SpamCop is Bad

[podnow]

Wish I had time to read all the no doubt fascinating posting guidelines, but I just wasted two hours trying to find out why my e-mail messages to my mother and father were blocked by this useless program. The extremely helpful information I got was that the server in question (they block entire servers because some genius reports spam??) was not on the blacklist. And the message I received said don't contact the execrable ISP doing the blocking, contact mine instead. Unfortunately, my ISP resists being contacted. What a waste of time. Did I post this in the wrong forum? Gee, that's too bad. SpamCop sucks.

[agsteele]

Unfortunately, my ISP resists being contacted. What a waste of time. Did I post this in the wrong forum? Gee, that's too bad. SpamCop sucks.

So your ISP won't talk to you and you blame SpamCop If your ISP is hosting spammers or allowing a faulty system configuration to permit spammers to misuse their resources AND they won't talk to you I'd say that's a fair indication that the time has come to get a new ISP.

Don't shoot the messenger, fix the problem.

Goodbye

Andrew

[Miss Betsy]

It is understandable that you are upset that your email didn't go through.

Offline people also get upset when a cab driver refuses to take them to an address in a bad neighborhood. Or they get upset when they are caught in a traffic jam due to careless or stupid driving by the driver of another car. Or they get upset because the carrier they hired to deliver their packages has such a bad reputation for hiring drivers that are surly and lightfingered that no one will open the door to them.

My point is that there are numerous situations in life where things beyond our control cause us inconvenience. And sometimes these situations are temporary (like the traffic jam). Other times, we have to work around them (we can pay the cabbie more money or find another way to get to where we are going). And sometimes, it is our responsibility to choose a reliable vendor.

Since you didn't read very far and haven't provided any information, there isn't very much that we can do to advise you on how to fix your problem.

You could ask your parents to use another ISP, one that allows spam to be delivered, so that they can receive your messages. You could, as was suggested, find an ISP that is competent and responsible. There are basically two reasons that an IP address is blocked because there is spam coming from it. One is that the ISP likes to get the money from the spammer and doesn't stop the spam from being sent (the bad neighborhood and the cheap carrier who doesn't screen their drivers). The other is that another customer has been careless and the spammer has exploited his computer to send spam (the traffic jam).

You are going to have a hard time in life if you keep having such a negative attitude toward inconveniences.

Miss Betsy

[dra007]

I very much doubt our little ranting pod will come back to read the replies. I know, I know I should abstain for being too harsh. Evidently, unless spam becomes a problem for pod and the likes of him/her, spamcop will have the occasional critics.

[eaolson]

I very much doubt our little ranting pod will come back to read the replies. I know, I know I should abstain for being too harsh. Evidently, unless spam becomes a problem for pod and the likes of him/her, spamcop will have the occasional critics.

17306[/snapback]

And yet I (and I assume the rest of you) will continue to use it. Who cares what they think? Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh, myself.

I was amused by the OP's complaint about listing "entire servers." What would he prefer, just blocking the even numbered bits?

[StevenUnderwood]

What would he prefer, just blocking the even numbered bits?

Many people do not understand, at all, how email works. They would prefer that only the spammers accounts be stopped from sending (as would we all ultimately). Or on shared servers, only the domains that allow spam to be sent.

They do not realize that the only thing provided to a receiving server that is not supplied by the sending server is the IP address. That makes it the only thing that can not be forged in any message received. That makes it the only reliable point to deny acceptance of the message.

[dra007]

/snip

You could ask your parents to use another ISP, one that allows spam to be delivered, so that they can receive your messages. 

/snip

Miss Betsy

17305[/snapback]

..pointing out that would end up having your parents on numerous other blocklists, which are far more difficult than SpamCop is, to have them de-listed ..

There is a large anti-spam community out there and like any big tzunami it will eventually wash out people that refusee to join the anti-spam fight and by their complience and ignorance only exacerbate the spam problem!

[StevenUnderwood]

There is a large anti-spam community out there and like any big tzunami it will eventually wash out people that refusee to join the anti-spam fight and by their complience and ignorance only exacerbate the spam problem!

I don't know where you get this information. I work for a company of 300+ as the sole computer guy and I am the only one either here or in my personal life that reports spam. They may all be "anti-spam" if you ask if they like it, but ask what they do about it, usually JHD.

[dra007]

I don't know where you get this information.  I work for a company of 300+ as the sole computer guy and I am the only one either here or in my personal life that reports spam.  They may all be "anti-spam" if you ask if they like it, but ask what they do about it, usually JHD.

17328[/snapback]

I grant you that, I did like the tzunami idea though! I just wish it will take less than a big eartquake to start it!

