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SpamCop To Be Sold To IronPort?
Iphtashu Fitz writes "InfoWorld is reporting that SpamCop is about to be sold to IronPort Systems for an undisclosed amount of money. According to the InfoWorld article, the announcement will be made on Nov. 25, and will include IronPort investing $1 million in SpamCop to keep the service up and running. IronPort apparently makes use of the SpamCop DNS blocklist in their spam filtering products and this move is seen as a way to help support SpamCop and formalize their relationship. IronPort is reported as stating that the SpamCop blocklist data will remain freely available to the public."
Untitled, inspired by Scooby Doo
"GROOBY ROOBY ROOOOOO!!!" exclaimed Scooby, as his powerful 121/2 inches of angry canine lovestick spewed gallon after gallon of semen over Daphne's naked ass and thighs.
"Oh Scooby, that was amazing, as always,' panted Daphne, as the dregs of her 5th consecutive orgasm died away. "But I do wish you would keep your voice down in the future; you know what my Freddy's like, he gets so jealous - I sure he knows there's something between us.'
Fred and Daphne had been 'going steady' for some time now, Fred believing Daphne to be a virgin; however, Daphne had neglected to mention to him the hot lesbian affair she was conducting with Velma (the way she cried 'Jinkies!' upon climax still rang in Daphne's ears) and the fact that she was here in the back of the Mystery Machine every other night, letting Scooby satisfy his animalistic urges upon her.
But she knew she was a slut, and, goddamn it, she liked it. If it had a pulse, or even if it didn't (as had been the case with numerous supernatural entities in the past), hell, then she was game.
Much as she loved Fred for his sturdy sensibility, his all-American good looks, and his impeccable dress-sense, she found him prudish at times. "Not until we're married, Daph!" he would protest, each time she made her amorous advances towards him. Maybe it was his strict Catholic upbringing. Was it any wonder, she often reasoned, that she had to satisfy her cravings elsewhere? If only Fred could understand, if only he could see the fires that burned within her, within her very being, within her moist and welcoming loins...
Well, in the meantime...
"You ready to go again, Scoob?" she purred, winking seductively, and already back on all-fours.
"UR-HUR-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEE!!!" chuckled Scooby, obviously overjoyed at the prospect.
Just as Scooby was getting ready to deftly plunge his gargantuan helmet into Daphne's juicy crevice, Daphne warned: "Please, Scooby, try to keep it down this time - I don't want Freddy to hear..."
"You don't want Freddy to hear what?"
They both looked round. The doors of the Mystery Machine were torn open, and there, his white sweater glinting in the moonlight, stood Fred, the fire of anger burning fiercely behind his eyes. He surveyed the scene before him - the Great Dane, in an obvious state of extreme arousal, hunched over his precious Daphne's naked ass - and he felt decidedly un-Christian thoughts brewing in his mind.
"You don't want Freddy to hear...what???" Fred repeated, with even more bile.
"Freddy!!! I...I...it's not what it seems...we were just...Scooby! Get off! Bad dog!", Daphne stuttered and protested, trying in vain to pin the blame upon Scooby.
"Oh don't start with that shit, you fucking bitch," spat Fred, his face contorted. "I know what you two have been up to. Every night you come out here, I've been watching you through the Mystery Machine's windscreen. You two make me sick".
"But," he continued, "as I watched more of your trysts, I came to realize that...I like sick."
An evil, mischievous grin spread across his lips.
"And now...it's time for your punishment."
Unable to move, unable to breathe, Daphne and Scooby watched transfixed as Fred produced a number of items he had been concealing behind his back; a coat hanger; a 12-inch, jet-black dildo; a length of barbed wire; an extra large tube of KY Jelly; and a curious, shapeless item that neither of them could make out in the gloom.
"RAAAGGYYY!!!! RELLLLP!!!!" cried Scooby in desperation.
"Oh, Shaggy can't hear you," said Fred, advancing on the pair menacingly. "I'm afraid I had to introduce him and Velma to the joys of S&M, followed by violent anal rape, followed by death."
"Freddy? Wha...what's happened to you?" stammered Daphne.
"Oh, nothing much, baby...I just decided to start living," said Fred through clenched teeth. "Unfortunately, the exact opposite can be said for our little friend here..
