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[Resolved] What is the point of all this spamcop stuff?


Peter Hill

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I've managed to register with spamcop, and I've donated a little bit of money ($2). I've upgraded my reporting to some 'new' version of spamcop.

And I get frequent silly messages that 'yum, this spam is fresh'.

I'm getting bored with continually going through the daily rigmarole of opening my email client (OE) right up, to find the full text of the spam to send it to spamcop, and I'm certain that the amount of spam has actually increased just because I am opening all these nasty spam messages.

What is the point??? When does the spam stop or get blocked or whatever spamcop does? There is so much complicated waffle on the spamcop pages and this forum. Where can I find a simple plain english guide to stopping spam being sent to my email address?

Please.

P.

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Hi, Peter!

...Welcome to the forum.

...First, just an FYI: you posted this to SpamCop Forum "How to use .... Instructions, Tutorials." Since you are asking a question about SpamCop Reporting and not providing instructions or a tutorial, your article has been moved to a more appropriate Forum, "SpamCop Reporting Help."

I've managed to register with spamcop, and I've donated a little bit of money ($2).
...I'm sure SpamCop/IronPort/Cisco appreciate that!
I've upgraded my reporting to some 'new' version of spamcop.
...New version? Can you please provide more information -- where did you see a notification of a 'new' version?
And I get frequent silly messages that 'yum, this spam is fresh'.
...Grin. SpamCop seems to be trying to make this a little more "fun" for us than just providing dry messages to let us know what it is doing.
I'm getting bored with continually going through the daily rigmarole of opening my email client (OE) right up, to find the full text of the spam to send it to spamcop,
...Have you tried the instructions provided on the page to which the link labeled "How do I submit spam via email?" in the SpamCop FAQ (see link so labeled near the top left of all SpamCop Forum pages) points?
and I'm certain that the amount of spam has actually increased just because I am opening all these nasty spam messages.
...This has been addressed in at least a couple of other SpamCop Forum articles. Please avail yourself of one or both of the Search tools near the top of the page to look for those discussions. If you have a problem finding them, please post back here and I or another contributor will try to help. Note tat one such place is linked ("Why did my spam load increase after I started Reporting?") to in the aforementioned SpamCop FAQ
What is the point??? When does the spam stop or get blocked or whatever spamcop does?
...Again, there are a number of discussions in the SpamCop Forum that address this. The basic answer is that reporting by itself does absolutely nothing to stop your spam. spam is on the increase and whether you report or not will not stop spam from increasing. In order to stop seeing spam, you have to have an e-mail service that applies rules and/ or one or more blacklists against incoming e-mail.
There is so much complicated waffle on the spamcop pages and this forum.
...Can you please be more specific about what you find "complicated?" Perhaps someone here can work with you to address those to make them easier both for you and for other visitors to understand.
Where can I find a simple plain english guide to stopping spam being sent to my email address?
...Again, I refer you to the Search tools on the Forum pages and the SpamCop FAQ. And if you find resources that appear to be relevant but which you can't completely grasp, please post questions here and we'll try to help.
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Simple, plain English answer: there is no way to stop spam from being sent to your email address once the first spammer has found your address.

Unless all of your correspondents are very savvy and never forward your email with your email address to a non-savvy person and never are infected with a virus and your email address is complicated enough that the dictionary spammers can't guess it and you never use your email address to purchase something on the internet (in case the seller sells your address or is hacked), your email address will make its way, sooner or later, onto a spammer's list.

You can, however, use filters to prevent you from seeing email in your inbox.

the spamcop blocklist is one such filter which is used at the server level usually, but is available to people who use the spamcop email system or who purchase some filtering products like Mailwasher. There is a whole science to filtering so that you don't lose good mail in the process.

Miss Betsy

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Thank you Steve T and Miss Betsy for your help. You both, and the pages you have referred me to, has helped me understand better what spamcop actually does, and more importantly, what it doesn't do.

I think I will accept the situation, concentrate on filtering my email and deleting it without opening the spam. I note something already flags most [spam] emails although whether it is my ISP or AVG (Antivirus) I have no idea...

