better reporting method?

[seakarn]

i've wanted to use spamcop to help fight spam and have started reporting a few times. But given that i get 200+ spam each day it takes way too long to report every spam individually and i always stop quickly.

i've just installed OLspamcop which makes it a bit easier, but i STILL have to go screen by screen to submit the spams on the spamcop site.

apologies for the newbie question, but why isn't there a bulk 'submit' or 'approval' process so I can mail in the 200 spam at once (which olspamcop permits) and rather than having to see 400 pages and click 400 times just approve once at the spamcop site (which the spamcop site doesn't do)?

thanks!

[Wazoo]

apologies for the newbie question, but why isn't there a bulk 'submit' or 'approval' process so I can mail in the 200 spam at once (which olspamcop permits) and rather than having to see 400 pages and click 400 times just approve once at the spamcop site (which the spamcop site doesn't do)?

newbie answer .... because newbies can make way too many mistakes ... starting perhaps with the overlooking of the rules and procedures that were agreed to when signing up for a Reporting Account ... for example, that "you" are the one respnsible for which reports go out and where they get sent. The Parsing & Reporting system is nothing more than a tool that performs some analysis on yur submittal. That review thing that you say sucks is exactly where you are supposed to be actively involved .. making sure that the results are good/valid before hitting the Submit button.

Other newbies ignore all the help placed about the place .. things like FAQs, which are basically collections of Frequently Asked Questions that have answers built up such that other folks don't have to answer the same questions day after day, over and over .... there are search tools available, there are all the countless previous/other posts/discussions that exist ... there are scores of them that ask (and have answers) to this very situation ....

No one is forcing you to report each and every spam, though noting that each one does add data to the SpamCopDNSBL, so the more the better ... but sme folks focus on types of spam, only report the last dozen received, etc. ... and delete the rest ...

Another avenue is to check out a thing called Quick-Reporting ...

[seakarn]

Hi Wazoo,

I haven't got the history in the community you obviously have (thanks!) but a few thoughts:

-spam detection and more importantly spam sorting has really improved over the last few years. My spam filter is able to filter spam with a ~99.9% accuracy (I have actually tested it to 1 in 1000 false detects). It's quite easy for me to review my list of 200+ spams when they are all in a spam folder and see if there are any false reports. None of this was true years ago when I was picking spam individually to move from my inbox to spam folder for reporting and often included good emails with the bad.

-Assuming that the number of reports coming from individual users like me would dramatically increase if we could approve all reports with a single click or set a 'if i send it to spamcop i wanted to submit it' mode, the total volume of reports would greatly increase. If the total volume increases (which it definitely would) and even if 2 good mails per 1000 were submitted I would think that Spamcop could recalibrate the reporting threshold criterion. Also, it's unlikely that someone else would make the same 1:1000 error on the same email that I do.

-Last, I understand the argument that false reports waste netadmin time and reduce spamcop credibility, but given that mole mode exists now what really is the downside of at least providing a batch submit web page where i can submit all 200 reports at once.

I guess it comes down to the value to spamcop and the community of dramatically increasing reporting. I started to read the quickreporting bit (thanks for the info) and will probably do it, but at initial glance it looks like something that less than .1% of the internet mail population would do.

[kamaraju]

i've wanted to use spamcop to help fight spam and have started reporting a few times. But given that i get 200+ spam each day it takes way too long to report every spam individually and i always stop quickly.

Instead of reporting all the spam that I get, I fix up a time slot say 15 minutes a day. I report whatever I can in 15 minutes and that's it.

If you want to report as many spam emails as possible, try quick reporting. http://forum.spamcop.net/scwik/QuickReporting might help a bit in understanding the process of quickreporting.

raju

[Wazoo]

-spam detection and more importantly spam sorting has really improved over the last few years. My spam filter is able to filter spam with a ~99.9% accuracy (I have actually tested it to 1 in 1000 false detects). It's quite easy for me to review my list of 200+ spams when they are all in a spam folder and see if there are any false reports. None of this was true years ago when I was picking spam individually to move from my inbox to spam folder for reporting and often included good emails with the bad.

Your focus is on the submitting of your spam. That's all well and good, the more the better, especially if you / your ISP uses the SPamCopDNSBL. However, what you are seemingly attempting to sidestep is the review and approval of the parse results and the follow-on e-mail'd reports.