Hello,
Consulting for several large companies, I'd always done my work on
Windows. Recently however, a top online investment firm asked us to do
some work using Linux. The concept of having access to source code was
very appealing to us, as we'd be able to modify the kernel to meet our
exacting standards which we're unable to do with Microsoft's products.
Although we met several technical challenges along the way
(specifically, Linux's lack of Token Ring support and the fact that we
were unable to defrag its ext2 file system), all in all the process
went smoothly. Everyone was very pleased with Linux, and we were
considering using it for a great deal of future internal projects.
So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that
we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It
was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something
called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license
states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available.
Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money
we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would
now be available at no cost to our competitors.
Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any
products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to
its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.
Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever
use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult
position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with
another solution. Although it was tought to do, there really was no
option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000.
I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive
with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually
guarentee that no business will ever be able to use it. After my
experience with Linux, I won't be recommending it to any of my
associates. I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to
something a little more fair, such as Microsoft's "Shared Source".
Until then its attempts to socialize the software market will insure
it remains only a bit player.
Thank you for your time.
I'm not Seth.
So you want a lot of spam, do ya?
p e= www
http://www.spamcop.net/w3m?action=inprogress&ty
That's Spamcop's list of spam-vertised web sites. All of those sites have submission forms; just put the email address in there and you'll be rockin' and rollin' within a few hours. I got into a 'spam war' with one of my roommates back in college, and with that Spamcop list I was able to render his email account COMPLETELY useless within a couple of hours (If you're reading this, sorry 'bout that Brian... )
Speaking of spam, on a random side note, I've recently started checking all of my email accounts with Shadango.com. Anybody else tried that yet? Shadango allows you to have advanced filtering applied to ALL of your existing accounts (both POP and IMAP). It's frickin' great. So now I don't get any more spam, plus I can check all 5 of my email accounts from one place. They've also got file storage, a calendar, etc. It's money. Check it out.
A full grown stallion's cock, when fully erect, will measure some two to
three feet long. It can be three to six inches thick at the base, to about
two inches thick at the head. Horses are somewhat different from other
animals in the way their cock head works. When a horse is fully erect and
excited and ready to mount, his cock head is somewhat pointed and not as
thick as might be normally observed. This is to facillatate an easier
entry into the mare. After the horse has entered and reaches a climax the
head swells (though it is more spongy then hard) into a fist sized mass as
he ejacultates. It is thought that this serves as a plug to force the
semen deep into the mare rather then allowing it to leak out. A full grown
stallion can ejaculate about one cup ( 8 ounces ) of semen. It will take
quite a few spurts to accomplish this. Each time his tail will raise and
lower in a brief flick. The first few jets are of a thin to average
consistency of cum. The final few jets are of a thick gelatinous
substance... it is thought that this serves to "seal" the mares pussy so
that the semen has time to do it's thing before leaking out. Horse semen
is extremely viscous, if you touch your finger to a pool of it you can draw
a thin string of it five to six feet long! Horse cum has a nice flat taste
to it...not at all bitter like man's cum. You can easily drink cups of it
with no discomfort.
The Mare - how to do it.
Mares can be quite satisfactory for the average well endowed male. If you
are somewhat less developed you might find better pleasure with a pony or
Miniature Horse. These are also better as they are lower to the ground. A
pony you can fuck standing up. A miniature horse on your knees or
squatting depending on the size. A mare will require something to stand on
or "platform shoes"...(IE mini stilts to raise you a foot off the ground)
so that you can reach her pussy.
Fucking any horse will depend on the horse. Some will be ready right
away...some will take coaxing. Pet the animal, talk to it softly, spend
time with it gaining it's trust. If something you are doing upsets it then
don't force it. Talk to it and calm it. If you work slowly you can make
an animal accept anything. It is just a question of helping it overcome
it's fears. All animals fear man if raised in the wild. How any animal
reacts will depend on it's own experiences. If you haved raised the animal
yourself in a loving enviroment, then you should have no problem
associating with it, if it is a strange animal that you have met in the
wild then you will have to go through an extended "courtship" to learn how
to respond to the beast.