All that said, the number of block lists and the trend of blocking spam is on the raise! I had 2 of my ISPs become more pro-active about that recently. That must be encouraging.

[StevenUnderwood]

I must say I liked the tsunami comparison too, if it only fit....

[Miss Betsy]

The problem is that none of the techie people have pr genes. If advertisers can convince people that 'FasterFood' has best hamburger in town, they surely could convince people to, at least, choose an ISP who uses blocklists.

Then the 'tipping point' of public opinion is reached and suddenly everyone, whether they understand it or not, is for the blocklist heroes who stop spam.

Miss Betsy

[Merlyn]

podnow is just a troll that is looking for responses.

A one time hit and run.

Plonk now and forever hold your peace.

[dra007]

Plonk now and forever hold your peace.

..hmmm, have I known that I would have turned my plonkomatic on!

[Merlyn]

Hey, that's not fair I want a plonkomatic

[dra007]

Our little pod was here, but left as quick as it came!

[podnow]

Hah! Fooled you. I did come back. [Did I click the right "reply" button?] This is the first message I got (from a Mailer-Daemon):

66.77.162.23 does not like recipient.

Remote host said: 550-{spam?} Contact your provider not CWNet, let them know their server

550-64.136.20.160 is listed on a blacklist at bl.spamcop.net

550 Blocked - see http://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?64.136.20.160

Giving up on 66.77.162.23.

So I followed that link. There's a link there for specific information about the server in question. The information was "4.136.20.160 not listed in bl.spamcop.net." Now I think we can all agree that wasn't very helpful. And may I just ask why I, or Mom and Dad, bless their elderly hearts, should NOT contact CWNet? But anyway, contact my provider, yes, I agree. And I did so. Fortunately I had discovered an address for them that generated more than just an automatic response when dealing with previous issues. And (get this) I actually got a reply (sometime later). They said, "According to the transcript of the error message, it appears that the mail delivery failure occurred due to a temporary problem. Please try sending the mail again. If you continue to experience this problem, please do write back." I doubt they meant that last part.

But meanwhile I was energetically searching the SpamCop website for some way to communicate with them my ire at their (or somebody's) blocking of legitimate e-mail, which, I think we can also all agree, is bad. I find it most annoying, and something more than just an inconvenience. I doubt I'm alone in this. I could find no useful "contact us" link. (I suppose some poster will point it out to me, but I couldn't find it.) Therefore I resorted to the forum. Incidentally the forum confirmation e-mail was marked by Yahoo as spam. Nothing new to you, I suppose, but I found it ironic.

The upshot, at least as of yesterday, is that e-mail is back to normal. How or why I don't know. It is anything but clear to me that CWNet is not to blame. Perhaps SpamCop made a mistake too?

I was astounded to receive an exceptionally polite and informative e-mail from Rudolf at spamcop.net. Among other things he states, "The receiving end of the mail, your parents' ISP, has a mail server that is configured to use the spamcop list to reject mail coming from known spam IP addresses. Note, Spamcop is not responsible for blocking your email. The receiving ISP has decided to completely block mails based on the spamcop list . . ." A bit disingenuous, I thought. Surely SpamCop has some responsibility? He also states that my ISP has ignored information provided to them about spam that's going through their server. That wouldn't surprise me, and if it's true, shame on them. He further states: "It is unlikely that your provider is spammer friendly, but it is probable that someone else using the same SMTP has a compromised computer and is sending spam. This is a problem your ISP will need to resolve." Could they not be innocent victims of dastardly evildoers? Is it as easy as all that to configure a server to prevent its being used by spammers? He also mentions that it's much easier to get off the SpamCop blocklist than off other blocklists. If so, then SpamCop is to be (faintly) praised.

"This blocking list is somewhat experimental." -- SpamCop website. Seems relevant.

Moving on . . . "The time has come to get a new ISP." Too true. NetZero is mine--I hate them. If for no other reason (though there are others) than that they themselves block legitimate e-mail as spam! More irony, no? Not only that, they are most uncooperative in addressing the matter. That really burns me up. On the other hand, I get very, very little actual spam. Maybe one a day. I have no anti-spam program in place, I use no message rules, nothing. Gee, maybe they're not so bad after all.

Miss Betsy: Your analysis of my having a hard time in life is accurate. Still, is it truly NetZero's fault that "another customer has been careless and the spammer has exploited his computer to send spam?"

"Our little ranting pod"?? Okay, now THAT's a good one. I'm still laughing.

Sensible comment from StevenUnderwood.

But yeah, you're dreaming on the tsunami thing.