Bit of a con that whole reporting spam thing though. The spamcop guy presumably is making a living out of it and implies I will gain some benefit from it, when really all he is doing is gathering statistics to submit to ISP's. Pity the initial blurb does not make it plain that opening spam emails right up to pass on the details will submit me to further web bugs etc.

This spamcop thing reminds me strongly of politicians, costs you more and more money on the strength of helping the populace whilst actually becoming a money source for the politicians chums. (hawk, spit)

btw - re your handle 'Miss Betsy', do you ever see any female gender specific spam. eg medications/pills for female ailments like thrush/pregnancy etc or is it all the same old same old male sexist pig nonsense from the male dominated computing industry? Nothing personal, it just sparked my interest whilst thinking through this whole spam thing last night.

:-)

P.

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<snip>

Bit of a con that whole reporting spam thing though. The spamcop guy presumably is making a living out of it and implies I will gain some benefit from it, when really all he is doing is gathering statistics to submit to ISP's. Pity the initial blurb does not make it plain that opening spam emails right up to pass on the details will submit me to further web bugs etc.

You must have missed the part that says that ISPs who are trying to stop spam coming from their networks often appreciate spamcop reports. It serves as an early warning system, because spamcop is so aggressive, for server admins who care. In the beginning there were lots of server admins who were alerted to the fact that spam is coming from them. Now, it is either a mistake (mistakes happen) or server admins who aren't up-to-date on how to prevent spam.

Most of the spammers ignore spamcop reports and are placed on the blocklist.

<snip>btw - re your handle 'Miss Betsy', do you ever see any female gender specific spam. eg medications/pills for female ailments like thrush/pregnancy etc or is it all the same old same old male sexist pig nonsense from the male dominated computing industry? Nothing personal, it just sparked my interest whilst thinking through this whole spam thing last night.:-)

No, I don't see anything different than anyone else. In the very beginning (several years ago) I thought perhaps we were getting the porn spam because my husband had his address on a Veterans site, but the spammers aren't into 'target' marketing. The spammers send their spew to whatever addresses they can lay their hands on - including many that are obviously not workable - that's how spam traps work.

Miss Betsy

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do you ever see any female gender specific spam. eg medications/pills for female ailments like thrush/pregnancy etc
By and large, the most prolific spammers do not target their mailings in any way -- they just send whatever they have to whatever millions of addresses they have collected. Unlike conventional advertisers, they see no economic or ethical need to limit their advertising to those who might respond.

I (a male) used to get a few breast enlargement spams, but none for quite a while. I also suffer the occasional outbreak of spam for sex toys for which I would have no possible use due to incompatible physiognomy. I am a natural-born U.S. citizen, but also used to get frequent "green card lottery" spams. I have a legitimate postgraduate degree, but I still get frequent diploma-mill spam.

Bit of a con that whole reporting spam thing though. The spamcop guy presumably is making a living out of it and implies I will gain some benefit from it, when really all he is doing is gathering statistics to submit to ISP's. Pity the initial blurb does not make it plain that opening spam emails right up to pass on the details will submit me to further web bugs etc.
You make a fair statement, though "con" might be a bit strong of a term for my own tastes. I've been using SpamCop for just about as long as it has been open, back when it was really a grass-roots thing. Now, it is owned (thru some layers of indirection) by Cisco, but I still consider it worthwhile to report my spam through SpamCop. For one thing, it does so more efficiently and accurately than I could do myself, and for another it does something truly useful with my reports -- it collects this information and adds it to the SpamCop Blocking List, which others can use to reject or detain spam sent to them. These are "value-added propositions," as the economists say, and I for one don't mind paying a modest stipend to get this value. Many people have tried to make a fast buck out of the demand for anti-spam measures, but SpamCop has been around for awhile and has a track record to show for it.

I can't say that SpamCop has stopped people from sending me spam -- this would take a degree of personal influence (on the spammers) that even international law enforcement has been unable to exercise. However, SpamCop very efficiently isolates the spam and keeps it out of my computer's inbox; it also makes it easy to report.

