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How is this possible?


jpdarcis

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For days, I have been receiving spam from Viagra.com Inc and I have reported it each time. You would think a sophisticated spam system as Spamcop's would be smart enough to self detected such an obvious spam and then, if it failed to do so, to react to the numerous reporting such an email certainly triggers.

I do realize the system cannot be fool proof, but I cannot help wonder what really happens behind the scenes when such an obvious spam gets through ...

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Small suggestion.

Start Here - before you make your first Post

Introduction to SpamCop.net services, tools, and support

Welcome to the SpamCop.net Wiki site!

Please follow the links and look at the data on these pages;

What is SpamCop.net?

Where to get Help

I have been receiving spam from Viagra.com Inc

You will note in/after doing the above research that the Parsing & Reporting tools don't see e-mail "coming from anywhere.com" ..... It's the IP Address of the source of the e-mail that is analyzed. "Recognizing" words like this in the content of the body is not what the parser does.

However, is it possible that your question is being asked about a SpamCop.net e-mail account? In that case, I'll point out that you posted your query in the Reporting Help Forum section .... and that there are in fact a couple of Topics/DIscussions going on in the E-Mail System & Accounts Forum section that may in fact be applicable to this question.

Answers requested in your next post;

Is this a Parsing & Reporting Issue? If so, please provide a Tracking URL.

Is this a SpamCop.net e-mail account issue? If so, please provide a Tracking URL and trhis Topic will be moved to the more appropriate Forum section.

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For days, I have been receiving spam from Viagra.com Inc and I have reported it each time.
A tracking URL of one of those would provide a lot of data to help answer this.
You would think a sophisticated spam system as Spamcop's would be smart enough to self detected such an obvious spam and then, if it failed to do so, to react to the numerous reporting such an email certainly triggers.
Well, there are numerous systems tied up in this but SC as such doesn't seek to identify spam - that's what reporters are for. Maybe you are talking about the filters available through your SC email account? Then the question of how SC's own blocklist responds to reports (and spamtrap hits) is covered in FAQs 'here'. Much spam comes through a revolving list of IP addresses - but you are saying yours comes from Viagra.com. Again, the tracking URL is useful to substantiate the assertion.
I do realize the system cannot be fool proof, but I cannot help wonder what really happens behind the scenes when such an obvious spam gets through ...
You don't have to wonder, it is quite extensively documented and you could start to inform yourself about the technicalities using the resources (FAQs and Wiki) here if it is of interest to you. The Tracking URL is a good place to start if you would like help in stepping through the various aspects of the matters you raise.
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Let me help him elaborate. The email SAYS it's coming from Viagra but it's spoofing your own account name. I get them everyday as well. Here's a snippet from the headers...

From - Tue Oct 02 08:38:48 2007
Return-Path: <overstatement[at]northstate.net>
Delivered-To: spamcop-net-overseer[at]spamcop.net
Received: (qmail 11654 invoked from network); 2 Oct 2007 07:31:41 -0000
X-spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on filter8
X-spam-Level: ***************
X-spam-Status: hits=16.0 tests=HTML_MESSAGE,HTML_MIME_NO_HTML_TAG,
	MIME_HTML_ONLY,MISSING_DATE,SARE_FROM_DRUGS,UNPARSEABLE_RELAY,URIBL_BLACK,
	URIBL_JP_SURBL,URIBL_OB_SURBL,URIBL_SC_SURBL,URIBL_WS_SURBL version=3.2.3
Received: from unknown (192.168.1.107)
  by filter8.cesmail.net with QMQP; 2 Oct 2007 07:31:41 -0000
Received: from nevalink.net (81.222.225.202)
  by mx70.cesmail.net with SMTP; 2 Oct 2007 07:31:41 -0000
Received: from Jaclyn Angelia (10.14.16.10) by nevalink.net (PowerMTA(TM) v3.2r4) id hfp38o65d32j19 for <overseer[at]spamcop.net>; Tue, 2 Oct 2007 11:33:18 +0300
Message-Id: <20071002143318.7753.qmail[at]nevalink.net>
To: <overseer[at]spamcop.net>
Subject: RE: October 79% OFF
From: Viagra.com Inc <overseer[at]spamcop.net>
X-SpamCop-Checked: 
X-SpamCop-Disposition: Blocked SpamAssassin=15
X-SpamCop-Whitelisted: overseer[at]spamcop.net

As you can see in the From line, it says that it's coming from Viagra.com Inc but they're email address is overseer[at]spamcop.net (my email address) so it's whitelisted in the end no matter what I do. Can someone look into this?

