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[Resolved] Spammers can track reporting users?


Kojote

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I am wondering if spammers can track who is sending in reports to SpamCop. I am not a mole, but am using munged email address to report. A lot of the spam I get has links in it to websites. SpamCop always says this is a "tracking link". Does this mean SpamCop uses it to track the reported spam? Or this is a link that spammers use to track us?

After I report some spam, I ALWAYS receive an additional spam message about one hour after reporting. It seems like the spammers know I am reporting them. Is there anything I can do? My ISP (Road Runner) will block the IP's of the spammer, when I report them. But the spammers continue to change IP's.

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I am wondering if spammers can track who is sending in reports to SpamCop. I am not a mole, but am using munged email address to report.

33056[/snapback]

Hi, Kojote!

...The short answer is: indirectly, yes.

...A longer answer: in the sense I believe you mean (that the nature of reporting via SpamCop inherently exposes your identity to spammers), not really. However, there are ways.

  • The spammer can presumably embed some disguised identification of your identity in the spam (s)he sends you; SpamCop reports some of the spam content back to the abuse address of the source of the spam; if whoever receives the SpamCop report forwards it on to the spammer then your identity would be exposed.
  • SpamCop munges certain, but not necessarily all, instances of your e-mail address it finds in the copy of the information it forwards on to the abuse address of the spam source. Again, if whoever receives the SpamCop report forwards it on to the spammer then your identity would be exposed.

A lot of the spam I get has links in it to websites. SpamCop always says this is a "tracking link". Does this mean SpamCop uses it to track the reported spam? Or this is a link that spammers use to track us?

33056[/snapback]

...The former. There is (presumably) no way for the spammer to use that tracking link to find out who you are (unless something like the bullet items above is happening). Note that there is suffient information in the SpamCop report to the abuse address to enable whoever receives the report (or anyone to whom that report is forwarded) to send you an e-mail; however, the e-mail address to which they send it is not your direct e-mail address but rather a special address constructed by SpamCop to allow SpamCop to forward replies to you.
After I report some spam, I ALWAYS receive an additional spam message about one hour after reporting. It seems like the spammers know I am reporting them. Is there anything I can do?

33056[/snapback]

...Presumably, this is a coincidence -- spam tends to come in bunches, whether you report or not.
My ISP (Road Runner) will block the IP's of the spammer, when I report them. But the spammers continue to change IP's.

33056[/snapback]

...Yep, spammers (or the providers of spamming software) exploit any weakness they can find. You'll often see what appears to be almost identical spam from several different IP addresses. Just keep reporting 'em, as your time and inclination permits. And thanks for your help in reporting spam!
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One more thing. Some abuse desks make reports available on line (open to anyone that cares to do a search) ...if un-munged that exposes your e-mail to spiders, etc. The recent increase in e-mail address forging can also inadvertendly expose your ID for spreading once it made it to a spammer list. spam reports and complains are availabe to many search engines. If you want to convince yourself of the above, simply google your e-mail add, you'd be surprized!

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IIRC, when the SpamCop Parser writes "tracking link", that just means that it found a link (a URL, some string starting with "http://" or "www.") in the message you submitted and is trying to track down (via the use of its database, dns servers, and whois servers) where that link leads so that it can help you report that link to the responsible party's email address(es).

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IIRC, when the SpamCop Parser writes "tracking link", that just means that it found a link (a URL, some string starting with "http://" or "www.") in the message you submitted and is trying to track down (via the use of its database, dns servers, and whois servers) where that link leads so that it can help you report that link to the responsible party's email address(es).

33080[/snapback]

...My thought was that Kojote was referring to glossary entry "Tracking URL".
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