Hows Spamcop blocking myths are propogated

[barnford]

Q: My emails to a friend have been blocked by a service called spamcop.net. Is there anything I can do?

A: Spamcop monitors the internet for junk e-mail and acts if it notices unsavoury activity. A spammer may have circulated junk mail using your ISP domain, causing Spamcop to block all traffic from that domain. Normally the block is removed after a day or so if no more spam is sent. You can e-mail postmaster [at](your ISP) and ask them to investigate or visit www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml.

I have contacted them to point out the factual inaccuracies but expect more uninformed posting sometime soon.

[Miss Betsy]

Aargh! It makes one wonder about all the 'helpful' tips about other subjects that are printed!

Thanks for trying to set them straight. I hope they listen to you.

Miss Betsy

[studog]

I have contacted them to point out the factual inaccuracies but expect more uninformed posting sometime soon.

You might try explaining that SpamCop works exactly like a credit bureau except that i) SpamCop is concerned with spam instead of credit, and ii) anyone can provide a report about spam.

...Stu

[bobbear]

You have to remember that these are 'journalists' working for a Murdoch newspaper, (sister paper to The News of The World - a sex, drugs, etc scandal rag), so the 'credit bureau' analogy might be a bit beyond them....

I remember when the Times used to be a newspaper..... )o:

I also wrote in and just pointed out that spamcop don't & can't block anybody - spamcop is just a collector of statistics that can be used by any mail administrator to help to decide who to block and who not to block as they see fit.

[rconner]

I also wrote in and just pointed out that spamcop don't & can't block anybody - spamcop is just a collector of statistics that can be used by any mail administrator to help to decide who to block and who not to block as they see fit.

I find that getting the press (any press) to report accurately on almost any technical issue is an uphill battle. We need only consider how difficult it is to get across to the general public that the "from" address in an e-mail is completely untrustworthy.

Sometimes, I think people are rather wilfully misunderstanding what SpamCop is all about. The spammers love to paint it as a dark cabal of secret wizards or mail nazis who can reach out and block any SMTP transmission in the world -- this portrayal suits their purposes of course, since they come off looking like victims rather than perpetrators.

-- rick

[Adriaan]

[snip]

The spammers love to paint it as a dark cabal of secret wizards or mail nazis who can reach out and block any SMTP transmission in the world

[snip

I just encountered a similar perception at http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47925

BTW I am the J65nko trying to enlighten him

[Farelf]

I just encountered a similar perception at http://www.bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47925...

Good work Adriaan. BTW, that link you give to your SC report in bsdforums only works for you - you need to go to the report and copy the tracking url at the head of it - like

Here is your TRACKING URL - it may be saved for future reference:

http://www.spamcop.net/sc?id=z641303267z045b750a0c3cf8aa3bfef3b3d92488bfz

Skip to Reports

[studog]

You seemed to have missed a bit there; let me fill it in for you:

I also wrote in and just pointed out that spamcop don't & can't block anybody - spamcop is just a collector of statistics that can be used by any mail administrator to help to decide who to block and who not to block as they see fit. In other words, SpamCop works exactly the same way as the Credit Bureaus.

:-)

...Stu