Public standard report recipients

[turetzsr]

...As a free reporting user who has set myself up under the new security mechanism, I now how the option (under "Preferences") to add "Public standard report recipients." This is described as

If you wish others to receive a copy of every spam you submit, enter the email address here. Please do not send to any address which is not receptive to receiving untargetted spam reports. Note this will create only one copy for each spam, even if there are multiple reports per spam.

Does this mean that e-mail addresses I enter here will unconditionally receive reports automatically for every report I submit or that an option will be added to my "Send Reports Now" screen that will allow me to select these e-mail addresses as additional report recipients?

[StevenUnderwood]

I believe you will have a checkmark (defaulted to either on or off depending on the status of third party reporting) to decide whether to send. Try one or 2 to confirm this is working (even setting up an alternate account you control for testing).

I am holding off for now as I have password saving turned off on my machine and want to access 2 different accounts (Free for work, Paid for home) from the same machine. I may try re-enabling password saving, however as it looks like the paid (email) account points to mailsc.spamcop.net and the free account will point to members.spamcop.net, so they could be saved seperately.

This new functionality may make me move quicker, however. What else do we get? Can we alter the "Reporting name"? I have wanted to alter my free account for a while (they are too similiar).

[turetzsr]

I believe you will have a checkmark (defaulted to either on or off depending on the status of third party reporting) to decide whether to send.  Try one or 2 to confirm this is working (even setting up an alternate account you control for testing).

...Great idea, Steven, I'll do that and report back here. Thanks! <g>

<snip>

What else do we get?  Can we alter the "Reporting name"?  I have wanted to alter my free account for a while (they are too similiar).

...Yep (IIUC what you mean):

Full Name

When you send spam reports, SpamCop will send them in your name. Please enter your full name or alias here as you would like it to appear on your reports.

[steve T]

Email address

Where would you like to receive email responses from your reports?

[myemailaddress]

Note: Although this will change the email address which SpamCop uses, it will NOT update your username (login). You will continue to log in with the username you signed up with originally.

[turetzsr]

...To my complete non-surprise, the "Public standard report recipients" option works exactly as Steven surmised.

...Thanks, again, Steven!

[turetzsr]

...This works great! I can now easily report spam, when appropriate, to uce[at]ftc.gov, Enforcement[at]sec.gov and the anti-piracy addresses of Microsoft, Macromedia and the SIIA.

...Alas, there seems to be a 100-character limit in the "Reporting Preferences" | "Public standard report recipients" field, so other useful addresses won't fit (and I'm too lazy to report them manually). Does anyone know a workaround for that?

[StevenUnderwood]

The story goes that the field used to be much larger but people took advantage, possibly overwhelming the smtp servers.

If you run your own servers, you could possibly set up some kind of mailing list where you send to one of your own addresses and your system will parse that and distribute the message to multiple accounts. I know I can do that with Lotus Notes where I can setup a group of addresses and send an email to the group.

[turetzsr]

The story goes that the field used to be much larger but people took advantage, possibly overwhelming the smtp servers.

If you run your own servers, you could possibly set up some kind of mailing list where you send to one of your own addresses and your system will parse that and distribute the message to multiple accounts.  I know I can do that with Lotus Notes where I can setup a group of addresses and send an email to the group.

...Good thought, but that would be manually reporting, which I'm too lazy to do. <g>

[StevenUnderwood]

but that would be manually reporting

No, it would be like setting up a .forward to multiple accounts for a single account in Unix. The reports would still come from the samcop system, to your machine and redirected back out. They would still be showing as coming from the original sender, but the spammer might be able to gain more information in the path the report got through, if the spammer were to actually see these reports.

I am not saying this is a good idea, but it is an idea

[turetzsr]

but that would be manually reporting

No, it would be like setting up a .forward to multiple accounts for a single account in Unix. The reports would still come from the samcop system, to your machine and redirected back out. They would still be showing as coming from the original sender, but the spammer might be able to gain more information in the path the report got through, if the spammer were to actually see these reports.

I am not saying this is a good idea, but it is an idea

...OIC! Ingenious! <g>

...Alas, I don't run my own mail server. Although I could still use the gist of your idea to make things a little easier -- I could have SpamCop send the report to myself and when I receive it forward it on to the appropriate "third party" addresses. Nah, still seems like too much work. <g> But I still appreciate your idea!

[Wazoo]

The story goes that the field used to be much larger but people took advantage, possibly overwhelming the smtp servers.

No, it was the use of "bitchlist" addressing that caused the limit to be put into place. 'bitchlist' was once a source of addresses, going that sending complaints to abuse wasn't working, lists were generated of any and all addresses associated with a particular concern ... addresses picked off of web-sites, stock-holder lists, resumes, magazine articles, etc., etc. .... 'bitchlist' concept was that eventually one would eventually tick off enough of the 'right' people that at least one of them would wake up the abuse section .. fallout was that SpamCop reports were going out to thousands of folks that didn't have a clue, much less any power to change things ... needless to say, the complaints coming back in were substantial ..

[StevenUnderwood]

Thanks for that explanation, Wazoo.