Something wrong? Reporting works?

[Andrea]

Hello guys,

I would like to ask you some info about the spam reporting system.

I'm a free member of spamcop from 1 month, so I'm quite young.

I started reporting (munged report) all the spam got by my primary emails (4 spam messages a day totally received by all my accounts so not so much) because I want to help fighting the spam all over and maybe try to get less spam in my boxes.

I noticed that the number of spam-emails that I receive is not lowered a bit, instead, it increased.

I received some more spam now than before.

I know that by munged reports spammers can anyway understand by what email reports are generated, using some tracking codes they attach to emails, I'm asking myself if this is the cause... I don't think anyway will be so useful a different kind of report, more conservative than a munged one.

The question is so, I'm making something wrong (I donno cause I'm just simply reporting headers to the spamcop site), or maybe the spam-reporting thing don't make so much differences for people that receive a low number of messages a day as me?

Thanx for your help,

Andrea

[agsteele]

The question is so, I'm making something wrong (I donno cause I'm just simply reporting headers to the spamcop site), or maybe the spam-reporting thing don't make so much differences for people that receive a low number of messages a day as me?

Hi Andrea,

Your experience is not unusual. The truth is that once you start receiving spam your Email address will be passed along to other spammers. Additionally, many spammers generate Email addresses by computer program and simply send to pretty much anything.

So the increase may not reveal anything very much.

As for your reports... Thanks for feeding the list by submitting reports. That really helps those of us who make use of the SCBL to identify spam and either block it or trap it in some way. But your reports will have no affect on your spam received unless your ISP makes use of the SCBL and many do not.

If you want a mailbox that is good at catching spam then you could sign up for the SpamCop Email service. But to effectively block spam you need a range of tools deployed including DNSBLs, spam assassin type filtering and grey listing.

You may want to take a look at this thread for further discussion on this issue.

Thanks, again, for reporting.

Andrew

[Andrea]

Your experience is not unusual. The truth is that once you start receiving spam your Email address will be passed along to other spammers. Additionally, many spammers generate Email addresses by computer program and simply send to pretty much anything.

You may want to take a look at this thread for further discussion on this issue.

Very thanx for your reply :-)

Well I understood the matter about the Lists, I donno if my ISP use it.

Is true that spam can increase and decrease without any action by me, anyway I didn't submitted my address in any site, and the increase happened just when I started report the emails to spamcop.

My opinion is that spammers understood that my address is a working one cause got reported a mail by me with a tracking code. And so they stared to spam me more, in some ways, I gained points into their infinite address lists, simply because they know there is a human that check mail and is active.

Does this make sense or I'm just crazy-by-spam? LOL :-)

Let me know is this kind of things can happen. I could anyway continue reporting spam if this help the community, even if this will bring me get a bit more spam than before :-)

Andrea

[Wazoo]

Is true that spam can increase and decrease without any action by me,

Let me know is this kind of things can happen. I could anyway continue reporting spam if this help the community, even if this will bring me get a bit more spam than before :-)

Not sure why you feel the need to ask folks to repeat the 'story already existing in several, some massive, existing Topics/Discussions, such as the one Andrew already referenced, listed as a FAQ item, referenced and discussed in ton-loads of other anti-spam/spam-complaint/vlogs/forums around the world. Perhaps if you'd have at least suggested that you took the time to at least take a lance of any of that already existing data????

anyway I didn't submitted my address in any site, and the increase happened just when I started report the emails to spamcop.

This would allege that the spammer actually got receipt of your submittlas and took the time to examine and make note of the alleged tracking codes involved. That's actually pretty unusual these days .. however, no one here can talk to all the other variables involved, such as how you are actually handling your e-mail, handling your submittal actions, how you've protected your e-mail address thus far, which ISP/Hosts were the tergets of any Reportsx you did send out, on and on .....

My opinion is that spammers understood that my address is a working one cause got reported a mail by me with a tracking code. And so they stared to spam me more, in some ways, I gained points into their infinite address lists, simply because they know there is a human that check mail and is active.