MARES - TRAINING YOUR OWN
When the filly reaches weaning age, seperate her from her dam. If you have
limited time to spend then she should be put to pasture. If you have
plenty of time then you should keep her in a stall. Spend time with her
during the day petting and grooming her and allow her some time to run
free. Limit her access to other horses though and see that she spends at
least 8-12 hours a day in the stall. (Start with more free time and as she
approaches her first birthday confine her more...she is now at the right
age and her confinement will have made her so bored that she is amenable to
any new experience so long as it is not unpleasant)Young fillys have no
objection to someone playing with their pussy's. I have walked up on a pen
full of strange fillys at night and they came right up to me and I petted
them and felt up their pussys and they just lifted their tales and seemed
to enjoy it. These fillys didn't even know me but they were young,
inexperienced and bored...also since they were penned they were used to the
presence of people and did not fear me. Most horses in a large pasture
will run when they scent a strange human in their pasture at night.
If you sit on the ground and wait patiently, they will get downwind of you
and s
Politicians are all the same, they promise to build a bridge even when there is no river.
InfoWorld is reporting that SpamCop is about to be sold to IronPort Systems for an undisclosed amount of money...
Hey, I don't know about you, but no price is too small for that great selection of penis enlargement offers they must have at their fingertips.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
What about spamcop's mail service? What will happen to people who pay ~$30/year for zero, and yeah, I mean zero, spam? Accounts sold?
Not only are you a worthless troll, but your trolls are not even slightly funny or believable. Give it up!
I currently have a SpamCop account, it's my primary address (though I also use Spam Gourmet's aliasing service). Does anyone know if I should start looking for a new email address?
Spamcop is one of the blocklists that has been under perpetual attack by spammers. Recently, spammers started a rather major DDoS against spamcop and several other services.
Antispam services that have limited operating resources (such as the now defunct monkeys.com and osirusoft.com) -- while extremely useful services, simply didn't have the means to withstand major attacks. Those two services had to be shut down because the owners could not deal with the onslaught. Spamhaus, and probably now Spamcop will be able to withstand attacks.
Kudos to any company that joins in on the spam fighting effort. Also worth mentioning are the good folks at Easynet, who have been running top-notch anti-abuse DNSBLs that are available to the public.
This goatse troll brought to you by Billy G.
However, I would never use the SpamCop blacklist for completely blocking e-mail - only filtering. Why? Any one "possible spam" message processed through its system lands the server on the blacklist - which means one user that sends out a spam message (or even a message that someone thinks is spam or unwanted) that is then processed as spam through SpamCop puts the mail server onto the blacklist. The server will not be removed for a minimum of 24 hours.
This means that systems that are active against thwarting spammers can still end up on the blacklist for 24 hours (or longer - you can report e-mail for up to 3 days after it was sent).
Will the Deal for an undisclosed amount of money be finalized in the undisclosed location that The Vice President was kept in?
This sounds like a very good thing, IronPort will benifit by being able to tightly integrate SpamCop into hardware and SpamCop will become better due to less downtime due to DDoS attacks
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Tonight's lucky ingredient is... Spam!
hehe... Iron Chef... That's Japanese for 'mod this +1 Wacky!'
Relax, everytime one service/company gets bought by a bigger one, folks flip out. Yes, sometimes larger companies have sinister motives but most of the time it is in the best interests of both companies and the industry. Corporate backing == more money == better products (hopefully)
For all you Bachelor watching faggots like me, if you haven't seen it yet, don't worry, I won't spoil it...
KELLY JO WON
Oops. Sorry.
This comment seems oddly familiar
To my niggas in tha dessert may they get capped quick and not die like little bitches
fuckwad.
I'm even putting karma on the line to say so.
Ugh....I can't believe the couth of some people...
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
http://lists.softwarelibero.it/pipermail/discussio ni/2003-November/008465.html
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 11:33:16 -0800
From: tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG)
Subject: What's up with the GFDL?
To: gnu-prog-discuss@gnu.org
X-Spam-Level:
Richard Stallman is pushing an anti-free license for documentation.
By that, I mean, a license for documentation which, if it were used
for software, would unquestionably be understood as unfree.
