pusser_uk Posted June 22, 2013 Share Posted June 22, 2013 When I receive spam, I usually block the sender and then report the spam to SpamCop. When I then check my blocked senders list, I find that the email supposedly might have come from an address such as "supec[at]yahoo.com". Now, that address bears no relation to any addresses that are produced by SpamCop when the spam is processed. My question is, is it actually worth blocking a sender in Outlook Express, since it seems that the address is actually not part of the spam, perhaps just the means of delivering it? My blocked senders list is HUGE and most of the addresses in it seem to have been used once or twice at the most. Of course, I know that in the case of the email address above, I can just have "yahoo.com" as the blocked sender but that will block emails from legitimate friends who use yahoo also. One particularly bad day for spam produced 12 emails from variations of "s***[at]yahoo.com". Each of these 12 emails were added to my blocked senders list and each of these 12 emails had the identical message. Once processed by SpamCop, not one of them had any yahoo.com address in the report. So, is it actually worth blocking senders in the way I do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpamCopAdmin Posted June 22, 2013 Share Posted June 22, 2013 >- My blocked senders list is HUGE Now you know why it is a bad idea to add spam "From" addresses to your blacklist. The "From" address on spam is almost universally either fake or forged, and rarely used more that just a couple of times. SpamCop totally ignores email addresses on spam. - Don D'Minion - SpamCop Admin - - Service[at]Admin.SpamCop.net - . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pusser_uk Posted June 22, 2013 Author Share Posted June 22, 2013 So the answer is, "No, its not worth it". >- My blocked senders list is HUGE Now you know why it is a bad idea to add spam "From" addresses to your blacklist. - Don D'Minion - SpamCop Admin - - Service[at]Admin.SpamCop.net - . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alvarnell Posted June 22, 2013 Share Posted June 22, 2013 So the answer is, "No, its not worth it". That would be my answer. If SpamCop doesn't suspect a Forgery and you get something from that same address frequently, see if there is an address to "unsubscribe" and try it. Those are working much more than they used to and the spammer has already shown that they believe your address is good or they would have given up long ago. Only if all that fails would I resort to blocking an e-mail address. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petzl Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 So, is it actually worth blocking senders in the way I do? NO pointless! Get MailWasher for Windows for effective spam control (makes things easy.With effective and easy SpamCop reporting using Your "SuperSecretSpamCopEmailReportingAddress[at]Spamcop" Set-Up is here If your SpamCop Mailhosts are set-up correctly you can use Quick reporting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnarlymarley Posted June 23, 2013 Share Posted June 23, 2013 One particularly bad day for spam produced 12 emails from variations of "s***[at]yahoo.com". Each of these 12 emails were added to my blocked senders list and each of these 12 emails had the identical message. This is just about pointless because the combinations of "s***[at]yahoo.com", where * is a wildcard, would be 42*42*42 or close to 74,000 addresses. Add more character wildcards or the millions of domains and this can explode the list. As previously stated, some of the addresses you add could be forged, but if you end up adding everything on that the wildcard matches, it will get valid addresses. I did that once and unknowingly caused issues with some friends. Blocked senders can be especially dangerous if you have some software that automatically reports those senders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lisati Posted June 24, 2013 Share Posted June 24, 2013 Blocked senders can be especially dangerous if you have some software that automatically reports those senders. ....or creates fake bounces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InvisiBill Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 Expanding on what others have said, don't use MailWasher's "bounce" feature. Since most email addresses are forged or non-existant, the bounce most likely won't ever actually make it back to the spammer. If it does get somewhere, it'll probably be an innocent bystander (whose email address was chosen just as randomly as yours). And finally, it's your own client sending an email that looks like bounce report. Anyone who knows anything at all about email headers can see that it came from your IP rather than directly from the mail server. If someone took the time to look at the bounce, it would actually verify that the spam went to a valid email address. The bounce feature is good for making that stalker ex think you've changed your email address. It's not good for stopping spam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petzl Posted June 26, 2013 Share Posted June 26, 2013 Expanding on what others have said, don't use MailWasher's "bounce" feature. The bounce "feature" is no longer set on by default. You are right setting this will not only do no good! The poor "Joe" you bounce it to will have YOU busted for spamming (Spammers use false return address's often as an attack on a spam fighter) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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