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(my email address) so it's whitelisted in the end no matter what I do.

Ah...the solution therefore is simple: un-whitelist your own address! Lots of spammers are spoofing the address of the recipient in order to exploit such whitelisting. If you want a copy of mail that you send out, simply have your email system (or the webmail system) put a copy in your "sent" mail folder, but don't whitelist your own address or you will continue to have this problem. This issue has been discussed many times here, and it *might* be in the FAQ...I'm not sure.

DT

(p.s. - forum moderators, this topic is indeed in the wrong forum....it should be in the SC Email forum, not in the Reporting forum)

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Let me help him elaborate. The email SAYS it's coming from Viagra but it's spoofing your own account name. I get them everyday as well. Here's a snippet from the headers...

From - Tue Oct 02 08:38:48 2007

As you can see in the From line, it says that it's coming from Viagra.com Inc.....

Something wrong with your sample .....

But again, the "From" is a known generally forged item, that's why the parser doesn't bother looking at that line/data.

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jpdarcis's post is exactly the question I have been asking: Why are obvious spam keywords are not automatically detected and blocked from even entering the "Held Mail" box?

According to Wazoo the reason is: >"It's the IP Address of the source of the email that is analyzed. "Recognizing" words like this in the content of the body is not what the parser does."<

Farelf concurred by stating: >"SC as such doesn't seek to identify spam - that's what reporters are for."<

OK, so Spamcop is not set-up to identify spam or stop it from reaching your email, Inbox or Held Mail. The "First Post" section characterizes it as a "Credit Reporting Agency." My question is: Why not filter obvious spam? I'm receiving well over 225 spam a day and just sorting through my Held Mail folder for the one or two legitimate ones that are shuffled among them every week is way too time consuming.

If emails with subject lines containing such words as: Viagra, Penis, Enlarge, Adobe, Pharmacy, etc. along with all the intentional spelling deviations were simply blocked, my Held Mail folder would be reduced by 80% I have tried configuring my spamcop email filters to delete these but it doesn't do any good and the Held Mail is still full of the above mentioned keywords indicating that "delete" means send to Held Mail folder.

I have been a Spamcop customer for a few years and an absolute stickler for dutifully reporting all spam. The quantity has only increased and something further needs to be done. I will confess right now that most of this talk of parsing headers, IP's and so forth is Chinese to me. Therefore, my question may seem incredibly naive.

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...Therefore, my question may seem incredibly naive.
Not at all - keeping spam out of your inbox is a serious and proper purpose.
jpdarcis's post is exactly the question I have been asking: Why are obvious spam keywords are not automatically detected and blocked from even entering the "Held Mail" box?...
You need filtering other than/additional to the SCbl (which will help a bit, even so) for that and I am unsure what you would achieve by keeping it out of even the Held Mail. It needs to be reported from somewhere. Have you looked at what other users are doing with filtering? See How we Use spam Cop -Detailed Examples. If you want to discuss details on how to make your account better suited to your needs the information there may help you home right in the specific assistance/advice you need to ask about - or there may be enough there to tell you already (that was the objective of posting it).
... OK, so Spamcop is not set-up to identify spam or stop it from reaching your email, Inbox or Held Mail. The "First Post" section characterizes it as a "Credit Reporting Agency." My question is: Why not filter obvious spam? I'm receiving well over 225 spam a day and just sorting through my Held Mail folder for the one or two legitimate ones that are shuffled among them every week is way too time consuming. ...
Logic says there will always be the possibility os some false positives (and consequences for reporting them) but additional filtering should certainly reduce the probability. And, if it doesn't suit you, you don't *have to* report anything. That part is/has to be discretionary - that is, at *your* discretion. Whatever, you are entitled to the best you can get from your account and there are people around who will do their best to try to help. Just inform yourself about some of the options that have already been identified (the link above being a little beyond a starting point maybe but have a look) and work with us from there.
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Farelf- Thanks for the quick reply to my post. I'm still unclear about whether it's technically possible for Spamcop to implement filters that would block email with obvious spam keywords in the subject line from ever even being seen. As previously mentioned my Spamcop account filters don't seem to be blocking the keyword-specified subject lines, these emails still overwhelm my "Held Mail" folder. By setting the filters to automatically delete, shouldn't these keyword-designated spam be immediately trashed?