I have to admit I don't know exactly what a troll is, but it's something bad isn't it? I don't know what "plonking" is either. I guess I'm just not with it.

Later

P.S. Hey, dra007 (cool name--not) - I didn't leave, I just got lost. Smugness ill becomes you.

[Miss Betsy]

Still, is it truly NetZero's fault that "another customer has been careless and the spammer has exploited his computer to send spam?"

In offline life, when there is a driver who is driving recklessly, an offline cop will pull them over. Sometimes even a citizen will call and report irratic driving. That's kind of what spamcop does. A reporter says that spam is coming from this IP address and sends a report through spamcop to the admin (the person who can actually identify and do something). If enough reporters say there is spam coming from this IP address, spamcop publishes a list that others can use so that they don't get the spam. Perhaps like the News helicopter telling you to use a different route. If the admin who receives the reports is on the ball, they stop the spam run. No more reports; no more listing. Some people may have been inconvenienced (the ones who couldn't take an alternate route), but it is not a big deal. Especially compared to hundreds of thousands of people being inconvenienced by the spam run.

On the other hand, if the admin who gets the reports does nothing, then the spam keeps coming, the reporters keep reporting, and the listing stays in place. However, the people who are inconvenienced are not the /completely/ innocent people who have chosen reliable providers. It is the customers who are using an incompetent provider. They may not be spammers, but they are contributing to the spam problem by not using reliable email.

I don't see why I should receive spam when I don't have to just because you don't want to be inconvenienced. As I said, you can ask your parents to use a provider who doesn't use spamcop and deal with the spam. They may be more willing to be inconvenienced.

Also there is a difference between filtering on 'content' and on IP addresses. There is no way to tell when or why a content filter will identify something as spam. IP addresses are either a broken computer (you would prefer that no one tell the person he has a trojan?) or a greedy ISP who wants the spammer money. And only the people on the *sending* end can make a difference.

Miss Betsy

[Wazoo]

I still don't know what you want at this point. You say you "energetically searched the web page" .... I can't think of that much actually available at "the web -page" ... and anything that would have contained the data you so desperatly "needed" has already been incorporated into the FAQ found here (which includes a lot more data than that found on "the web page") ... The fact that you seemed to have (still) blown off the "Read before Posting" doesn't seem to fit in with "energeticcally searching for data" ...????

Why not start reading within "your" Topic once again and follow some of the original suggestions .. read the FAQ here, sort out what's really happening, put some pieces together, understand some of the words used, especially "dynamic"

Some contact addresses are found all over the place, but for the rant you started with, had you read the FAQ or even read through a number of other postings/Topics here, you'd have found that going that route is not the wisest plan of action. Had you did the right thing and provided some specific data in your first post, something could have been researched at that time (and this Topic would have remained within the Help Forum). However, back to that word "dynamic" ... things change as time moves on, and again, this is one of the things that makes SpamCop unique.

It is strange that you carry on about someone nice that spoonfed you the same data provided within the FAQ, yet trying to convince someone of all the effort you expended and failed to stumble across the same data. Kudos to Rudolf, but ....

[dra007]

You say you "energetically searched the web page" ....

Unless a jumping bean, a pod is rather static..

Checking whois.arin.net for [ 64.136.20.160 ]

OrgName: Juno Online Services, Inc.

OrgID: JUNO

Address: United Online, Inc.

City: Thousand Oaks

StateProv: CA

PostalCode: 91359

Country: US

Juno, oops, perhaps we should stop here! Juno was one of the first spammers on internet...

[StevenUnderwood]

I for one am glad you returned to provide more data.

As you should have found in the FAQ, the spamcop list is very dynamic, sometimes listing an IP for only a few hours. It is designed primarily to stop spam runs in progress so the fact that the IP is not listed now is actualy good news for you. Are you still receiving rejections to your parents?

At the time your message was being sent to the rejecting site, it probably was on the list. Another possibility is that the IP was on another list and the server rejecting the message is programmed with an inaccurate error message.

As a paying customer, I am allowed to see a little more information about previous reports against an IP and there is only 1 "recent" report showing:

Submitted: Monday, September 13, 2004 7:14:44 AM -0400:

GDNO - Super stock pick

Which looks like a stock pumper spam but is currently 6 days old. So there appears to have been spam coming from that IP at one time. There could also have been messages received at spamtraps, but us mere mortals have no access to those reports. A more timely check of the IP (at the time of the rejection) could have produced a more thourough answer.

The "spamcop is experimental" argument is brought up all the time. First I believe it is there for the lawyers to help protect spamcop in the event of a lawsuit. Second, it has been experimental for a very long time, so long that many people have tried it and found it to be an excellent way to eliminate a large amount of spam from entering their servers and have "declassified" it for their own use. It really is the receiving mail administrators responsibility to protect their users.

