Cannot Resolve .ru Domain Names

[Krypton]

In the bundle of spam I often receive, I always have a lot of emails that link to .ru URLs, including some URLs that I now see on a daily basis. It seems that when I report the spam email via SpamCop, the IP address produces a good abuse contact email, but SpamCop can never resolve the .ru URL.

Is SpamCop unable to resolve all .ru website URLs, or am I just lucky to always get spammed with difficult-to-track websites?

Thanks!

[Farelf]

...Is SpamCop unable to resolve all .ru website URLs, or am I just lucky to always get spammed with difficult-to-track websites? ...

I just tried feeding in a heap of .ru domains (you can feed the bare URLs, one-by-one, into the webform submission) and all worked fine. You may be seeing SC lookups being blocked, some spam payload sites do that. SC doesn't send reports to anyone who asks not to get them but some hosts evidently find it less incriminating, easier or more satisfying to block the lookups.

You should maybe feed in a few of the sites (full URL) you are seeing go unresolved to see whether or not the parser handles them when they are by themselves - that would rule out time and load factors within the parsing. Then try doing your own lookup (say using NSLOOKUP if you're a Windows user - using just domain) to confirm they're viable (name servers work and they have an "A" record) on your network. Sometimes non-viable (NXD) addresses are "spamvertized", probably though spammer incompetence.

SC doesn't care about websites (not the primary purpose) but if you do, maybe you can get better satisfaction in that regard from one of the specialised BLs like http://www.surbl.org/ or http://www.uribl.com/

If you want to get more involved than that, have a look at KnujOn - http://www.knujon.com/ and/or The Complainterator - http://www.complainterator.com/ & http://spamtrackers.eu/wiki/index.php/Complainterator

[Krypton]

Thanks for all of the help. I'm still having issues with most .ru domains that I enter (even when I enter them individually into SpamCop) but it seems like it's no fault of SpamCop. I'm having difficulties looking these domains up, regardless of what websites or tools I use.

On another note, thank you a ton for the detailed reply. I have been looking into the other links that you have provided and they look like awesome resources as well.