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We can send your news1etter to mi11ions


markj99

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I just reported a spam (see link http://members.spamcop.net/mcgi?action=get...rtid=1320625872 12/22/04), which contained a single jpg which, when clicked, opened a "mailto".

Of all things, it was an email offerring a 30% discount for a spam service!

The email addresses were the only link the spammer had to get customers. Yet spamcop didn't report them. I did so manually, but am curious why spamcop didn't bother with them. From my perspective, if you don't cut the links to the profit center, you are just wasting your time reporting spam and might as well just delete it and move on.

Anybody have any thoughts on this?

mark j

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I just reported a spam (see link http://members.spamcop.net/mcgi?action=get...rtid=1320625872 12/22/04), which contained a single jpg which, when clicked, opened a "mailto".   

Of all things, it was an email offerring a 30% discount for a spam service!

The email addresses were the only link the spammer had to get customers.  Yet spamcop didn't report them.  I did so manually, but am curious why spamcop didn't bother with them.    From my perspective, if you don't cut the links to the profit center, you are just wasting your time reporting spam and might as well just delete it and move on.

Anybody have any thoughts on this?

mark j

21694[/snapback]

You've answered your own question: if it was in a jpeg then the parser simply has no way to 'see' it.

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There was a discussion recently about 419 scams that usually only have an email address to respond to and why spamcop didn't report those email addresses.

When I first started to report, email addresses were reported. However, often the spammer would put the reporter's email address as well as perhaps other innocent ones in the spam and reporters were not careful about looking at them (or in some cases being able to tell if they were innocent addresses or not - a problem the parser has as well), so that there were so many 'false' reports that the reporting of email addresses was stopped. It is highly recommended that in the case of the 419 scams and ones like your example that people manually report them. Unfortunately, it is too much to expect of software to be able to discern when it should report and, perhaps,as well, of reporters not to report everything without looking at it.

Spamcop's emphasis is on the reporting of the IP address source of spam and the maintenance of a blocklist to prevent others from receiving spam from that IP address. Spamvertized sites and drop box email addresses are not the primary focus. I think other people do use the spamcop list of spamvertized sites as a basis for a blocklist of those sites, but spamcop does nothing except send reports and list them.

Miss Betsy

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Thanks, all who replied. I appreciate your efforts.

Merlyn had such good advice, I heeded it even before I read it. :-) So I manually reported the spammer's "contact" email address.

Derek, the contact email address was part of html, not the jpg; I guess I didn't describe the problem well.

MissBetsy got to the heart of the matter: Email addresses in the spam are up to us "natives" to parse and report because reporting the sender is the primary focus of SpamCop.

SpamCop could, but won't, report any email addresses found in the spam since it's far too easy for spammers to "seed" the message with innocent, but legitimate, email addresses.

I now see the problem, and can envision many solutions, as I'm sure you all do, but realize that it's just not feasible for a "free" one-man project to pursue.

Any case, cheers! And hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a "spam-less" New Year! Hmm, that's a stretch. How about a "less-spam" Gnu Year?

mark

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You've answered your own question: if it was in a jpeg then the parser simply has no way to 'see' it.

21695[/snapback]

That's why it's so important to somehow introduce "human"

spam fighters into the anti-UCE model.

Spammers embedding a JPG have learned it's one sure-fire way to circumvent

the spam filters.

I strongly advocated that the "Big 5" ISPs set up a small anti-UCE task force

that would begin analyzing spam to discover the real criminals.

They all turned away, and continued spending money on obviously

ineffective spam methods.

I believe the "Big 5" ISPs actually don't want to stop spam -- but rather

see it as contributing to their revenue stream. I suspect they count

spammers and spam messages amongst their Advertising Rates statistics

to bolster their ad rates for "views".

Why else would they allow it to go on?

Knowing they've got the resources to stop it dead in its tracks???

Anyone who believes AOL, Yahoo or MSN couldn't stop spam dead

in its tracks is working for the other side.

<_<

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