I realize Spamcop is not set-up to start blocking the subject line spam keywords or even if it's possible to do so. However, if such technology is available it would be of great help in reducing the amount of clutter in the "Held Mail" folders.

In regard to reporting it would benefit the Spamcop customers if their reports actually helped nip specific spam in the bud. A prime example would be the recent "70% Off in September" followed by the "..% Off in October" spam which have been deluging my email and actually slipping into the "Inbox" until recently. Why couldn't Spamcop utilize the reports sent by members to immediately flag these subject lines and block them completely? Right now our reporting doesn't provide any immediate benefit to the Spamcop customers, only the hope that it will have some impact in the future which has yet to materialize.

As far as the reporting aspect is concerned I want to do what I can to fight back. It's just as easy to report it rather than delete it from the Spamcop email. I still need to go through it anyway to find the one legitimate one in 2,000 that gets caught in the Held Mail. One incredibly stupid thing I was doing for years until recently was to open my Outlook Express email program before checking my Spamcop inbox which meant that I was having to manually forward spam and then go through the hassle of individually reporting it rather than simply checking it off through the Spamcop "Inbox" folder.

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I'm still unclear about whether it's technically possible for Spamcop to implement filters that would block email with obvious spam keywords in the subject line from ever even being seen.
You could create your own custom filters in the webmail application that could look for specific words or phrases in many different parts of a message and then take whatever action you want, including full deletion. You'd have to log into webmail to activate the filters, because that's the only time they run, IIUC.

As previously mentioned my Spamcop account filters don't seem to be blocking the keyword-specified subject lines, these emails still overwhelm my "Held Mail" folder. By setting the filters to automatically delete, shouldn't these keyword-designated spam be immediately trashed?
Assuming you've got well-crafted *custom* filters, yes. Or are you referring to the default filtering options available as mail arrives in our accounts, such as SpamAssassin and the blocklists? I'm not sure to which you're referring. I'm not sure which options you've selected. What's your SpamAssassin threshhold set to, for example? That's an imporant factor.

I realize Spamcop is not set-up to start blocking the subject line spam keywords or even if it's possible to do so. However, if such technology is available it would be of great help in reducing the amount of clutter in the "Held Mail" folders.
Actually, there are some SpamAssassin rules that deal with certain types of keywords, and they work on our accounts...as long as you have SpamAssassin activated in your config. However, messages caught by that threshhold go into your Held mail...they don't just disappear. It would be nice if we could set a second threshhold, and that messages scoring past that second threshhold could be vaporized (this is how Barracuda spam Firewall appliances work).

Why couldn't Spamcop utilize the reports sent by members to immediately flag these subject lines and block them completely?
The spamcop reports only affect the "reputation" of a given IP address as a source of spam. The Subject lines aren't analyzed/indexed/categorized at all, IIUC.

DT

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I'm still unclear about whether it's technically possible for Spamcop to implement filters that would block email with obvious spam keywords in the subject line from ever even being seen.

Of course it is, technically, possible to do this.

However, of course, the problem is that even the spammiest of words can be used quite legitimately. I may, for example, have quite reasonable reasons to refer to a number of pharmaceutical products in an Email. So blocking because of the the use of one particular brand name in an Email is probably unhelpful to the majority of users. So, as others have suggested, to implement that level of filtering you need to implement your own filters.

The example that Overseer posted would have been caught by the spamassassin filters except that he/she had white-listed his/her own address and that bypassed the filters. But it had a SA score of 16 - well above the recommended score of 5 for filtering. (many of us use lower scores of 3 or 4 quite successfully.

The SA score is the most useful means of evaluating content available to SpamCop Email users and this does pick up the names of commonly spammed drugs and add to the score for filtering. You are suggesting that the drug in question automatically score '5' but that would be too harsh for legitimate messages so the remaining content is also scored to check whether a message should be treated as spam.

Andrew

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David T- Yes, I am referring to the custom filters which I've created with all the key spam words and their intentional spelling deviations. In regard to the blocklists I've already selected the block option for every selection on the DNS Blacklist except Korea amd set the SpamAssasin level at six.

Let's go over the custom filter settings to make sure I'm not screwing something up:

Starting with the "Existing Rules Page" for the custom filters I've selected the "Filter all Messages" from the pull-down menu.