There are many negative consequences of this action:
1) The Debian Project, which is committed to free software, cannot
distribute GFDL'd manuals as part of the Debian system. This is
ironic in the extreme, because RMS used to complain that Debian was
too loose about distributing non-free things. Now Debian is too
tight for him.
2) It is not possible to borrow text from a GFDL'd manual and
incorporate it in any free software program whatsoever. This is
not a mere license incompatibility. It's not just that the GFDL is
incompatible with this or that free software license: it's that it
is fundamentally incompatible with *any* free software license
whatsoever. So if you write a new program, and you have no
commitments at all about what license you want to use, saving only
that it be a free license, you cannot include GFDL'd text.
3) The FSF solicited public comment on the GFDL, but this seems to
have been a deceptive enterprise. The goal seems to have been to
garner public support for it, and that simply failed. So the FSF
does not trumpet that little public comment, and has issued no
explanation of why such a widely unpopular documentation license
should be used.
4) RMS has now "dismissed" me as Hurd maintainer because I have
publicly spoken against the GFDL, saying that a GNU maintainer must
support and speak in favor of GNU policies. If this is really
RMS's reason, then it means that he demands the right to control
the speech of every GNU volunteer when it comes to GNU project
policies. He wants not merely to set the direction, but also to
require that each and every one of us publicly support a GNU policy
when asked to.
I do not know what the right response is. I believe perhaps the best
thing to do is to create structures for GNU project volunteers to
express their opinions so that we can even find out what the GNU
project thinks. Heretofore, RMS has been an able spokesman, but when
he disregards the comments of volunteers (even when explicitly
solicited), works against free software, and attempts to control the
speech of GNU volunteers in talking about such issues, something has
gone very wrong.
I suspect that nothing will happen, and the sad result will be that
while free software will continue to thrive, the GNU project will
die. I do not know what would prevent that.
Thomas
Technical Addendum
- ------------------
The incompatibilities of the GFDL with free software are not
controversial. There are two central problems.
First, GFDL'd manuals can contain "invariant sections" which cannot be
changed or removed. This is a restriction on modification which isn't
permitted for free software licenses. Moreover, it is not a trivial
restriction or one that imposes minimal costs. Invariant sections can
be very large, and the pieces of a GFDL'd manual that one wants to
copy might be small. (For example, a description of how to use a
single function, if copied from the Emacs manual, requires the
inclusion of many kilobytes of extraneous text from invariant
sections.) Such restrictions are not allowed in free software
licenses.
Second, there are restrictions on what formats a GFDL'd manual can be
distributed in, which work to prohibit encryption and the like. No
such restriction exists for free software licenses.
Here's the deal.
/. article, but I'm feeling lazy right now).
SpamCop works on fighting spam. They get an investor.
Happy day!
Um...I've read several posts that say IronPorts is a good company, so no worries about current customers being abused - good, so my internal gut feelings about privacy issues are abated.
I haven't used SpamCop personally, so this is only an impression, however I'm a strict hater of blacklists (blocklists?), and that's how SpamCop is being described.
I personally opt for SpamAssassin Milter, although any method of plugging into SA would suit me, simply because it's so highly customizable, open source, and I don't have to worry about a list going down or suddenly blocking everyone, which has NEVER happened recently (would have linked to the appropriate
Now am I that far off? Are there redeeming qualities about SpamCop that I'm overlooking that make this blocklist a good thing? Who controls who's blocked? Is it fair? Is there a human contact when things go awry?
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
if it wasn't for those MEDDLING KIDS!!!
My old Yahoo email account was getting ~50 emails a day. I don't know what UIUC uses, but once I started attending here, and switched to my UIUC email, I don't get any spam, at all. Props to anyone who can bring spam-free living to the masses better.
I wish I could write clever and witty sigs.
Right now, I believe SpamCop is legally just a private list that a small group of people use for their own personal email filtering purposes, and which they just happen to make available to the public. As such, they are all but untouchable in regards to any legal claims or actions. Should the list's purpose change, their untouchability may also change.
Darl, don't you have a company to run or something?
From Ironport's Webpage:
IronPort's Virtual Gateway technology allows a single IronPort to deliver separate campaigns on unique IP addresses. This technology ensures that if one campaign has a problem with less than perfect spam filters at receiving ISPs, it won't impact other campaigns on separate Virtual Gateways. Each IronPort A60 supports up to 256 unique outbound IP addresses.
