold on the idea of it. So it doesn't matter what I do with it they still know I got it! HMMM Do you know any thing about AT&T filters since they are my provider if they do the first bounce the spam dump it or what? I have all their filter on. My next level of filtering is to give them addresses that are acceptable to pass through all the rest are blocked or droped off I do not know which. I would just as soon have a block list at their sever rather than an except list. Most of the time If I call ATT on something like this I feel as though I am talking to some one who doesn't know much. I am the simpleton they are not or they cannot answer it, talk to some one else and say If I want to filter spam out completely try the approved email address filter. Do you know what their Blightly Design filter really does?

What is JHD?

I will shut off the bounce feature on Mailwasher! I was just lloking at the statistics on the action of Mailwasher today. This lastest version is not bouncing every spam I get. In most cases it deletes it. Earlyer versions bounced everything. They must have changed something.

Viruses on email-

Mailwasher notifies me if it is a virus and automatically deletes it at the server. Nothing else. It had done that 3 times this year. The ones that were auto reported to SpamCop must have been to missed by Mailwasher and did nothing to them so I must have thought is was spam and treated it as such like a good boy and reported it to SpamCop. Makes me wounder about it.

Whos software is out there that does the samething as Mailwasher but better? I do not want to loose the Blacklist DNS function, cause it sure works slick. My year of upgrades after purchaseing the software is almost up. Keeping the email at arms length away from my CPU sure have kepted the viruses off this computer.

I will send email to service <at> admin.spamcop.net and see what they have to say.

Thanks

Jim

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<snip>

What is JHD?

<snip>

Hi, Jim!

...Just Hit Delete. One way of handling spam. Advantages:

  • effective for individual spam
  • little effort required
  • no knowledge required (except how to delete an e-mail)

Disadvantages

  • does nothing to discourage spammer
  • if spam came through a compromised machine, does not warn machine's owner that it is compromised

I'm sure there are others.... :)

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Whos software is out there that does the samething as Mailwasher but better?

SpamAssasin is availble for free, and can be customised. I understand commercially supported versions may be available. I do not personally use it, so I do not know how much effort is needed to get it running. It does appear to be widely used.

If you need a copy to run on OpenVMS, I will have to check with that maintainer to see if that is ready for public release. Otherwise it appears to be available readily for most other platforms.

You have another option for a public e-mail address as you are an Amateur Radio Operator. Check out http://www.qsl.net and sign up for a free account. You can set up a yourcallsign(at)qsl.net e-mail address for free that can forward to anywhere that you want. There is a suggested donation that is somewhere about $15 to $20 per year at the last notice I remember.

qsl.net has aggressive spam blocking and content filtering. It still seems to be accepting e-mail from Brazil, so I see up to three spams a day from there on a bad day, and occasionally a new open proxy will be found by a spammer. It has a special feedback address to report spam to which causes the bayesian filter to learn that pattern.

As it is very aggressive on spam blocking, it is not suitable for receiving mail lists on, if those mailing list ever have any spam leakage, or any other e-mail that may be critical to get.

If someone mails you at your qsl.net address, and either the spamblocks or content filter catches it the message will be rejected with a 5xx code and their mail server will generate a bounce to them.

If your ISP has not locked down your e-mail domain, you can set up a qsl.net address on most mail clients and select which one you want to use for your outgoing mail.

While this will not stop spam that your present e-mail address gets, if you change it and keep the new address out of usenet posts, it may protect it for a while, and then the qsl.net address can be used on mailing lists that are gated to usenet or have web archives.

-John

Personal Opinion Only

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The first way is to reject the email at the server level before the DATA part of the message is received. This is done by a code message back to the sending server

Actually the rejection code can be sent at any time before the SMTP transaction is done. Many mail servers can only be configured to do it at the initial connection through use of a DNSbl..

When the spam is rejected at this step, it avoids most of the bandwidth costs to the mail server, so if you know the I.P. is totally infested with spam, it makes sense to reject it at this step.

This is done by a code message back to the sending server - that the sending server translate into an email message and sends to its user who actually sent the message. This is the part of the email process where administrators use the spamcop blocklist and the messages that tell the user that his mail is blocked due to spamcop. This method always returns the email (bounces) to the actual sender.

It actually causes the sending mail server to generate the bounce message. For a real mail that was misclassified, it means that the mail will get delivered to the original sender if they did not mung their e-mail address.

For a spammer using their real mail server and real e-mail address, they will get the rejection notice.

For a forged address through an open relay, the open relay will generate a bounce to the innocent victim. But as it seems that even all but the most incompetent spam blocking system rejects spam from known open relays, it is not likely that any ones real mail server would accept the bounce, leaving it in the open relay's undeliverable queue.

Note that it is very likely that an open relay will deliver a real e-mail as it usually is intentionally a mail server, but these are universally blocked by almost all mail servers.

