Cat-and-mouse forever?

[nukespam]

After using SmapCop to report spam everyday for two months, I have seen no improvement in reducing spam. It appeared to have improved the first month of reporting, but recently it has returned to very annoying levels. Spammers obviously intend to spam for as long as email exists, while spam victims try to shield themselves. Are we stuck playing cat-and-mouse forever?

[dra007]

I have the same experience, they stop for brief respites and when I am ready to say, finall. they start again! I hope my reporting is not in vain, but it surely has not stopped the spam. :angry:

[WB8TYW]

As long as your mail server is accepting e-mail from known open proxies, or I.P. addresses that are known to be controled by spammers, you will not see any reduction in spam.

It seems that most mail server operators know that they need to reject e-mail from open relays. An open relay is a misconfigured mail server that will relay spam.

So most mail servers will not accept e-mail from them. As they are rejecting from a real mail server, this is likely to cause real e-mails to be rejected.

But most spam comes from open proxies, that never send a real e-mail.

There are apparently mail servers operators that would not hesitate to block an open relay, but are afraid to block a known open proxy because of the risk of losing a real e-mail.

See the cost of spam pinned topic.

Your reporting of spam is reducing it for a lot of people that do have postmasters that feel spam is the sending networks responsibility, and that the receiver should not bear the cost of dealing with spam.

-John

Personal Opinion Only

[dra007]

Unfortunately many of us use institutional (University) servers, and our postmasters are unresponsive to our complains, mine re-directs me to spamcop, so it's a vicious circle. I noticed a usenet post in which my ISP was complaining to spamcop for being blocked, 3 years ago, obviously they did nothing about stopping spam since. They do stop most viruses from reaching me, replacing their files with their own note. Hackers have found a way around it, they started using legitimate government adresses to sent the viruses an bypass that protection. They seem to find ways to defeat the system no matter what.

[turetzsr]

Unfortunately many of us use institutional (University) servers, and our postmasters are unresponsive to our complains, mine re-directs me to spamcop, so it's a vicious circle. I noticed a usenet post in which my ISP was complaining to spamcop for being blocked, 3 years ago, obviously they did nothing about stopping spam since. They do stop most viruses from reaching me, replacing their files with their own note. Hackers have found a way around it, they started using legitimate government adresses to sent the viruses an bypass that protection. They seem to find ways to defeat the system no matter what.

...It may not help but you might want to refer your e-mail admins to Pinned: Cost of spam. They may not want to hear it but it probably costs the university more to do nothing to block spam than it would to use a blocklist.

[nukespam]

One would think that stopping spam at its source would be an effective way of cutting off spammers. Especially when most ISP and hosting providers have strict policies against using their systems for originating spam. SpamCop's keen sense of smell reveals that nearly all of the spam I get comes from third world countries. It draws my attention to how effective SmapCop is at reporting spam to overseas sources.

[turetzsr]

One would think that stopping spam at its source would be an effective way of cutting off spammers.

...Yes, if ISPs and mail server admins would actually take action based on the reports that SpamCop.net sends. But many don't.

Especially when most ISP and hosting providers have strict policies against using their systems for originating spam.

...But that isn't how most spam seems to be sent these days. An awful lot comes through compromised PCs.

SpamCop's keen sense of smell reveals that nearly all of the spam I get comes from third world countries.  It draws my attention to how effective SmapCop is at reporting spam to overseas sources.

...SpamCop.net reporting isn't likely the problem. It's the inaction by ISPs and e-mail server admins.

[dra007]

I get this cinanet on a lot of my reports, I couldn't pull one example out, a site in Hong Kong, several in China, spamcop gets only bounces from them, does anyone know what this is about?

[dra007]

(nukespam [at] Mar 23 2004, 12:32 AM)

SpamCop's keen sense of smell reveals that nearly all of the spam I get comes from third world countries.  It draws my attention to how effective SmapCop is at reporting spam to overseas sources.

...SpamCop.net reporting isn't likely the problem. It's the inaction by ISPs and e-mail server admins.

I have gone ahead and send some reports to the abuse[at] in the report on my own, never got anything back but automatic replies....any of these abuse[at] bother to contact spamcop on their own, unless they get a BL of course?

[Miss Betsy]

There is no indication that manual reports sent to china networks get any more attention than spamcop reports.

Spamcop reports sent to dev/null are not sent to the ISP, but are added to the blocklist. They are not sent because spamcop has gotten bounces or because the ISP has requested no spamcop reports.

Some people think that the Internet will be divided into ISP's who do not allow spammers and those who do with those who don't allow spam blocking all those who do.

Miss Betsy