Doesn't this sound a but like a spamming appliance? Basically it's saying that if one of your IPs gets blacklisted for spamming, that's ok because it will use a different one automatically.
SpamCop publishes a list, but whether it is used for scoring or blocking is completely up to the person receiving the list. For example, you state that you like SpamAssassin - one of the filters that is used by SA to score spam is the SpamCop blacklist. Also keep in mind that publishing this list is only one of the benefits that SpamCop provides. I use the reporting service to report spam (and incidentally, it's these reports that go into the creation of the blacklist.)
Funnily enough, SpamCop recently incorporated SpamAssassin for the pop/webmail service that they provide.
As for getting on and off, there is a deputy you can e-mail (a live human being), in addition to the standard set of webforms etc. SpamCop these days is a very benign service (for the most part). The fact that SpamCop is under almost constant attack by spammers trying to DDOS them, trying to overload their systems with fake accounts, etc. tells me that spammers consider SpamCop to be a major threat.
This is a true story, it is not a troll. My ex-girlfriend had an abortion (with her ex, who was an abusive bastard, but that's another story.) She ended up having an abortion. No matter what, council people against abortion. The consequences are so devistating that they could never ever be outweighed. Just because women might act normal and say it was a good decision doesn't mean that's the reality of the situation...part of the debilitation is this sick state where women can't realize the abortion in its entirity because of how horrible it is, and they try to play along with expectations that it is managable. I've known several other women who've had abortions, and while I was not as close to them as I was to my ex, I am more convinced of the truth of my arguent by their examples. This is not a joke or a troll; I hope that somebody reads this and gets a chance to think about this and realize that abortion is incompatible with innosence and happiness.
Is it just me or everytime I see something like the parent post on /. I immediately think "Astroturf" and ignore the hell out of it?
;)
:wq!
Eh, mabbie i'm just too damned cynical for my own good. Glad to see i'm in good company, however
No offense to the parent poster. Just too many years to Microsoft and SCOisms.
Spamcop is a list, not a blocklist, a blacklist, whether you block or tag using this list is your choice, not Spamcops. I personally have Spamcop set in my procmail filter to tag messages from Spamcop listed IPs I'm not crazy about blocking emails using anyone's list.
Yes there are live people behind Spamcop, I've interacted with a deputy on a few occasions after either erroneous reporting or joe jobs against customers.
Spamcop is a very handy service and very low key when it comes to getting listed and removed from the list.
--- www.f-theocean.com
They have funded the continued development of Python with continuations, called Stackless, by hiring the original author part-time.
As for the taking over of Spamcop I do not really know, money is really good, corporate bozo's making strange decisions after they made something their own can be bad. But for as far the other posts go; no real problem there either.
a il'
As for Black/Block lists I do not really know why everyone makes such a fuss about the block lists.
I need to elaborate a bit so bear with me.
A block list is just a specially configured DNS that returns special addresses for servers that chipped in their bit for spam. (Nothing wrong with this)
A blocker is a piece of software on the receiving end that is configured by the local administrator to ignore any server that is listed in one of these Black/Block lists. (Something fishy here)
So why do all the Block/Blacklist servers get so much flaming, aim at the misguided administrators that configure their mail server to unscrupulously block mail from every 'might-be-spammer-because-it-send-one-offending-m
You already use SpamAssasin and for as far as I know you can put weight on every block/blacklist you use so set it up like 'presumed spammer' = 1 'known spammer' = 2 'confirmed relay' = 2 and let the rest of the mail tell its own story before the mail get discarded.
I see block/blacklists as a traffic light; does everybody stop for a red light? Even if the intersection is clear at 2am?
I hope the messages they send out to ISPs and mail server owners will still be brief, for our comfort...
The email service itself lets you decide which techniques and/or lists you wish to use to filter your mail: Spam Assassin scores, Blacklists (you can even use Spamcop's email service but not their own blacklist), or simply by country.
Ok... So Ironport has 2 main product lines. One for accepting inbound email for multi-site redundant messaging infrastuctures, the other for blasting out huge volumes of mail for marketing campaigns (ahem, SPAM).
