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Wazoo

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Miss Betsy,Please don't be surprised if you don't get an official comment on the first sentence of that.  :)

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I have been waiting to get any comment (official or otherwise)!!

IMHO, spam Trap would be a good addition to the glossary.

I, myself, am not exactly sure of the criteria for a blocklist-grade spam trap except that it has to be 'never been used for legitimate email'

and although individuals refer to abandoned email addresses as 'spamtraps' they are not the same as what spamcop and other blocklists use. I have seen numerous offers of donating an email address to spamcop as a spamtrap (and from the replies to those posts is where I have picked up most of my conception of a spam trap).

Miss Betsy

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Suggested addition to the Glossary

<a name="SpamCop"></a>

SpamCop

SpamCop is a comprehensive service offering something for everyone in the fight against spam. In this case, COP stands for Citizen On Patrol. SpamCop Reporters patrol their mailboxes and report the spam inside. SpamCop has the following component Services and Systems:

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OK, let me spell it out for you. I don't think it's a good idea to tell the spammers that lurk in these parts exactly what or where SpamCop's spamtraps are. If they know exactly what the spamtraps are (by user id, domain name, and possibly subdomain name), they can programmatically listwash the spamtraps. If they know exactly where the spamtraps are (by page, domain, subdomain, or hiding technique), they can scrape those locations and then listwash the spamtraps.

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Email addresses embedded in websites that can only be seen by spammer 'spider' software that collects addresses.  [actually I am not positive if this is correct - they could also include  addresses at a domain that are easy to obtain using the dictionary technique]
Miss Betsy,Please don't be surprised if you don't get an official comment on the first sentence of that. :)
I have been waiting to get any comment (official or otherwise)!!

IMHO, spam Trap would be a good addition to the glossary.

I, myself, am not exactly sure of the criteria for a blocklist-grade spam trap except that it has to be 'never been used for legitimate email'

and although individuals refer to abandoned email addresses as 'spamtraps' they are not the same as what spamcop and other blocklists use. I have seen numerous offers of donating an email address to spamcop as a spamtrap (and from the replies to those posts is where I have picked up most of my conception of a spam trap).

Miss Betsy

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OK, let me spell it out for you.  I don't think it's a good idea to tell the spammers that lurk in these parts exactly what or where SpamCop's spamtraps are.  If they know exactly what the spamtraps are (by user id, domain name, and possibly subdomain name), they can programmatically listwash the spamtraps.  If they know exactly where the spamtraps are (by page, domain, subdomain, or hiding technique), they can scrape those locations and then listwash the spamtraps.

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...Whoa, what prompted that? I don't see anything in Miss Betsy's inquiry suggesting that we expose "exactly what or where SpamCop's spamtraps are." Did I miss something?
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Note: the following post was moved the the main glossary.

Please add any edits and/or reply to that thread.

Click on the following link Original Message or the quote link (arrow in lower right corner of quote) to jump to the current location

Suggested addition to the Glossary

<a name="SpamCop"></a>

SpamCop

SpamCop is a comprehensive service offering something for everyone in the fight against spam.  In this case, COP stands for Citizen On Patrol.  SpamCop Reporters patrol their mailboxes and report the spam inside.  SpamCop has the following component Services and Systems:

30782[/snapback]

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dbiel, thanks, but the link you posted doesn't work. It would be best to point to the Post's new URL, namely http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=30782. Also, where did all the whitespace come from? When quoting me, I'd appreciate the courtesy of quoting what I actually wrote, especially in terms of whitespace. This application provides quite enough extraneous whitespace - please don't exacerbate the problem. Thanks!

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dbiel, thanks, but the link you posted doesn't work.  It would be best to point to the Post's new URL, namely http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=30782.  Also, where did all the whitespace come from?  When quoting me, I'd appreciate the courtesy of quoting what I actually wrote, especially in terms of whitespace.  This application provides quite enough extraneous whitespace - please don't exacerbate the problem.  Thanks!

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I am a bit confused by you statement that the link does not work.

I have tested it both on the system I created it with (an old version of IE running on NT4.0 and on a public computer at the court house running Mozilla Firefox. And both work.

As far as the white space goes, I have no idea what happened, it was an automatic reply quote with a comment added before the quote.

I will take a closer look at it to see if I can determine what happened.

Is anybody else having any problem using the link?

PS, there was a short period when the link would not have worked which was the time between the post was first written, the original message split off into a separate topic and then merged back into the glossary topic which change the address which required updating the original link, but that was all done with in a 20 min window which seems to be before your post. So I remain confused.

