Tracable URL's in spam messages?

[BanSpam]

Spamcop can remove your emailadres from a message being reported as spam. Quite often I see within the message url's that look as follows (last characters are changed for safety):

http:// hivgorbgvzwt.go-medz. com/rm.php? zvvfsyfvsffdfdkh

Are they using code that can still identify the message as being sent to you?

For safety I now remove most of the characters after the questionmark before sending the report to spamcop. Is that a smart thing to do?

<Wazoo edited this post to make the URL non-clickable>

[Jeff G.]

Spamcop can remove your emailadres from a message being reported as spam. Quite often I see within the message url's that look as follows (last characters are changed for safety):

http://  hivgorbgvzwt.go-medz. com/rm.php? zvvfsyfvsffdfdkh

Are they using code that can still identify the message as being sent to you?

It appears that these "last characters", and more generally "random characters", may be hashbusters. Please see http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=319 for more info about hashbusters. Please also note in this particular case that the first section of the URL, hivgorbgvzwt, is very probably a hashbuster as well.

For safety I now remove most of the characters after the questionmark before sending the report to spamcop. Is that a smart thing to do?

20638[/snapback]

Only if you are munging your reports anyway and not sending reports to ISPs who refuse munged reports, noting that the usual replacement is "x" without quotes.