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wondering about efficiency of reporting spams


houseincloud

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Hi,

this is my first post here. Receiving from 50 to 100 spams per day originating from the same spammer, all having a subject similar to "I Instafu** Request is Pending", "Eager to Hookup", "I Missed Hookup Call", "Waiting to Hookup", etc., and sender name always starting with capital A, for example "Alana", "Abia", "Ada" etc., I registered to SpamCop.net since two weeks and reported since that day all those spams I received. This spammer seems to have registered almost as many different email addresses as spams I receive, by almost as many different email providers. Hence stopping him seems a bit desperate, and I am now wondering if it's worth spending each day more or less 15 minutes for posting those reports. What do you think, should I continue or just do nothing and wait it stops for some other reason?

 

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Moved this post to the Lounge.  This is a discussion about the effectiveness of reporting vs problems with how to report.

houseincloud welcome to the fight. Sorry your email has found its way onto a spammer's emailing list.  What you describe, many email addresses and providers (IP addresses) is one of the techniques used by spammer to get at least some of their trash through filters.

If you were the only person reporting this spray of spam, it would be futile.  However, reports from several people can result in one or more of the IP addresses being used to send the spam being added to the SpamCop Block List (SCBL).  From a personal level, you may not see any effect, unless your ISP/email host is using the SCBL.  The spammer and the bots they control most likely use ISP that are aware of and are paid to overlook their spam.  As a result, the spam reports sent to abuse{AT}... may fall on deaf ears.

On the other hand, your reports do help build the SCBL, which helps others, and you get lots of good karma for that!

You are getting a fare spam load.  I have my email wide open (to catch all the spam) and I have also received 100+ spam sense I went to bed last night.

The good news is that the CD/list containing your email address will cycle out of use by this spammer and your volume will drop.

 

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Hi houseincloud. 
I had the same problem with this hookup spammer. As soon as I reported one spam message, a new one had replaced it. I'd been reporting them for a year or more with no luck, and not even one reply from any of the service providers. Like you, I thought it was a waste of time. All the mail addresses are different as you say, It seems a spambot can automatically generate any senders mail address, so trying to block them is pointless. These porn spammers also use many different email providers, mostly countries like  China, Brazil and Thailand., who don't seem to care about spam. And they use web hosting platforms like Cloudflare, which I have seen described as 'Nothing more than a bullet proof spam haven'

These spammers spread their operation around, so if any part of it is taken down - It doesn't really make a dent in their ability to spew spam out 24/7. Check out Snowshoe Spamming

With all these factors in mind, and not making any difference reporting this junk for a year. I tried another way to stop this spam. I clicked through to this hookup website to see if there was any kind of contact address, or anyway to unsubscribe from this garbage. This does have obvious dangers, clicking any links in spam emails is risky. There are all manner of malware and ransomware nasties out there.

But to be on the safe side I use this URL scanner
https://urlscan.io/

That URL scanner also provides a screen shot of the web page, so you can see if it's safe to click on.

It's also worth pointing out that many people will advise you NOT to unsubscribe from anything. It will only confirm to the spammer that they have reached a valid email address, and you will end up getting even more spam. So faced with this dilemma of whether to unsubscribe. I thought what the heck, I'm being bombarded with hundreds of these messages anyway,.

I spent two days unsubscribing from around 70 spam messages, and Hey Presto. It stopped coming altogether, and I've not had another spam message from them for over a year. All I can say is - I wished I'd done that when I first started to get this hookup junk. 😀

It's also worth your while clicking through to these dating/porn sites and using their 'contact us' mail address to send them a message informing them you will report them for sending unsolicited nuisance mail. I've also found that taking the complaint straight to the culprit works wonders too. But only do this with the 'persistent' spammers where spamcop reporting has had no effect, and make sure the click links in any spam mail are safe to click by using the urlscan

So I personally found the efficiency of reporting this kind of spam to be zero, but the alternatives to be a great success. I used to get hundreds of these dating/porn spam message a week. Now if I get 10 a week, that's been a bad week. 

I know how annoying this repetitive hookup spam is. Good luck in dealing with yours. Keep us informed how you get on 😀

 

 

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Krebs on security actually wrote a piece about this hookup spammer a few months ago.


Inside a Porn-Pimping spam Botnet

For several months I’ve been poking at a decent-sized spam botnet that appears to be used mainly for promoting adult dating sites. Having hit a wall in my research, I decided it might be good to publish what I’ve unearthed so far to see if this dovetails with any other research out there.