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I am becomming more confused than ever.

One minute the links work and the next they don't.

Additional line breaks are being added automaticly and I have to keep removing them.

It appears if you are in preview mode and test the links, when you jump back additional line breaks are added between list entries which need to be removed again. I have never experienced that before.

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dbiel, the original URL you posted in http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=30846, while it may have been a functional URL, was not clickable because it was in quotes, parentheses, or brackets (I forget which). That's what I meant when I wrote that it didn't "work". After your edit, it now does "work". Sorry for any confusion.

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dbiel, the original URL you posted in http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...indpost&p=30846, while it may have been a functional URL, was not clickable because it was in quotes, parentheses, or brackets (I forget which).  That's what I meant when I wrote that it didn't "work".  After your edit, it now does "work".  Sorry for any confusion.

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OK, I did see it in that state as well...did not try it at that time, however.
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...Please consider adding this to the FAQ (rewording encouraged):

spam Trap or Spamtrap

"Secret" e-mail addresses (they have never been used to send e-mail).  Any e-mail sent to a spam trap is presumed to be either:

  • a confirmation e-mail, if it appears to be a one-time confirmation e-mail

or

  • spam

The spam traps are set to recognize one-time confirmation e-mails and ignore them.  If it is judged to be spam, then SpamCop weighs it more heavily than it would a report by a user in deciding whether the source IP address should be placed on the SpamCop DNSBL.

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I don't know whether I made it clear or not, but I don't like this definition of spam trap.

And I do think that a glossary item for spam trap would be a good idea.

spam Trap - an email address that is never used to send or receive email that, however, spammers can discover through various means. Spamcop, as well as other blocklists, use spam traps to identify IP addresses from which unsolicited email comes. spam traps are programmed to recognize confirmation emails to a mistyped address and discard those emails.

Some people refer to email addresses that have been abandoned because of the amount of spam received as spam traps and report the spam received on those email addresses. Blocklists, however, only use 'never-used' email addresses.

Miss Betsy

Note: quote replaced with original quote due to referenced quote having been deleted when merged into this topic - dbiel

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Additional line breaks are being added automaticly and I have to keep removing them.

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Primarily caused by the BBCode/HTML/BBCode conversion processes. Looks at the BBCode, converts it to HTML for display in your browser ... but each "instance" includes a <br /> character in the process .. this translates to an HTML <br> (basically a short-hand for "line break") ... I am constantly editing posts as I read through them, removing all those extra "blank lines" that folks add, not realizing that there's already one inserted after each 'action' .. quote, list, etc. There are a few folks that seem to get carried away at the end of their posts at times, apparently thinking that a bunch of blank space adds something to the post ..???

In the upcoming new version, WYSIWYG and Rich-Text Ediiting ... some of these same issues exist, but adding in even more "fun" things, some of them based on which browser (even versions of) is in use, what options have been selected, etc. I suppose that on a "fun" forum, this stiff has its place, but in this support environment, when just getting a few details seems to be so much work at times, having to deal with off the wall fonts (sizes) and extreme gonzo mode in color selections of backgound colors, etc ... again, my thoughts are that most of that crap has to be turned off 'here' <g>

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I don't know whether I made it clear or not, but I don't like this definition of spam trap.

And I do think that a glossary item for spam trap would be a good idea.

spam Trap - an email address that is never used to send or receive email that, however, spammers can discover through various means.  Spamcop, as well as other blocklists, use spam traps to identify IP addresses from which unsolicited email comes.  spam traps are programmed to recognize confirmation emails to a mistyped address and discard those emails.

<snip>

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...Well, I think my offering wasn't too bad but I have to admit that yours is far clearer. The only things I'd like to see added to yours are:
  • some hint that sending spam to spam traps is in some sense "more serious" than sending it to a real user in terms of SpamCop's weighting in deciding what goes on the BL.
  • a note that spam sent to spam traps generates no notification to the abuse address of the source IP address.

If you agree, perhaps you can work your wordsmithing magic on them? :) <g>

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I am constantly editing posts as I read through them, removing all those extra "blank lines" that folks add, not realizing that there's already one inserted after each 'action' .. quote, list, etc.