An open proxy is extremely unlikely to deliver a mail, but those same people who would not hesitate to block an open relay say they can not add open proxies to their block lists for fear of losing a real e-mail.

It must not explain open proxies in the how to operate a mail server for dummies book under the section where it explains about open relays.

And it is amazing how many mail server operators can not grasp the concept that an open proxy is worse than an open relay to accept e-mail from.

Some mail servers can use a content filter after the initial connection phase, but before the SMTP transaction is complete. That content filter can do a number of tests, like look for viruses, or add up a spam score from other metrics and cause what it does not like to be rejected. It can even keep a copy for later inspection.

It can put a URL in the SMTP reject text with the code that contains a URL that can release the message from quarantine as a non-abusive challenge response system.

Content filters that operate on all e-mail coming in to a large domain will likely have a lot of false positives, so I would recommend only using metrics that can not be easily faked by a spammer. Listed in an aggressive DNSBL or bad rDNS, or coming from an I.P. block locally reported to have sent spam in the past, but not confirmed by a human for a permanent block, having URLs that resolve to I.P. addresses that are in DNSbls, and so on.

I do not think it is worth the cycles to run a content filter on e-mails that pass conservative DNSbls, and have valid rDNS entries. Yes that may let a trickle of spam through, but based on what I am seeing from a mail server that uses no content filtering, that would be on the order of a less than 1 spam per week for an address widely visible to the internet.

And there is a time limit for how long the processing can take for to determine if it still wants to accept the e-mail.

But this system is very unlikely to reject a real e-mail. If it does, because it would use an SMTP reject, the sender will get notified of the non-delivery.

The second way is for the receiving server to accept the email (including the DATA portion which contains the message). Then the email can be 'filtered' using content filters. Or somehow the blocklists can tag the email as it is accepted, then the tagged email goes to a special folder (Held mail on the spamcop email service). (I am a little vague about how it does this because I just learned how the different bounces work)

Once the SMTP transaction is over, if the mail server wants to send a non-delivery notice, it usually will go by an untrusted e-mail address, as the writers of the SMTP protocol did not take into account dishonest use of the protocol.

With most undeliverable messages being spam or viruses, it is now better to just drop them, but apparently the RFCs say that they must be delivered.

Delivering them to "original_e-mail_name"[at][numeric.I.P. ADDRESS]" such as joe.user[at][127.0.0.1] would satisfy the RFCs, as mail servers are required to accept e-mail addressed that way per other RFCs according to postings on the DSBL.ORG mailing list.

All POST SMTP transaction content filters are nothing but automatic Just Hit Delete.

Text in red added.

The problem both with post SMTP transaction spam filters that divert or tag what they consider spam are not 100% accurate, so it means that when they misclassify something, either you have to be continually searching the quarantine, or it may be too late by the time that you notice that a critical message is not getting through.

If they bounce the message, most of their bounces will be abusive to innocent victims.

If it is a central quarantine, it may take several delivery attempts for several hours wasted before someone checks with the system help desk to check the quarantine, as the sender will typicallly retry several times after calling the receiver on the phone when they do not get their expected reply.

This makes it much better to issue an SMTP reject, so if a message get misclassified, a human will notice it faster to take a recovery action. And if the message is formulated correctly by their mail server they will have all the information needed.

And having an the spam filter JHD makes the errors even harder to diagnose.

And more than once, someone has set up a scri_pt to automatically report everything their client spam filter detects is spam to spamcop.net as spam, and through an error in their setup, they ended up reporting their mailserver. For a small mail server with only a thousand or so users, their self reporting will be enough to cause a listing.

And that shows one of the dangers of allowing the spam to reach a computer user that thinks they know more than what they actually do. :D

And letting all the spew through to the end user increases the chance that an important e-mail will be deleted by accident and not noticed, or lost because a user is over quota from not deleting them fast enough.

When the misclassified mail is rejected, at least the sender gets notified of the problem in a timely fashon.

Now if you know that the recipiant of your mail is using a spam filter, what would you rather have happen on an error? The mail silently disapearing, or you getting a reject message?

-John

Personal Opinion Only

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This is the Report I got back from SpamCop:

submit.MyAccount[at]spam.spamcop.net points to Myemail address,

which is in good standing. It hasn't been used to report spam since April

18th. The three submissions on that date, which were not actually

reported, were all virus/bounce messages. Virus traffic isn't spam. You

shouldn't use SpamCop to report it.

Can anyone out there that tell me please Whos software is out there that does the samething as Mailwasher but better? I do not want to loose the Blacklist DNS function, cause it sure works slick only SpamCop DNS list is all I am using now. I want to help this fight against spam. My year of upgrades after purchaseing the software is almost up. Keeping the email at arms length away from my CPU sure have kepted the viruses off this computer?