On the individual "Filter Rule" page I've selected:

"Any of the Following"

"subject contains"

followed by the spam Keyword

Then I've checked "Stop checking if this rule matches? "

With this set-up why are the keyword spam still showing up in my Held Mail and not being immediately deleted?

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On the individual "Filter Rule" page I've selected:

"Any of the Following"

"subject contains"

followed by the spam Keyword

Then I've checked "Stop checking if this rule matches? "

What do you have set in the 'Do this' box?

Should be set to 'Delete Completely'

However, I suspect that the messages are being identified as spam by the built in spam checking options. These kick in before your personal filters. So anything the spam checks identify as spam will automatically go straight to held mail before your filter is applied. Hence it appears in held mail.

Andrew

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SpamAssasin level at six

That's too high, IMO. If you lower that number, less spam will make it to your inbox. I lowered my threshhold down to 4, and rarely see false positives due to the lowered number. When I do, I whitelist those senders.

Just to be sure...you haven't whitelisted your own address or domain, have you?

Also, if you own one or more domains, hopefully you're not using a "catch-all" address? That's no longer recommended, and most of us gave those up long ago.

DT

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Andrew- Yes, I've selected the "Delete Completely"Option.

Also Andrew, you nailed the point of my question when you said: >"anything the spam checks identify as spam will automatically go straight to held mail before your filter is applied. Hence it appears in held mail."<

That was the problem I initially raised. Just to reiterate once again:

I HAVE WAY TOO MUCH spam TO DEAL WITH IN THE "HELD MAIL" FOLDER.

"Held Mail" still requires me to go through all of it to find the 1 in 2,000 emails that finds it's way there mistakenly. From what you've told me the custom Spamcop filtering will only prevent it from reaching the "Inbox" and does nothing to block it from the "Held Mail." This explains why my custom filtering hasn't phased the amount of spam in my "Held Mail" folder.

Hence, the proposed solution and question that I raised:

WHY CAN'T SPAMCOP START BLCKING EMAILS WITH OBVIOUS spam KEYWORDS OR PHRASES IN THE SUBJECT LINE?

Andrew pointed-out that some people have legitimate email containing spam keywords in the subject line:

1.) Then why not offer a check-off menu for packages of spam keywords in the same way options for the DNS Blacklist are presented?

2.) Alternatively, why couldn't the "Custom Filters" be at least moved-up to sort the "Held Mail" folder as well?

By the way, regardless of need, intentional spelling deviations could be universally filtered-out. Ex: Rep1ica, V1agra, $oftware, etc.

I don't want to stray from my main question but David T asked about Whitelisting my address/domain. Yes, I had to Whitelist my own email address because website orders from my business website are sent under my own email address. I'm not knowledgable enough to give a more detailed explanation on this subject. I've tried lowering my SA threshold but the number of false positives increased which actually makes it more time consuming to carefully review the "Held Mail" folder with added diligence.

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As previously mentioned my Spamcop account filters don't seem to be blocking the keyword-specified subject lines, these emails still overwhelm my "Held Mail" folder. By setting the filters to automatically delete, shouldn't these keyword-designated spam be immediately trashed?

Webmail filters are only activated when you log into the webmail interface. You may or may not have them configured to automatically run when the Inbox is viewed. That does not work with other folders (Held Mail) and need to be run interactively.

I realize Spamcop is not set-up to start blocking the subject line spam keywords or even if it's possible to do so. However, if such technology is available it would be of great help in reducing the amount of clutter in the "Held Mail" folders.

Most of us do not consider it "clutter" but rather material to be reported.

In regard to reporting it would benefit the Spamcop customers if their reports actually helped nip specific spam in the bud.

Once again, that is not the aim of spamcop reporting. Listing the sources (IP Address) of spamming machines is the intent.

It sounds like the new greylisting options recently announced may help you. It blocks the majority of blatant spam because most spammers will not resend within the required parameters.

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I HAVE WAY TOO MUCH spam TO DEAL WITH IN THE "HELD MAIL" FOLDER.
Approx. how many arrive there over a 24-hour period? I open an IMAP connection in my email client each morning and quickly review the 50-70 that have accumulated and then delete them. This takes a few seconds a day. I don't let stuff accumulate in Held, or it would take a lot longer to review and process.