I hope this helps some.

[dbiel]

And may I just ask why I, or Mom and Dad, bless their elderly hearts, should NOT contact CWNet?

Yes you may ask.

Actually your statement is incorrect.

Your mom and dad are the ones that SHOULD contact CWNet as it is their provider.

You as the sender are being directed to contact your ISP who has been found to be permitting spam to be sent through their system and CWNet has chosen to reject all mail from them until it is resolved.

To restate, your outgoing mail is not being blocked by anyone, in can NOT be.

All blocking comes at the receiveing end and is done by either the ISP or by the end user (in this case your mon and dad)

Any ISP that blocks mail from reaching their customers without providing their custmer with a method of retrieving it if they so chose is providing a very poor service.

Earthlink for example, provides their spam blocker. but their customer are free to turn it off and or adjusted it from a very high level to a fairly low level, but nothing inbetween. Customers can white list senders by email address which will by pass the blocking. This is the way it should work. If CWNet refuses to offer to your mom and dad the ability to white list your addresses, then they really should be looking for another provider.

SpamCop who also provides email service to the public does NOT actually block any mail recieved by them for their customers, but simply redirects it to a held mail folder. Customers have a selection of varrious blocking lists and filters that can be turned off or on as each customer chooses. Even SpamCop customers are not forced to use the SpamCop BL.

Unfortunately, some ISP's have chosen a more agressive approach to blocking spam (which is their right to do, as long as they inform their customers that is what they are doing) Customers then have the choice to accept the policy or find another provider who is more cooperative.

[podnow]

Well, I see that it took me over a month to get back to this. Has anyone else noticed that there just aren't enough hours in the day? I will say that it evidently WAS just a temporary glitch somewhere along the line that got my messages blocked. A one-time thing I guess.

Miss Betsy, your analogies are making my head hurt (and no, I certainly would NOT prefer that no one tell a person that he has a trojan--I hope I never suggested as much), but I guess I should admit that they're pretty convincing nonetheless. This whole spam thing seems to come down to educating the public (including me, you're thinking. True enough--I appreciate your efforts). That's a monumental if not a hopeless task, in any field really.

Now Wazoo. I'm less impressed with your comments, which include this: "You say you 'energetically searched the web page' .... I can't think of that much actually available at 'the web -page' ." My point exactly: There wasn't much available there and my wish was to communicate with SpamCop ASAP to try to fix the problem. I turned to the forum as something of a last resort. I see NOW that I could have gotten all the answers I needed here, but at the time I was more than a bit upset and wanted only to get some sort (any sort) of a message to SpamCop. I never claimed, as you further misquote me, that I "energetically searched for data." My data-searching energy had dissipated into frustration by the time of my initial arrival at the forum. Another approach would have been wiser, as you say, but I never claimed to have done more or other than I did do. Your closing comment: "It is strange that you carry on about someone nice that spoonfed you the same data provided within the FAQ, yet trying to convince someone of all the effort you expended and failed to stumble across the same data. Kudos to Rudolf, but .... " Again you are misrepresenting my position. First of all, why should I not praise Rudolf, even though my actions and/or motivations were perhaps a bit less praiseworthy than his? And second, to essentially repeat myself, I was not claiming to have conducted an exhaustive search for information nor was I trying to impress anyone with the amount of effort I expended. An exhaustive search of the SpamCop website, yes. Otherwise, no.

StevenU. Thanks for the info. I'll go ahead and agree with your remarks on the "SpamCop is experimental" matter.

dbiel: Good explanation. Thank you. I have sent it on to Mom (she's in charge of IT at home--which is a bit scary).

A few further remarks if I may. A couple of weeks ago I received an email from NetZero which stated, among other things, "The NetZero Junk Mail Filter detects over 90% of spam email and blocks it before it reaches your inbox. So while you may see junk mail from time to time, you are sure to see a lot less spam than with other email services that don't offer spam blocking." They also said something about reporting spam (or "junk," as they would have it). This inspired me just today to go to their crappy "Email on the web" site and investigate (I use Outlook Express). Guess what? They DO have a whitelist area! (And a blocklist.) I haven't tried it yet but this may enable me to stop some of their legitimate e-mail blocking (usually newsletters). I'm pleased. Interestingly, ever since I bragged on this forum about how little spam I received, the amount has increased. Not by much, I'm happy to say, but still. I can identify a bit more with those who are plagued by it.

