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Or more likely, you've seem forged email that isn't really from SpamCop

I just recieved from SPAMCOP.NET what I suspect might be 'SHAKEDOWN Email.'

No, what you got was essentially a test of your sysadmin skills, and you failed. A quick check of the headers will show that it did not, in fact, come from SpamCop. This was covered long ago, but see this page to get up to speed.

Not sure if this is of interest at all or just an coincidence but there is a new player in the popup war called AntiAdBlocker.

Whats interesting to note that these AntiAdBlocker people are also hosted on the CAIS.net network. This is the same network from where the forged SpamCop emails are originating.

belgin and timothy are not alone in the fear of where this might lead, that's for sure... I hate spammers with a passion, but I'm not sure if I really want to start down the road this could take.

Anyway, I much perfer Julian's philosophy over at spamcop.net: "Protecting the internet community through technology, not legislation." If you're sick of spam and want a way to slap those responsible, then join up (or don't, there is a free service as well) and parse all your spamage. But please read the intro and the FAQ, we need to preserve the image that spamcop has in the minds of the abuse desks; it's only a tool being put in your hands, YOU are responsible for what you use it for.

and besides, an address like cabbey@spamcop.net, is bound to make a would be spammer queasy.... (note: happy spamcop user, not an admin.)

Just take a look at the web pages designed by the "WYSIWYG editors are a crock for the ignorant!" crowd. Just for kicks, I took at the web pages of the people holding that attitude in this thread, and the most striking thing about all of them is how absolutely ugly and/or simplistic (read: uninteresting) they are -- usually just a bunch of links in a list, with a smattering of images. Wheeee! It's as if they're existing in a time warp from way back in the first year of the web, so I can understand them thinking that a text editor is the be-all-end-all in HTML design. One thing that is clear is that if any of these people's jobs depended on making quality web pages, they'd be out on the street begging for spare change. Hey, don't believe me? Just follow the links for yourself and see. The people coming out against WYSIWYG editors, who also had links to their own web pages:

• Masem (http://pinky.wtower.com/mneylon/)
• quadra (http://quadra.demosoft.org/)
• jawsh (http://jcs.superblock.net/)
• doobie (http://www.doobie.org/)
• Azul (http://bachue.com/alejo/)
• Scott (http://www.gothic.net/~raindog/process/of/disasse mbly/)
• TypoDaemon (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/8955/)
• Haight6716 (http://www.julianhaight.com/)
• Mark Hughes (http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/) Okay, so this one's from yesterday's discussion on live updates of web pages, but after reading his quote, "We should be trying to *RAISE* the level-of-entry training needed to make a web page, not *LOWER* it," and then seeing his web site, I just couldn't resist. :-)

In other words, for those of you complaining that WYSIWYG HTML editors are for unsophisticated dummies, I can only look at your own web pages and wonder just what your idea of sophistication is. If I had seen even one of you using some interesting HTML techniques, you might have a better chance of persuading me. Fact is, anybody can make ugly web pages, whether they're using vi or DreamWeaver, but most (not all) of the better-looking and interesting sites that I see out there are using tools other than just text editors. Most importantly, if you're going to come out and bash people for using WYSIWYG editors, you might wanna check your own sites first.

Me? FrontPage 2000 and DreamWeaver 2, using UltraEdit and vi for quick-and-dirty changes.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Put this in your .xinitrc:

xloadimage -onroot -fullscreen -border black /tmp/astro.jpg -display localhost:0

And run this daily in a cron, and you'll get the The Astronomy Picture of the Day everyday as your background automatically.

Fun with perl!

-=Julian=-

Oracle DBAs make more money...

Market studies show that the top-paying job in the I.S. market is the DBA.

And what OS do DBAs choose 10:1? *nix. Could be linux, could be Sun, could be DEC. It dosn't really matter unless you try to make 'em use Windoze (or SCO haha). Then they revolt.

So here's another way to slice it - who actually makes more money? Not in terms of your take-home pay, but how much profit you actually produce for your company/organization/self? I think the NT admin, like NT, is way overvalued in the market today. They sit around and drink coffee all day, one hand on the reset button, the other on their beeper. Once in a while they get a day of steady work re-installing everything on the system. Then they drive their porshe home, laughing all the way - kind of like Bill himself. As Windows dies, we will see the death of the inflated windows job market too. Programmers too! "But I know everything about the windows message loop and thunking!" - "Have you ever used Java? Perl? No? Thanks, we'll let you know."

Fun ride while it lasts, but now you're unemployed just like all those Novell graduates from a few years back. I feel sorry for these guys too - just getting on the NT boat now only to be dumped overboard as the thing sinks like a seive.

I have a client now asking me to run their Oracle DB under windose. I won't do it. I keep telling 'em to get *nix.

-=Julian=-

-=Julian=-

Good idea on the extra header fields. Anyone know if there is a defined namespace I should be careful of - like mime or whatever? I guess just start with an X and I should be OK.

The thing about the 'extraneous' information though, I think this is important.

First of all, I like to put the ID in the subject, because I automatically filter all incomming replies and sort them by complaint - and the subject line is sometimes the only thing left of the complaint when I get back a response - then you can tell if 'your' complaint has been answsered without giving away your REAL address. I also CONCEAL your address in the outgoing complaint.

Secondly, although many complaints fall on the jaded ears of experienced complaint-desk jockeys, I find that many of my complaints are sent to clueless lusers. I don't want them to confuse my complaint for a stupid spam. I also give the tracking URL to these guys so they can see WHY I decided to complain to them.

Besides, my boilerplate gives 'em the info they need right up front - IP and datestamp. Eventually, I hope ISPs will come to trust spamcop more than reading headers themselves - at least for day-to-day stuff.

-=Julian=-

p.s. The url again! Bookmark it!

My program, SpamCop does a much better job of reporting spam. It has a web interface and an email interface, and by using the web interface, you can see what it's doing ahead of time. It dosn't have any of the problems listed above, and it is well loved by users and system admins alike. It's fast, accurate and it dosn't spam unrelated parties. It dosn't even complain to relay admins - although that might be added as an option later.