WHY CAN'T SPAMCOP START BLCKING EMAILS WITH OBVIOUS spam KEYWORDS OR PHRASES IN THE SUBJECT LINE?
The email service is not currently designed to do that kind of blocking, but it would certainly be a nice option to make available to users who want it. Messages containing viruses/trojans/etc. are currently blocked silently, and there have been some times when the admins configured the system do zap some other junk to lessen the load on the system, but I'm not sure what the parameters were and I think that's been stopped again.

Alternatively, why couldn't the "Custom Filters" be at least moved-up to sort the "Held Mail" folder as well?
Wait....your filters *can* be applied to the Held mail folder, as long as they're properly configured. I just did so with a test "Deliver to folder: Inbox" filter on "October" in the Subject line. I opened my Held mail in the webmail interface, and clicked on the funnel icon ("Apply Filters to Held Mail" - in between the refresh and the search icons) and the one "October" spam was moved to my Inbox. I moved the message back to Held, changed the action on my test filter to "Delete message completely," and then applied my filters to my Held mail folder and sure enough, the October message was zapped. So, you should be able to dump stuff from your Held based on custom filters that you set up.

I don't want to stray from my main question but David T asked about Whitelisting my address/domain. Yes, I had to Whitelist my own email address because website orders from my business website are sent under my own email address.o carefully review the "Held Mail" folder with added diligence.
I strongly recommend that you find a way to change that. Perhaps they could be configured to come from "noreply[at]domain.com" instead and you could whitelist that? You also didn't answer my question about using a "catch-all" address....are you doing that?

DT

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<snip>

Andrew pointed-out that some people have legitimate email containing spam keywords in the subject line:

<snip>

Hi, buffed,

...An interesting question -- I am following this forum thread with some interest, although it doesn't much affect me as I am not a SpamCop e-mail user.

..."spam" is a trademark of Hormel Corporation, so please do not use it here to refer to unsolicited e-mail (spam). Please see spam and the Internet, especially the third paragraph and comply with Hormel's polite request. Thanks! :) <g>

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SteveT- sorry for the capitals, I thought it was the other way around.

StevenUnderwood- I've got everything checked for Filter Options on the Filters page.

Also, I realize that the aim of Spamcop is geared toward listing the IP's of the spammers. That's my whole issue: As an email account customer this just doesn't cut-it so I'm suggesting Spamcop institute a blocking option based on spam keywords in the subject line. I don't think spamcop email clients should even have to deal with these blatant spams.

DavidT- asked >"how many arrive there over a 24-hour period?"< and this is a good lead-in from the above sentence. Since I published my previous post four hours ago 70 spam are in my "Held Mail" folder and three have slipped through to my Inbox. I get about 250 spam a day. In reviewing the subject lines of the 70 in the "Held Mail" I've identified 27 that would have been easily stopped with no-brainer filtering. Here's the breakdown:

Penis-10, Software-6, Pills-2, plus one each for other obvious spam words.

Several had multiple filterable keywords in the subject line. There were also seven variations of the "re: Thanks you, we are ready to give your company a loan" which could also be blocked with some thought put into it.

DaviT- Based on what you said I am going to re-configure my filters to deliver to folder and then select trash as the folder. Eveidently, just selecting delete doesn't do anything to the "Held Mail" Hopefully this will work. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by a catch-all address.

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DaviT- Based on what you said I am going to re-configure my filters to deliver to folder and then select trash as the folder. Eveidently, just selecting delete doesn't do anything to the "Held Mail" Hopefully this will work.
I'm not sure you read my previous message carefully enough, because I detailed some experiments I did with webmail this morning showing how the "delete" function does indeed work out of Held mail. It's not automatic...you need to open your Held mail in the webmail and then run the filters by clicking on the funnel. So, read my previous message again, please.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by a catch-all address.
You mentioned having a business, so I'm guessing you have your own domain name(s)? If so, when someone sends a message to a "made up" address, like "testing123[at]yourdomain.com" does the message bounce, or does it get to you somehow? If it gets to you, then you're using a "catch-all."

DT

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StevenUnderwood- I've got everything checked for Filter Options on the Filters page.

Also, I realize that the aim of Spamcop is geared toward listing the IP's of the spammers. That's my whole issue: As an email account customer this just doesn't cut-it so I'm suggesting Spamcop institute a blocking option based on spam keywords in the subject line. I don't think spamcop email clients should even have to deal with these blatant spams.