There are some interesting articles on spam in general at http://www.woodyswatch.com/email/archtemplate.asp?2-04 (and 2-05 and 2-06). Probably nothing new to members of this forum. And some anti-SpamCop remarks at http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2004/2004-04-26.htm#1, which you folks won't like. Also a VERY interesting article at http://www.informationweek.com/shared/prin...icleID=17300016.

I take it people at this forum are familiar with Lashback? It looks intriguing. See http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/e...int.php/3417201 for a description of it. Far be it from me to advise experts on this matter, but I think any forum members who haven't at least looked at this should do so.

Conclusion: SpamCop doesn't suck.

P.S. Not that it matters, but my gender is male.

[Wazoo]

Now Wazoo. I'm less impressed with your comments, which include this: "You say you 'energetically searched the web page' .... I can't think of that much actually available at 'the web -page' ." My point exactly: There wasn't much available there and my wish was to communicate with SpamCop ASAP to try to fix the problem. I turned to the forum as something of a last resort. I see NOW that I could have gotten all the answers I needed here, but at the time I was more than a bit upset and wanted only to get some sort (any sort) of a message to SpamCop. I never claimed, as you further misquote me, that I "energetically searched for data."

Misquote? The existing post is still present, which includes the words;

But meanwhile I was energetically searching the SpamCop website

My data-searching energy had dissipated into frustration by the time of my initial arrival at the forum. Another approach would have been wiser, as you say, but I never claimed to have done more or other than I did do. Your closing comment:  "It is strange that you carry on about someone nice that spoonfed you the same data provided within the FAQ, yet trying to convince someone of all the effort you expended and failed to stumble across the same data. Kudos to Rudolf, but .... " Again you are misrepresenting my position. First of all, why should I not praise Rudolf, even though my actions and/or motivations were perhaps a bit less praiseworthy than his? And second, to essentially repeat myself, I was not claiming to have conducted an exhaustive search for information nor was I trying to impress anyone with the amount of effort I expended. An exhaustive search of the SpamCop website, yes. Otherwise, no.

I still stand by my original thoughts that I found it hard to come up with spending two hours on the pages found at www.spamcop.net and still failing to find contact points. There just isn't that much data available, which you also make note of. And in the interim, there have been changes made to both versions of the FAQ.

There are some interesting articles on spam in general at http://www.woodyswatch.com/email/archtemplate.asp?2-04

Not much of a reference there actually ... the definition / description there talks about a Blacklist blocking an entire Domain, which has nothing to do with the SpamCopDNSBL, which only snags the IP of a specific system sending the spew. One Domain I was researching yesterday for instance had over 50 e-mail servers, but only one was listed in the SpamCopDNSbl .. hardly blocking the whole Domain.

And some anti-SpamCop remarks at http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2004/2004-04-26.htm#1, which you folks won't like.

Fred had the same type of issue going on. No, his newsletter wasn't spam for the folks that signed up for it. But the major issue is that he was buying bandwidth from an outfit that also sold bandwidth to spammers. The spam would spew, complaints would go out, the IP got blocked, then it was time for Fred's newsletter to go out. Even I had to change my collection point for that newsletter, as the original place I received it was using the SpamCopDNSBL, so that I missed receiving numerous mailings. I don't think Fred has figured it out yet, though he did change mail-list host services.

Also a VERY interesting article at http://www.informationweek.com/shared/prin...icleID=17300016.

Just an Infoweek article that you would have read if you'd been subscribed to Langa's newsletter ... the results of a test e-mail, and his attempted analysis on filtering, shared servers, and lazy folks at the receiving end that didn't bother to read / look for something that they had in fact signed up to receive (i.e., participate in his test)

I take it people at this forum are familiar with Lashback? It looks intriguing. See http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/e...int.php/3417201 for a description of it. Far be it from me to advise experts on this matter, but I think any forum members who haven't at least looked at this should do so. 

Personal opinion, a bit silly, but .... and the scenario itself has been beat to death by the FTC itself in their research ... one of those interesting expenditures of your tax dollars evaluating something that was already known .. most spam remove addresses don't exist (or are very short-lived) to begin with. And even after the CAN-spam act passage, this hasn't changed.

[Miss Betsy]

Miss Betsy, your analogies are making my head hurt (and no, I certainly would NOT prefer that no one tell a person that he has a trojan--I hope I never suggested as much), but I guess I should admit that they're pretty convincing nonetheless. This whole spam thing seems to come down to educating the public (including me, you're thinking. True enough--I appreciate your efforts). That's a monumental if not a hopeless task, in any field really.

IMHO, it is not a hopeless task - it just takes a little know-how in public relations - something that ISPs seem to have a mental block about.

Miss Betsy