Another 2,000 reports to a blackhat ISP that simply doesn't care isn't going to effectively accomplish much beyond making sure that the IP address is more certain to end up being listed in the SpamCopDNSBL. A (real) whitehat ISP doesn't need 2,000 more reports either, having already taken action after receiving the first few reports.

For the downside of making things 'automatic' and 'too easy' .... witness the posts that deal with folks having their own accounts terminated, web-sites vaporized, receiving angry e-mails from their own ISPs, some folks getting their reporting priviledges removed .... the possibilities and the bad results are simply too legion to ignore ....

[StevenUnderwood]

-Last, I understand the argument that false reports waste netadmin time and reduce spamcop credibility, but given that mole mode exists now what really is the downside of at least providing a batch submit web page where i can submit all 200 reports at once.

I don't think you understand what mole reporting is about.

No reports are sent to administrators by moles and the last information we have, they also do not count toward the blocklist. Thet are only included in the aggregate counts spamcop provides to administrators who have requested them. They show something like 10 moles reported spam from your IP address space.

[agsteele]

Last, I understand the argument that false reports waste netadmin time and reduce spamcop credibility, but given that mole mode exists now what really is the downside of at least providing a batch submit web page where i can submit all 200 reports at once.

As Wazoo noted, you can use Quick reporting - does just what you're asking. Feeds the block list and involves a single submission. But you run a significantly higher risk of reporting your own ISP.

Andrew

[seakarn]

Thanks for the replies - I think I understand how spamcop reporting works better now. I had assumed that more reports are better in general but it sounds like past a relatively low threshold of reports incremental spam submissions are just extra.

[Wazoo]

Thanks for the replies - I think I understand how spamcop reporting works better now. I had assumed that more reports are better in general but it sounds like past a relatively low threshold of reports incremental spam submissions are just extra.

Not sure I follow all that logic, actually. My previous was responding to your "let's end a gazillion reports" scenario and the reaction bu the ISPs involved. Howver, your reply in this post doesn't quite match up the actions of a SpamCopDNSBL listing .... which is a ratio developed by total e-mail 'seen' and the reports made against that IP address. Any "threshold" is based on that ratio, which is where the "more reports the better" does come into play.

[petzl]

i've wanted to use spamcop to help fight spam and have started reporting a few times. But given that i get 200+ spam each day it takes way too long to report every spam individually and i always stop quickly.

i've just installed OLspamcop which makes it a bit easier, but i STILL have to go screen by screen to submit the spams on the spamcop site.

apologies for the newbie question, but why isn't there a bulk 'submit' or 'approval' process so I can mail in the 200 spam at once (which olspamcop permits) and rather than having to see 400 pages and click 400 times just approve once at the spamcop site (which the spamcop site doesn't do)?

thanks!

SEASON'S GREETINGS

I think that although "Free SpamCop" is a good thing to do. spam has become a flood caused by mainly incompetent providers (major glut of spam could be stopped by simply blocking port 25)

To effectively control spam the very best thing to do is to sign-up for (US$30 per annum)The only email address you will ever need

This will accurately sort all spam to a "Very Easy Reporting" folder (VER) without losing any email

All spam in your VER folder is reported along with an attempt to inform ISP of the spam you received. This done with two clicks of mouse button after you check it is spam

Although you can still keep any email address you have (SpamCop will filter keeping inbox clean) you are best phase these out You have two weeks to trail. If not your cup of tea you can close account Refund cheerfully given

[daryn]

ok, I get the part where we are all fools for not being able to figure this out,

but I have tried, and I'm pretty smart... so maybe its just hard to figure out.

no point in repeating the above because I just have the same problem..

but I'll tell you then I "report as spam" from my spamcop folders, it doesnt' make me read every email and comfirm, it'll just send 50 spam reports at a time.

all I want is to be able to do that .... only bigger...

[StevenUnderwood]

ok, I get the part where we are all fools for not being able to figure this out,

but I have tried, and I'm pretty smart... so maybe its just hard to figure out.

no point in repeating the above because I just have the same problem..

but I'll tell you then I "report as spam" from my spamcop folders, it doesnt' make me read every email and comfirm, it'll just send 50 spam reports at a time.

all I want is to be able to do that .... only bigger...

That only works if you have quick reporting enabled, otherwise, all those submissions are collecting in your reporting queue. Hit the Report spam button on the top of the webmail application and see if it tells you that you have spam waiting to report.

You can set webmail to view as many as you want in one screen. Options, Display Options, Messages per page in the mailbox view.