Read the full article here
Inside a Porn-Pimping spam Botnet

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houseincloud, I'm only new too, however, after 2 months of reporting via SC, my inbox spam has dropped to 1 every couple of days to none, and, because so many wonderful SCF members' posts are a gold mine of information, I've learnt additional search & destroy methods, all of which makes the 15 minutes I spend on the daily fight truly satisfying.

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On 11/25/2018 at 1:41 PM, mojorisin said:

It's also worth pointing out that many people will advise you NOT to unsubscribe from anything. It will only confirm to the spammer that they have reached a valid email address, and you will end up getting even more spam. So faced with this dilemma of whether to unsubscribe. I thought what the heck, I'm being bombarded with hundreds of these messages anyway,.

I spent two days unsubscribing from around 70 spam messages, and Hey Presto. It stopped coming altogether, and I've not had another spam message from them for over a year. All I can say is - I wished I'd done that when I first started to get this hookup junk. 😀

This is in part why I prefer double-opt-in lists.  Because single-opt-in lists, anyone can use your email address and sign you up or something.  Some lists are legitimate, but the admins do not care.  A common practice two decades ago was for a the first list would sometimes unsubscribe you and at the same time find other lists they could put your address on with the intent of getting you in trouble.  Always a good reminder to have a double-opt-in list for when someone wants "revenge".

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On 11/25/2018 at 9:41 PM, mojorisin said:

Hi houseincloud. 
I had the same problem with this hookup spammer. As soon as I reported one spam message, a new one had replaced it. I'd been reporting them for a year or more with no luck, and not even one reply from any of the service providers. Like you, I thought it was a waste of time. All the mail addresses are different as you say, It seems a spambot can automatically generate any senders mail address, so trying to block them is pointless. These porn spammers also use many different email providers, mostly countries like  China, Brazil and Thailand., who don't seem to care about spam. And they use web hosting platforms like Cloudflare, which I have seen described as 'Nothing more than a bullet proof spam haven'

These spammers spread their operation around, so if any part of it is taken down - It doesn't really make a dent in their ability to spew spam out 24/7. Check out Snowshoe Spamming

With all these factors in mind, and not making any difference reporting this junk for a year. I tried another way to stop this spam. I clicked through to this hookup website to see if there was any kind of contact address, or anyway to unsubscribe from this garbage. This does have obvious dangers, clicking any links in spam emails is risky. There are all manner of malware and ransomware nasties out there.

But to be on the safe side I use this URL scanner
https://urlscan.io/

That URL scanner also provides a screen shot of the web page, so you can see if it's safe to click on.

It's also worth pointing out that many people will advise you NOT to unsubscribe from anything. It will only confirm to the spammer that they have reached a valid email address, and you will end up getting even more spam. So faced with this dilemma of whether to unsubscribe. I thought what the heck, I'm being bombarded with hundreds of these messages anyway,.

I spent two days unsubscribing from around 70 spam messages, and Hey Presto. It stopped coming altogether, and I've not had another spam message from them for over a year. All I can say is - I wished I'd done that when I first started to get this hookup junk. 😀

It's also worth your while clicking through to these dating/porn sites and using their 'contact us' mail address to send them a message informing them you will report them for sending unsolicited nuisance mail. I've also found that taking the complaint straight to the culprit works wonders too. But only do this with the 'persistent' spammers where spamcop reporting has had no effect, and make sure the click links in any spam mail are safe to click by using the urlscan

So I personally found the efficiency of reporting this kind of spam to be zero, but the alternatives to be a great success. I used to get hundreds of these dating/porn spam message a week. Now if I get 10 a week, that's been a bad week. 

I know how annoying this repetitive hookup spam is. Good luck in dealing with yours. Keep us informed how you get on 😀

 

 

As you suggested, yesterday I unsubscribed - with no effects - from one porn site linked by the spams I receive. Today I checked again that porn site on https://urlscan.io  who found no less than 2778 structurally similar pages! I won't have the courage to unsubscribe from all those sites. Main IP 149.129.243.34 is located in Singapore and belongs to CNNIC-ALIBABA-CN-NET-AP Alibaba (China) Technology Co., Ltd., CN. Seems hopeless to fight against such a giant.

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1 hour ago, houseincloud said:

As you suggested, yesterday I unsubscribed - with no effects - from one porn site linked by the spams I receive. Today I checked again that porn site on https://urlscan.io  who found no less than 2778 structurally similar pages! I won't have the courage to unsubscribe from all those sites. Main IP 149.129.243.34 is located in Singapore and belongs to CNNIC-ALIBABA-CN-NET-AP Alibaba (China) Technology Co., Ltd., CN. Seems hopeless to fight against such a giant.

Can you add a link to one of your previous spancop reports that contains the link to the actual website they are promoting please? I can tell you if it's the same one I had success with by unsubscribing.