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... and here I was thinking that they were getting so much better at extraneous whitespace reduction. :)
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... and here I was thinking that they were getting so much better at extraneous whitespace reduction. :)

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actually not sure how some of it works ... for instance, those posts that get a dozen hits of the "Enter" key after the last typed word (resulting in having to scroll down a screen to then see a signature) ... all I do is hit Edit, then submit .. all that extra crud is gone .... now after a Quote stuff, I have to physically delete that extra line ...???
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...Well, I think my offering wasn't too bad but I have to admit that yours is far clearer.  <snip>

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Actually all I objected to in your version was that it didn't include spam traps other than spamcop's.

spam Trap - an email address that is never used to send or receive email. These addresses, however, spammers can discover through various means - the same ways that they get your email address. Blocklists, including SpamCop, use spam traps to identify IP addresses from which unsolicited email comes. spam traps are programmed to recognize confirmation emails to a mistyped address and discard those emails.

Some people refer to email addresses that have been abandoned because of the amount of spam received as spam traps and report the spam received on those email addresses.

Blocklists, however, only employ 'never-used' email addresses as spam traps. Reports are not made to the source IP address and addresses are automatically added to the blocklist. In SpamCop's algorithym for listing, spam trap hits 'weigh' more and can list an address more quickly than reports from reporters.

How's that?

Miss Betsy

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spam Trap - an email address that is never used to send or receive email.  These addresses, however, spammers can discover through various means - the same ways that they get your email address. Blocklists, including SpamCop, use spam traps to identify IP addresses from which unsolicited email comes.  spam traps are programmed to recognize confirmation emails to a mistyped address and discard those emails. 

SpamCop spamtraps are .....

Some people refer to email addresses that have been abandoned because of the amount of spam received as spam traps and report the spam received on those email addresses.

..... but that is their misuse of the terminology.

Blocklists, however, only employ 'never-used' email addresses as spam traps.  Reports are not made to the source IP address and addresses are automatically added to the blocklist.  In SpamCop's algorithym for listing, spam trap hits 'weigh' more and can list an address more quickly than reports from reporters.

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.... not made to the souce ISP/Host and IP addresses are automatically added to the SCBL scoring database. In SpamCop's algorithm for listing .......

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spam Trap - an email address that is never used to send or receive email. These addresses, however, spammers can discover through various means - the same ways that they get your email address. Blocklists, including SpamCop, use spam traps to identify IP addresses from which unsolicited email comes. SpamCop spam traps are programmed to recognize confirmation emails to a mistyped address and discard those emails.

Some people refer to email addresses that have been abandoned because of the amount of spam received as spam traps and report the spam received on those email addresses. This is not a correct use of the term 'spam trap'.

Blocklists, however, only employ 'never-used' email addresses as spam traps. In general reports are not made to the source ISP and IP addresses are automatically added to the blocklist. In SpamCop's algorithm for listing, spam trap hits 'weigh' more and can list an address more quickly than reports from reporters.

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New working copy reformated for insertion into glossary with an attempt to include edits from previous postings

Note: this post will be used as the master for editing until approved for final insertion into glossary

<a name="spamtrap"></a>

spam Trap or Spamtrap

An email address that is never used to send or receive email, created for the specific purpose of "trapping" spam. spam Traps are used by those who maintain blocklists to identify spamming sources.

Spammers can discover spam Trap addresses through various means - the same ways that they use to get your email address. An email address that has been abandoned because of the amount of spam it receives is not considered a true spam Trap and should not be used for that purpose.

The SCBL (SpamCop Blocking List) uses spam Traps to identify the IP addresses from which unsolicited email comes, and is programmed to recognize and discard confirmation emails sent to mistyped addresses. The SCBL's algorithm for listing IP addresses applies a heavier weight to spam Trap hits than to Reports and as a result, spam Traps can cause IP addresses to be listed much faster and for longer time periods than Reports. spam Trap hits do not generate Reports, and therefore do not show up in the Report History.

Based on original entry by turetzsr aka Steve T

Rewrite by Miss Betsy

Coments by Wazoo and Jeff G.

Edit by dbiel 2005/07/29 18:00 PDT 1st major rewrite also written from the view point of SpamCop (This Glossary is a SpamCop specific glossary, not a general usage glossary)

Edit by dbiel 2005/07/30 00:50 PDT replaced last paragraph with Jeff G.'s rewrite.

Edit by dbiel 2005/07/30 01:00 PDT added comma after "as a result"

Edit by dbiel 2005/07/30 07:48 PDT changed "these" to spam Trap as suggested by Miss Betsy

Edit by dbiel 2005/07/30 10:15 PDT incorporated additional suggestions by Miss Betsy and Jeff G.

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