Because MailWasher lets some viruse through, what can I use for a second line of defence to avoid sending SpamCop a Virus when reporting, what looks like and smells like spam, by the title of the message and who it is from?

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Well John I dont know where to start. Hi Hi.

I guess Delete is much better. When I got a reject I put the reject address in my filter and autodeleted it when I was using SamSpade to report spam. Then I fugured out that in some cases this did not help cause the spammer had set up his own address to report abuse to. So I gave up only on rare instances I use SamSpade.

I do not and am not using wanyohter Word filtering. I found out thats what some of the relays and DNS servers used and took too much time to process my mail so I do not use them.

You sure gave me alot to read. I will have to reread it several times so I can absob some of it. Three other accounts that I do not use, and check them regularly. I never get mail through them. including spam for over one year now. So those sites eather have good filter and/or do not release my address to spammers and spammers are not hacking in. I did this as a bata test to see how good the sites are. I do not have a qsl.net address. Is that part of W9FOX system?

AT&T for old long time users their system has holes and things get through like you said. I met some one who was with ATT a little longer than me also has the same problems. So I know I am not the only one.

AT&T new filters seam to only respond to email if you report alot at one time and it has to be from the same spammer. Soo I will use SpamCop DNS server filter it and I will keep reporting it for a couple of mounths. Then I will shut off SpamCop DNS server let it through and let it sit on AT&T account and when I get 8 or 12 waiting there I report them all at once. Then their filtering system finally kicks in. Do this for a mounth or so then go and put on SPAMCOP DNS server again. Durring this time I kept reporting the spam to SpamCop. When I report missed spam to the missed spam AT&T address it gets ignored usually. So I gave up. It is all cyclick. Keeps going in circles. Right now every thing seams to be working and today I was able to report spam again to SpamCop. :o)

Jim

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Down loaded spamassin from http://au2.spamassassin.org/index.html Note: This is the home page for the main open-source SpamAssassin distribution. Packages downloaded here contain UNIX-oriented front-end scripts. Versions for Windows, commercial versions, and other front-ends, are listed on this site.

I clicked on downloads at the top right corner of the page.

Released version, 2.63:

SpamAssassin in tar.gz format.

SpamAssassin in tar.bz2 format.

SpamAssassin in ZIP format.

I clicked on SpamAssassin in ZIP format and dowloaded this version. Now what do I do with it. I cannot find any thing to auto install using control Pannel Add/Remove software program. I cannot find where or how to install it in XP.

Please help.

Jim

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Down loaded spamassin from http://au2.spamassassin.org/index.html Note: This is the home page for the main open-source SpamAssassin distribution. Packages downloaded here contain UNIX-oriented front-end scripts. Versions for Windows, commercial versions, and other front-ends, are listed on this site.

I clicked on downloads at the top right corner of the page.

Released version, 2.63:

SpamAssassin™ in tar.gz format.

SpamAssassin™ in tar.bz2 format.

SpamAssassin™ in ZIP format.

I clicked on SpamAssassin™ in ZIP format and dowloaded this version.  Now what do I do with it.  I cannot find any thing to auto install using control Pannel Add/Remove software program.  I cannot find where or how to install it in XP.

Please help.

Jim

Hi, Jim!

...First, I must say that I'm wading into dangerous waters here because I know nothing (and care less) about SpamAssassin™. However, I do know a bit about downloading and installing and since it's been almost twelve hours since your post with no other replies:

...What was downloaded -- a file like xxxx.zip? If so, you must have software that can process the ZIP file -- PKUNZIP or WinZip® for example.

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[snip]

SpamAssassin in ZIP format.

I clicked on SpamAssassin in ZIP format and dowloaded this version.  Now what do I do with it.  I cannot find any thing to auto install using control Pannel Add/Remove software program.  I cannot find where or how to install it in XP.

Please help.

Jim

[snip]

...What was downloaded -- a file like xxxx.zip?  If so, you must have software that can process the ZIP file -- PKUNZIP or WinZip® for example.

WinXP has a built-in un-Zip capability. Just clicking on the zip file should decompress it.

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WinXP has a built-in un-Zip capability.  Just clicking on the zip file should decompress it.

I hate to be a cynic, but if the original poster doesn't know how to handle a ZIP file, he's going to have a hell of a time installing SpamAssassin!

Some software is user-friendly. But SA is most definitely expert-friendly!

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Sorry about the confusion.

I have WINZip.

Yes I do know how to use it.

Yes I unziped it.

No there is not and executiable file to load it, and no install file for control pannel ADD/Remove program to find.

I thought I would list it so others can download it to help me out. Looks to me like files are missing or am I missing something here? I will have to go to download.com and do a search that is compatible to XP. How ever I was looking for a longterm free software not just a 30 day trial.

Jim

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