Pity the initial blurb does not make it plain that opening spam emails right up to pass on the details will submit me to further web bugs etc.
spam is a pretty complex phenomenon; trying to stuff all of the possible information that a user might need into a "initial blurb" would be a tall order indeed. That said, there is searchable information in the SpamCop Wiki (for instance, at http://forum.spamcop.net/scwik/WebBug) that describes the web-bug issue; you will also find other information about many other spam-related topics there.

-- rick

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Pity the initial blurb does not make it plain that opening spam emails right up to pass on the details will submit me to further web bugs etc.
It is true if you are not protecting yourself agents malware you should not open any spam. However, if you take that advice, the advice given to the naive public at large, how would you combat spam?

This spamcop thing reminds me strongly of politicians, costs you more and more money on the strength of helping the populace whilst actually becoming a money source for the politicians chums. (hawk, spit)
If that is the way you feel about 'this spamcop thing,' than I don't think you will be involved much longer, and this is all academic. On the other hand, if you (as I do) feel it is OK to help maintain the intra-structure necessary to handle and process the number of reports necessary to broadly appose spam, what would you suggest? In any exchange the money ends up somewhere. The question is do you feel you receive enough return for your money to make it a worthwhile investment for you? If not thanks for your help, hope you find another avenue to support the effort agents spam that is more to you liking.

...do you ever see any female gender specific spam. eg medications/pills for female ailments like thrush/pregnancy etc or is it all the same old same old male sexist pig nonsense from the male dominated computing industry?
rick is correct. I too have received spam for breast enhancement, etc. Given my beliefs, I find the "Christian dating" or "Christian loans" spam particularly interesting and pointless. No one ever said spammers were smart. But going back to your comparison to politicians, if you were spewing with an un-targeted list, who would you try to sale to? Sexist or not, cynical or not, what is the largest demographic on the web? Who would you try to con?

When politicians put adds on TV (an un targeted list) they also go after the largest demographic that they think will take the bate. = OK the analogy is not great but I hope you get my point.

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<snip>

If that is the way you feel about 'this spamcop thing,' than I don't think you will be involved much longer, and this is all academic. On the other hand, if you (as I do) feel it is OK to help maintain the intra-structure necessary to handle and process the number of reports necessary to broadly appose spam, what would you suggest? In any exchange the money ends up somewhere. The question is do you feel you receive enough return for your money to make it a worthwhile investment for you? If not thanks for your help, hope you find another avenue to support the effort agents spam that is more to you liking.

<snip>

...Or simply use the free spam reporting capabilities of SpamCop.
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I am absolutely flabbergasted.

A couple of days ago all the spam stopped coming. I was just starting to wonder what had happened when I got an email from Easynet (an ISP).

On Sun, Feb 03, 2008 at 05:33:49PM +0000, Peter wrote:

> [ SpamCop V647 ]

> This message is brief for your comfort. Please use links below for details.

>

> Email from 87.80.178.153 / Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:33:49 +0000

> http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?i=z2812206132z0...3ae7b9ab0f29c1z

> /snip/

Hi

Thank you for your report concerning this Unsolicited Bulk Email

incident.

The account concerned has been identified and suspended under the terms

of our Acceptable Use Policy, which may be viewed at:

http://www.easynet.com/gb/en/legal/aup.aspx?mode=legal

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this incident may

have caused.

(Signed)

I'm very grateful to you all for your help, and naturally I shall continue to support Spamcop in the future.

Here is a situation where a good result was obtained quite quickly by the work of Spamcop.

I think this set of messages should be linked (somehow) to the Spamcop FAQ "Why did my spam load increase after I started Reporting?" which I was originally recommended to read by 'turetzsr'.

It's been at least a couple of years now of a steady drip drip of filth every day, now I'm continually checking to see if my connection is broken!!!

I just hope that nasty person doesn't start up again...

:D:D:D

Thanks everyone, nice to have met you.

P.

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