It took about 2-3 days until the spam finally stopped, and it said it could take up to 10 days for it to end when I unsubscribed. It did work though.

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7 minutes ago, mojorisin said:

Can you add a link to one of your previous spancop reports that contains the link to the actual website they are promoting please? I can tell you if it's the same one I had success with by unsubscribing.

It took about 2-3 days until the spam finally stopped, and it said it could take up to 10 days for it to end when I unsubscribed. It did work though.

I just submitted four reports with the same linked porn site:

https://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z6503660317zc4b08102f61840c17f47620348e8eb7ez

https://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z6503660488zf60ee115e39d191a207971f9099440f2z

https://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z6503660619z349119165d4af690c9968fd18f837297z

https://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z6503660634z23b4d9956724cff00ef1a83181d9072dz

Thank you for your help mojorisin.

 

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51 minutes ago, houseincloud said:

Thanks for those links. That's a different spammer to the Hookup rubbish.
I've been getting that same spam and stopping them by two different ways. Firstly use the unsubscribe option when the website has it. It does work. (It was on the bottom left of the page your click link directed to)

The main website your links seem to direct to is called Dirty Tinder. But the same spammer also has other websites, but not all have the unsubscribe option. One of your other links has no opt out option. I stop that spam by actually clicking the options you would as if you were joining... The 'Are you male, female, what are you seeking...blah blah. I do that to reach the terms and conditions.

When you get to the web page terms and conditions, you can get the websites contact mail address (by clicking on terms) to either ask to be removed from their mailing list politely. Complain rather strongly. Or go to hell on them and threaten them with all manner of legal action regarding the can spam act, unsolicited mail. Sending obscene porn to minors (You can make up as many violations as you like to do the trick)

The email address you need to contact for that particular webpage is
Support@festivusmedia.com

Different webpages have different customer contact email addresses. All work, and they do take you off their mailing list.

You shouldn't have to do this unsubscribing from things you never subscribed to. But once a porn spammer has you on the mailing list, the stuff will never stop by just reporting via spamcop. The web hosts like Alibaba and Cloudflare just don't care, most likely the abuse reports aren't ever read, if they have a valid reporting address at all. The email servers are rented from cheap spam friendly crooked companies in countries like China e.t.c.

 

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I went through the steps you described and found the contact support@liaisontorride.com. It is not the same email Support@festivusmedia.com that you found, which makes me think that each spam will lead to a different contact via the long registration procedure you mentioned, consuming a lot of time. So I hesitate...

EDIT: I just added support@liaisontorride.com  to the Report spam list (in the "Re: User Notification (Notes)" field)  while reporting a new spam at SpamCop. I hope it's a good idea.

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23 minutes ago, houseincloud said:

I went through the steps you described and found the contact support@liaisontorride.com. It is not the same email Support@festivusmedia.com that you found, which makes me think that each spam will lead to a different contact via the long registration procedure you mentioned, consuming a lot of time. So I hesitate...

These are a few other mail addresses associated with the same spammer too
Support@festivusmedia.com
support@victoriahearts.com
support@mydirtyfling.com
support@wildspank.com

This is the grand total of my spam received today. One solitary message from a Russian romance scam, and I used to be bombarded with hundreds of the same messages you did all day, every day. My advice is good advice. I've been there and done it. It works. The choice if you take it is totally yours of course. Good luck then 😀

 

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MIG, I like your warped sense of humour, yes, brave and likely idiot. To keep you and mojorisin up to date: I did write to support@liaisontorride.com, support of the porn site that is linked by the spams. I got a reply telling me they didn't have me in their data base. I replied and provided an example of said spam, so that they can check those links. And each time I report a new spam to SpamCop , I add support@liaisontorride.com  to the Report User Notification field. Let's see what comes out in the next days.

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3 hours ago, houseincloud said:

"like your warped sense of humour"

Glad someone does houseincloud,:D back to your issue, Talos gives good visuals: [  https://www.talosintelligence.com/reputation_center/lookup?search=149.129.243.34#email-history ], [ https://www.talosintelligence.com/reputation_center/lookup?search=177.53.45.69#email-history ], (that's 2 of the ips from your parsed reports) probably won't help you any to get the scum shut down, but, may keep you inspired - better than porn anyw:lol:ay

Re "fight against such a giant", don't forget David.

Apologies for bold text, can't get the editor to revert:unsure:

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

FWIW, 3 weeks later... those porn spams have suddenly stopped. Not sure why (could it be the thousands of reports sent?). This unexpected silence is scaring and I fear now some retaliation! (I haven't used the "mole" option in the SpamCop preferences, only the "Obscure identifying information" for which I read it may not be that much obscure).

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