why would a legitimate domain request 'no reports'?

[Morg2]

Lately almost half the spam I've gotten has been traced back to "mit.edu", which according to the Spamcop reports, has asked indefinitely to not receive any reports. I can see some spammer-haven ISP not wishing to be bothered dealing with their scum tenants, but a respectable university? How does it make sense that they wouldn't want to root out the abusers and punish them for messing with the name?

Just curious if anyone can explain the philosophy of that.

Here's the lines from a recent report:

Using abuse net on arin-mit-security[at]mit.edu
abuse net mit.edu = abuse[at]mit.edu
Using best contacts abuse[at]mit.edu

ISP does not wish to receive reports regarding http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd- no date available

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtdhas been appealed previously.

[Dave_L]

It might be helpful for you to post a Tracking URL for one of the problematic spams that you're tried to report.

[spinner]

I could be wrong but what they don't want reports about is the "document type", in most web pages you have a statement saying what standard the page is supposed to adhere to and that statement can also say where there is something that defines that standard. Its not their fault a spammer pointed to it.

[Dave_L]

Spinner, that makes sense. And if Morg2 posts a Tracking URL so that we can see the actual spam email, it could be confirmed.

[Morg2]

Here's just a couple from today:

https://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z6223183725z1e2ac85494511deb7e0ce4ece0d8d9dfz

http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z6223183722z1a0b20bb836888fd81e646a38cc2d12ez

Mean anything to you guys?

[Lking]

Thank you for the Tracking URLs. They confirm what Spinner stated, http://www.w3.org/is the domain of The World Wide Web Consortium.
Every webpage should include a reference, similar to, http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtdidentifying the HTML standards used.

Many websites that make a point of complying with the W3C standards, include on their pages a badge and link to the standards and the W3C validator, similar to:

<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check">
   <IMG src="http://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-html401" alt="Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional">
</a>

Obviously, W3 does not want to receive reports if a spammer includes a reference to their website/domain.

Others in a similar situation would be someone like the "New York Times." At one time it was common for spammers to include references to news stories implying validity of the clams for the snake oil they are trying to sell.

[hank]

Late to the topic, same question -- I looked at his tracking URLs but the reports must have changed since you looked at them on March 24th, no mention there of W3.

So did he just remove the W3 site from his report, and then it went through OK?

[Dave_L]

Hank:

I just looked at those two tracking URLs, and they both contain text like this:

Resolving link obfuscation

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd

Tracking link: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd

No recent reports, no history available
ISP does not wish to receive report regarding www.w3.org
Host www.w3.org (checking ip) = 128.30.52.100
Resolves to 128.30.52.100
Routing details for 128.30.52.100
Cached whois for 128.30.52.100 : arin-mit-security[at]mit.edu
Using abuse net on arin-mit-security[at]mit.edu
abuse net mit.edu = abuse[at]mit.edu
Using best contacts abuse[at]mit.edu

ISP does not wish to receive reports regarding http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd - no date available

http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd has been appealed previously.

[Lking]

hank if you scroll to the bottom of the parsing of each tracking URL you will see where the parser identified W3. Without bothering to decode the body of the spam, I assume the link can be found in poorly constructed html there. If the html in the body of the email was properly formed the parser would not have picked up the standard referenced in the html <head>