I am a webmail client and I want them to report them.

Which filters are you talking about here. My response was based on the personal webmail filters available at the "Filter" icon at the top of the webmail screen. You can program them to filter whatever you want to wherever you want (delete if you want).

I do not generally use these and still rarely get any blatant spam in my Inbox. I also have only had 1 false positive in my Held Mail folder in the last few months and that was a hotmail address of a new contact. I whitelisted the address and will not have any issues again. I do not get as much spam as many since I dropped my most heavily spammed account about 18 months ago. I also check my email and report the Held mail using quick reporting every hour or so.

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DavidT- Thanks for the explanation on "catch-all" email addresses: I've determined mine is not in that category. Also thank you for your information on use of the spamcop email filter. It has allowed me to filter the subject lines with obvious spam keywords and drastically reduce the amount of spam in the "Held Mail" folder I need to sift through.

I report the remaining spam after checking for false positives. As for the obvious spam which is deleted through the spam keywords in the subject line I suppose I could re-configure the filters to route it to a special folder so it could be reported as well.

Thanks to the contributions of people on this board I've now been able to at least reduce the time spent going through the "Held Mail" folder. Hopefully others will have benefitted as well. This brings us to jpdarcis original question which started this thread: Why spamcop doesn't shoulder the burden of automatically detecting obvious spam keywords in the subject line and then automatically reporting it instead of leaving it to the email account holders?

The answer will undoubtedly be that one in ten thousand will be a legitimate email and we don't want to offend the IP's with false reports. Well tough luck. Leave it for them to sort out the rare user who's sending-out Viagra emails which are actually legitimate. Also as I mentioned previously, there's never an excuse to allow intentional spelling variations such as Rep1ica, S*ftware, V1agra, etc..

jpdarcis also asked about spamcop reacting to user reports and I touched on this in a previous post. It would be a far better incentive if our reporting actually resulted in stopping a spam campaign in progress or subsequent future spam attacks. Right now we're doing so with no concrete results. In fact, I've been a dutifully reporting spamcop email account holder for a few years and have only watched the amount of spam I receive triple or quadruple in that time. Reporting to IP's is a great, noble concept but let's face reality: it's failed miserably.

So here's a summary of what "I" as an admittedly "know-nothing" average spamcop account holder thinks and have presented through the course of this thread:

1.) Subject lines with obvious spam keywords should be filtered-out by spamcop before ever reaching the account holder, period. Ideally, this filtered spam will be automatically reported by spamcop.

2.) Member reports should be instantaneously utilized to block spam campaigns, providing a tangible benefit and incentive for doing so.

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<snip>

This brings us to jpdarcis original question which started this thread: Why spamcop doesn't shoulder the burden of automatically detecting obvious spam keywords in the subject line and then automatically reporting it instead of leaving it to the email account holders?

...My guess is that the answer would be roughly the same reason jackhammers haven't been designed to automatically circulate around a building drilling holes. The SpamCop parser is a tool that makes it easier for us to generate complaint e-mails to proper abuse addresses of spam sources. But their our complaints -- SpamCop doesn't want to be in the business of sending complaints on its own. This seems reasonable to me: the parser is a computer program and, like any algorithmic decision-making procedure, is subject to making mistakes.
The answer will undoubtedly be that one in ten thousand will be a legitimate email and we don't want to offend the IP's with false reports. Well tough luck. Leave it for them to sort out the rare user who's sending-out Viagra emails which are actually legitimate.

<snip>

...You're entirely free to make that judgment for yourself, but that isn't the judgment of SpamCop's developer(s) and employees. You are also welcome to develop your own program to do what you are proposing. But IMHO you can't expect to be given authority to make such policy decisions for SpamCop.
In fact, I've been a dutifully reporting spamcop email account holder for a few years and have only watched the amount of spam I receive triple or quadruple in that time. Reporting to IP's is a great, noble concept but let's face reality: it's failed miserably.

<snip>

...Sorry, I do not agree with this conclusion. The fact that spam grows overall even in the fact of reporting does not mean that reporting fails. IMHO, this is guerrilla warfare and we guerrillas take our small victories where we can get them (and, believe it or not, there have been a few -- searching the SpamCop forum will show that there are at least some -- and we don't know every instance of success because the ISPs/MSPs don't always let us know the action they've taken).
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