How does SpamCop interact with Akamai?

[Jeff G.]

SpamCop uses Akamai's EdgePlatform reverse proxy servers (regional web caches) to provide better responsiveness and protection for the users of www.spamcop.net, members.spamcop.net, and mailsc.spamcop.net, which are said to be "akamaized" sites. Those reverse proxy servers are systems (currently numbering over 15,000) which are housed at lots of ISPs' facilities (currently numbering over 1,100) around the world (generally in pairs, currently in 69 countries), and the hosting ISPs' nameservers direct queries to akamaized sites to those reverse proxy servers in their locations. Things get interesting when one of those reverse proxy servers has an issue with contacting a backend server, and the other of the pair doesn't, as most user systems don't have a very easy way to specify which server to query (I don't consider manipulating the HOSTS file very easy). Restarting the browser, dns resolver, OS, and computer are some of the ways to convince the user's computer to try the other reverse proxy server. You can check if a particular reverse proxy server is alive for web browsiby browsing to its IP Address. For more info about Akamai technology, please see http://www.akamai.com/en/html/technology/overview.html.