Again, many assumptions would have to prove true in the scenario you suggest. What may have been true five years ago is nowhere near the 'standards' of today. Yet again, even these remarks are based on assumptuos as there is no detail available here about just what type of spam(mer) you're talking about, the parties involved with your Reporting, and yet again, how you are handling your e-mail in the first place.

On one hand, your single spam Report doesn't balance much against those scum that are cramking out a few million e-mails a day ... but on the other hand, your Report just may be the one that helps satisfy the math needed to get a spam-spew source placed onto the SpamCopDNSBL, in addition to perhaps getting a whitehat ISP/Host to take the action needed to shut off the flow from that point.

Anyway, explanations and definitions are provided in the FAQ, the Wiki, etc. as found by the numerous links at the top of this very page .. in addition to the previous Topics/Discussion on this specific question.

[rconner]

Hello, Andrea, welcome to the forum.

My opinion is that spammers understood that my address is a working one cause got reported a mail by me with a tracking code. And so they stared to spam me more, in some ways, I gained points into their infinite address lists, simply because they know there is a human that check mail and is active.

That could be, but the most productive spammers simply send to any addresses they can find or guess, they don't particularly care whether they work or not. Just think about it -- if you were mailing to a list of millions of people, would you have time to individually manage each address on your list?

Also, in order for a spammer to realize that you have complained about the mailing, he has to get a copy of the complaint. Because the large-scale spammers tend to hide behind bots and proxies (i.e., stolen services), they will likely never see such complaints at all.

Rest assured, it is very unlikely that you are being personally targeted -- you are simply in the same boat as the rest of us.

-- rick

[Andrea]

Not sure why you feel the need to ask folks to repeat the 'story already existing in several, some massive, existing Topics/Discussions, such as the one Andrew already referenced, listed as a FAQ item, referenced and discussed in ton-loads of other anti-spam/spam-complaint/vlogs/forums around the world. Perhaps if you'd have at least suggested that you took the time to at least take a lance of any of that already existing data????

I took the time to read many of them, and I'm currently reading them. Maybe also I hasn't being so skilled into FAQs or didn't had the ability to find my info into the Links suggested (the first post was in 2004, many things can happen lol).

Thanx for your time to all guys and members of the forum, and sorry for the super-posted-post I submitted.

Many things can happen about the spam-problem and nobody can have all the answers, btw is curious that I receive the same spam for months and that it start increasing just when I start to fight it LOL :-) I received 13 spam messages today, never happened with 4 of average LOL

But is true, and I was also suspecting that, that usually spammers that send thousands of mail, hardly can handle my little, unlucky report that I submit.

Anyway, thanx again to all, and sorry again: I'try to be more skilled-in-search next time!

Andrea

[turetzsr]

<snip>sorry again: I'try to be more skilled-in-search next time!

Andrea

...LOL! Hopefully, just mentioning that you tried searching the FAQ and Wiki we've worked so hard to build will at least make some of us feel a bit better! <g>

[Wazoo]

I took the time to read many of them, and I'm currently reading them. Maybe also I hasn't being so skilled into FAQs or didn't had the ability to find my info into the Links suggested (the first post was in 2004, many things can happen lol).

Just noting that the Topic/Discussion referenced gets pointed to a lot because of all the ground that got covered. There are several others that got just bout as big and address a few other things.

Anyway, thanx again to all, and sorry again: I'try to be more skilled-in-search next time!

You're more than welcome. And we can all agree that 'skilled-on-search' is a bit of a black-art/science .... having to guess at what words someone else used to describe the thing that you're trying to lookup. And I'm sure that just when you find the right words, it's going to turn out that the magic Post with all the perfect answers won't appear as that Poster decided to abbreviate the exact search-term that you used. However, that's the background for the generation of the Dictionary, the Glossary, the single-page-access-expanded-version of the SpamCop FAQ, and the Wiki here ... all to try to nake sure that any data that can be offered is out there in a form that is usable. In the event it's not, then there folks around that still invest their volunteer time and energy to try to fix, edit, add things.

[dbiel]

It should be noted that the Wiki ( http://forum.spamcop.net/scwik/SpamCopWikiHome ) is generally the best place to start a search as all entries are crossed linked. But the forum contains far more data as work to expand the FAQ's in the Wiki and Forum have come to a near stand still.