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How fast does SpamCop jump into action?


Sandy Panico

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I was curious as to how long it will take, after the spam is initially reported, for the reports to be filed, and action is taken against the offender? Just curious. I've just started actually reporting quite a bit of spam this afternoon and tonight, and I'm not sure of the turnaround time on it.

In the mean time, I have managed to block the email addresses of the offenders, on my Yahoo Mail account, hoping that might work, and then again, maybe not because they can always open up new accounts... Hoping this works... But if it doesn't, how long until SpamCop puts the freeze on an offender? :mellow:

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<snip>

I have managed to block the email addresses of the offenders, on my Yahoo Mail account, hoping that might work, and then again, maybe not because they can always open up new accounts...

<snip>

...Correct!

...If you haven't looked at the FAQ, yet, please click one of the links near the top left of any SpamCop Forum page that references the SpamCop FAQ and look for the link labeled "What is on the list?"

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I was curious as to how long it will take, after the spam is initially reported, for the reports to be filed, and action is taken against the offender? Just curious. I've just started actually reporting quite a bit of spam this afternoon and tonight, and I'm not sure of the turnaround time on it.

In the mean time, I have managed to block the email addresses of the offenders, on my Yahoo Mail account, hoping that might work, and then again, maybe not because they can always open up new accounts... Hoping this works... But if it doesn't, how long until SpamCop puts the freeze on an offender? :mellow:

Reporting spam is the best way to stop spam (if the ISP reacts most do)

How ever Brazil has a bad reputation for not doing anything about spam or abuse reports.

As a consequence most peoples providers do not accept email from Brazil the country

Blacklisting the spam email addresses is usually very ineffective as spammers just invent them and change them in next spam flood.

I don't accept email from Brazil and report their DOS attacks on email account. Brazilan spammers try to get around this by using overseas based email accounts or providers.

Technology even recognizes Portuguese and blocks it for reporting, which then adds the spam source to Blocklists .

Most Blocklist farm spam sources by using "honeypots" or spamtrap addresses to catch spammers.

Many of these Blocklists never release IP's once blocked. SpamCop Email

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For the quick answer, skip to the last several paragraphs. BUT ...

You may have the wrong idea about SpamCop Sandy. It is not for attacking cyber-stalkers, nasty-gram senders, persistent pests and the like (those are a matter for their service providers if they offend their terms of service/acceptable use policy/customer relations agreement or might be a police/law-enforcement responsibility if they cross the line of legitimate use and content in terms of enforceable communications regulations). It is ONLY for spam which is UBE - unsolicited bulk e-mail (or UCE - unsolicited commercial email in some places) and for virus download attempts, advance-fee solicitations ("Nigerian 419" and similar) and identity-theft phish attempts.

SpamCop does not block anyone itself, but maintains a real-time block-list (SCBL) which network e-mail administrators and individuals may elect to use to mark or divert incoming mail for their clients from listed sources. It is a two-pronged approach - the mail administrators or nominated abuse complaint handlers for the network of origin are notified about the abuse of their network immediately after SC is told about it so they can investigate and take action (though they are perfectly entitled to decline such assistance in managing their networks) and the IP address of the source (or the last reliably-identified relay in the chain of message transmission) sort of accumulates points which will lead to its inclusion in the SCBL while it continues to send/relay spam. Once the "tipping point" is reached the IP address is included and will remain on the list for no more than 24 hours after the last spam report is received.

Here is the official SC FAQ on the overview

How does SpamCop reporting work?

Here is what (sometimes irate) mail/network administrators who have had mail from their network blocked by the SCBL are advised about it

Who appointed you the "cop" of the internet? Where do you get off?

Here, from the rules for reporters, is what you should NOT report

On what type of email should I (not) use SpamCop?

Here is how the SCBL works (roughly, not TOO much information is public or even constant)

What is the SpamCop Blocking List (SCBL)?

A further couple of points (and an answer to "how long it will take ..." as far as can be given)

Once, when the "tipping point" for an IP address to be included in the SCBL was reached, its inclusion was immediate and that could be seen straight away by the public. Similarly, if already listed and new evidence of continuing spam was received its extension (by up to a further 24 hours) in the SCBL was immediately evident to the public. Unfortunately that "public" included the spammers and some of those were using the information to "game" the system (rotate their source addresses and so-on). So there are now some sort of delays in the information the public sees. We users/reporters don't know (and I'm sure SC staff won't say much more).

Next, the official SC FAQ (as in the above links) is linked, mirrored, paraphrased, sometimes "updated" - and additional information provided - in the forum FAQ and forum Wiki, as accessed from the links at the head of forum pages

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2238

http://forum.spamcop.net/scwik/SpamCopWikiHome

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how long until SpamCop puts the freeze on an offender? :mellow:

I have not read the FAQ but SpamCop cannot freeze anything, the entities hosting accounts need to stop them. You will find this can take a few days, especially if they are notified Friday at office closing time and they do not reopen until 8:00 AM on Monday - not everyone is 24 hours per day 7 days a week, except spammers. I actually printed to pdf and electronically faxed them to SingleHop, like 82 pages of spam with their corresponding spam reports. I then emailed them to every email contact listed on SingleHop's contacts page. Whether that does anything or not, I am not sure, I just wanted them to share my pain.

I will say this, the quicker you report, the quicker SpamCop gets it out. If a provider is blacklisted by server administrators, then whole groups of people may be negatively affected, and the providers do not want all of their clients complaining that their emails are not getting through because the URL range was blacklisted.

So, keep up with diligent reporting! Perhaps spammers have a list of those who frequently report and remove that email form THEIR list.

:lol:

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I thought I would ad a note here. Now that I have found out how to send a proper abuse report, this morning, I woke up to a little less spam than usual. Instead of seventeen emails from the same spammer, I only found eight of them. And now, I was able to send out more abuse reports. The spammer is jumping from ISP to ISP and I think it's because they are aware that they are being sniffed out. They went from Gmail to Telecom, RU, and now to another server in Russia. I forgot the name, but they are jumping around a bit. I think I may have them on the lam. I may not be able to catch them, and I will still get rogue emails from this bozo, but at least I know I have them working extra hard not to get caught. Who knows? Maybe they will run out of options soon enough. Hard to tell, this is my first time using this service. I'll keep everyone posted. :)

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...Or using a botnet.

I think that's what was happening in my case. I ended up giving up my yahoo mail address and exchanged it for a gmail address. No more spam. None in my hotmail, which operates on an https server and none on my gmail. But I will continue to visit these forums though. I see that yahoo is definitely dying. It has declined drastically and their service is nothing to write home about. Hotmail has come a long way though. Introducing the https option to customers was their best move. I am a very happy customer of MSN and Google.

See ya later Yahoo!

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I think that's what was happening in my case. I ended up giving up my yahoo mail address and exchanged it for a gmail address. No more spam. .

See ya later Yahoo!

I kept all of my emails. I cannot say for certain, but I think they have removed the email addresses I have complained from because they ultimately (if a US server) get shut down and have to set up another. Easier to just remove us from their email data base. Odd that we are not allowed to know who they are, but our email address is often provided to them when we complain. :angry:

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I kept all of my emails. I cannot say for certain, but I think they have removed the email addresses I have complained from because they ultimately (if a US server) get shut down and have to set up another. Easier to just remove us from their email data base. Odd that we are not allowed to know who they are, but our email address is often provided to them when we complain. :angry:

Yahoo hasn't kept up with the times but Hotmail and Gmail have. It was time for a change. Come to think of it, I don't think any of my complaints made it to the block list..

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