Problems Reporting spam To Accretive-Networks (Hoster of Porn Site URLs in Email)

[dutch 0]

I have been getting spam emails advertising porn sites (I infer they are porn sites based on the claims of the emails and the suggestive names of the sites). Spamcop's analysis says the links for the sites in the emails are hosted at accretive-networks.net. The emails are sent from various addresses.

Spamcop does send reports to the email senders' ISPs, but doesn't send reports to the Accretive Networks abuse address. Spamcop says the ISP does not wish to receive reports, that the domain has been appealed previously.

One today is for the domain 18asianz.com. Spamcop tracker: 6270915194

Spamcop and Accretive Networks website both show reporting address of abuse <at> accretive-networks.net, however, when I submit directly, their mail server rejects my report because of content. A week ago, I found another reporting address, noc <at> accretive-networks.net, and sent an email which elicited a response. The response said their client (meaning the porn site) is a legitimate business, which is being subjected to a "joejob" attack and I should direct my complaints to the ISP of the email sender.

Further they said they are continuing to investigate and work with Spamcop to resolve this series of what they say they believe is a "joejob" attack.

Other emails contain websites for these domains, all, according to Spamcop's analysis, are hosted at Accretive Networks.

18andabused.com

18pov.com

facialsz.com

milfz.com

bbwtime.com

18lesbianz.com

boobiesz.com

inchlovers.com

Questions:

Why would the ISP refuse reports from Spamcop?

Is Spamcop working with Accretive Networks to resolve this situation? If so, what is the disposition?

Is it normal for an ISP's abuse address to block reports like the ones I sent directly?

Is Spamcop still hosted at Accretive Networks?

[Lking 0]

You need to provide a Tracking URL for your example. Only you can access the report ID 6270915194
The tracking URL is at the top of the output from the parser:

"Here is your TRACKING URL - it may be saved for future reference:
https://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=...."

Moving on to your questions

Q: Why would the ISP refuse reports from Spamcop?
A: Because (a) they are not going to do anything about it, (b ) because of their clients they receive to many to deal with {See a}, © they don't believe spamcop {See a}, (d) They make a living supporting doggy clients and can't afford to question their business practices {see a} (e)... {See a}

Q: Is Spamcop working with Accretive Networks to resolve this situation? If so, what is the disposition?

A: Sounds like NO they are not. SpamCop sends spam reports to those ISPs that will accept them. It is up to the ISP, Accretive Networks in this case, to deal with their client that is abusing the IP controlled by the ISP. SpamCop has no control/authority in that relationship.

Q: Is it normal for an ISP's abuse address to block reports like the ones I sent directly?

A: Don't know what your report "looked" like. But yes, many ISPs filter their incoming/outgoing email to block things that look like spam. This has frequently been reported here, when reporters find that their email forwarding spam to SpamCop is blocked by their ISP because 'the email contains "spam"'. Daah!!!

Q: Is Spamcop still hosted at Accretive Networks?

A: What makes you think they are? Is this a 'when did you stop beating your wife' question?

[dutch 0]

Lking,

Thanks for the info.

Answering your questions in reverse order:

I am definately asking a pointed question, but it wasn't intended to be a trick question. However, if Spamcop is indeed hosted at Accretive Networks, it seems a bit odd to me that apparently Spamcop does not have an open communications channel with their own ISP to resolve spam complaints. Second, although I appreciate that with the amount of porn hosted on the Internet, finding an ISP that doesn't host porn may not be so easy, I additionally find it odd that Spamcop would choose to host its service with a company that, based on an email to me from them, asserts that the domains I cited in my email to them and listed above are legitimate businesses that they are defending, when as an industry (and specifically, the domains I listed) are so highly correlated with spam.

With respect to your first question, I was asking the question about whether they *are* hosted at Accretive Networks because in 2005 Spamcop announced that had changed hosting providers to "Accretive Technology Group", which maps to the domain name accretive-networks.net.

See: https://www.spamcop.net/spamnews.shtml

Quoting from Spamcop's post:

SpamCop hosted by Accretive

SpamCop has been moved to a new colocation facility, Accretive Technology Group.

[Lking 0]

I believe you need to read your spamnews reference more carefully. That page is, if you will, a push-down stack, with the newer news on the top.
Back in 2002, when you read "I" or "me" it means, Julian, the individual that founded SpamCop. That was before the sale of SpamCop to IronPost
System (Cisco). (see the later [higher] post SpamCop Purchased).

All of that happened prior to the top entry dated 2005. It is now 2015. Times have changed in the last 10 years as I'm sure you will agree they have in the last 9 months.

Not being a conspiracy theorist, when I do a WHOIS on spamcop.net I see that they are on server names are sub-domains of AKAM.net. When I Google AKAM.net I find the following reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamai_Technologies, which list AKAM.net as one of their dns servers.

[Farelf 0]

Just to mention a useful tool for fairly complete information on just about all aspects of domains of interest, to blow away any uncertainty, doubt and supposition, robtex.com. A particularly useful feature is the discovery and presentation of shared resources. Like:

https://www.robtex.com/en/advisory/dns/net/spamcop/

and

https://www.robtex.com/en/advisory/dns/com/inchlovers/

(latter same as 18asianz.com, etc., etc.).

ISPs are not obliged to receive SC reports and those in the spam/exploit business seem to prefer not to.

[dutch 0]

Farelf,

Thanks for the response.Your pointer to robtex is appreciated.

As I am sure both you and Lking (his attempt at a bluff notwithstanding) know, finding out where servers are really located is not easy. For example, forum.spamcop.net appears to be hosted at Liquid Web, Inc., based in Michigan, and CDNs such as Akamai are popular in part because they allow businesses to hide behind them from DDoS attacks, and other things.

FWIW with respect to Accretive, my question was based on more than just the ten year old announcement that pre-dates the IronPort/Cisco acquisition. There is what appears to be a current FAQ entry at spamcop.net that makes reference to a router on Accretive's network.