I did some research on these guys awhile back mainly for their inbound smtp gateway stuff, for a multi-site forwarding mess I'm currently trying to straighten out.
Now about 3 months ago they announced that they were going to do a deal with brightmail for spam filtering on their inbound mail gateway line (and so did symantec for their mail filtering/av/anti-spam/app firewall appliance) and now they're investing/buying spamcop.
Am I the only one seeing these guys play both sides of the fence? I mean, they've got one division dedicated to optimizing the throughput of their hardware to deliver the maximum spam/sec, while the other group is activly working away setting up spam filtering and blacklisting mail (which quite a bit of probably originated from hardware they made!).
Is it just me or is this kind of odd?
why not?
I'm not holding my breath. This all reminds me of another service which would have been squat without the community supplying massive amounts of data for it initially and making it successful.
Yup, CDDB. Purchase it, privatize it, charge certain "strategic partners" for access to data, then eventually block out all free clients and make it totally commercial.
Did Gracenote originally promise to keep it free when they purchased cddb.org?
IronPort is reported as stating that the SpamCop blocklist data will remain freely available to the public.
We just redid our email services and started using Spamcop our first RBL use ever and I'm extremely happy that it's blocking 99% of the mass spammers that have hit us for so long. After seeing the logs I was amazed that we get so much. I'll hold of on donations to spamcop until I know my money will be going towards supporting a free RBL service.
Please notice (above) that I use my spamcop.net addy here at
It's the users that make SC what it is. If IronPort ever goes to the Dark Side, the users will defect and there will be no SC any more ! I trust also that they understand this and that this is a happy day for the SC folks.
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
here's some Webalyzer reports for a "herbal" spammer. Not sure why they would leave a stats directory open to the public but it's nothing earth-shattering anyway...just interesting.
Reports
I'm a very satisfied Spamcop customer and have been for about two years now (my e-mail address in this post's "headers" confirms this, depending on how it's obfuscated).
At any rate, the only disadvantage I see with Spamcop is its lack of an SMTP server -- you'd think that they could have some kind of authenticated-SMTP included in the package, but that's not the case. Instead, you're advised to "use your ISP's SMTP server". That advice works most of the time, but you do run into some ISPs with SMTP servers that auto-block mail not containing the ISP's domain -- and that's exactly what I'm running into.
So, as you might have guessed, I run my own SMTP sever (www.xmailserver.org) off my local box. However, that's not perfect, either. What if I'm connected from a hotel room with Internet access and their firewall blocks outgoing SMTP?
Though that hotel-situation is a theoretical one (I haven't run into it yet), it still concerns me. So, does anyone know of a company that just sells SMTP access? (And you needn't mention smtp.com since $50/year is more than I even pay for Spamcop itself.)
Or, if you're listening out there, Spamcop, I'd be willing to pay a bit extra for SMTP access :).
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
I'm a former direct-mailer (spammer). Yes, Hate me.
.dear lord, will this mean for an extended supscription one would get removed from spamcop?
We had 2 IronPort A60's that we would use to pound mail out like insane pixies who had too much sugar.
With SpamCop being owned by Ironport..
This obviously would mean the dependance on spamcop to be a serious regulatory company, would be an idiotic assumption.
Ironport Sells 2 series of devices The A and the C
the A60 is the flagship of the outgoing mail genre, and the C60 is the flagship for blocking the incoming mail.
In basic sense, they sell the ultimate spam machine, as well as the ultimate anti-spam machine.
They're basically Gun Runners, and fairly evil. They will sell you one product to send huge mail campaings, and another to avoid them, its a damn protection racket.
How is this legal in the us?
Welcome to the End
...I think they should have held out for someone like AOL. Picture this: Aol buys spamcop and integrates it into their network. They go, if you don't use our blacklist by middle of next year, you will no longer be able to send us e-mail. That gives a deadline to all of the jokers that are running open relays to get their software configured up or they will not be able to send mail to AOL or anyone else doing business with AOL. That could be a huge self-regulating spam blocker.
On a side note, I wonder what will happen to the donated mirror servers. If SpamCop gets funding, are they going to still keep using the freebie public mirror servers or are they going to build their own and start paying for colo space? If they are going to build their own and pay for colo space, that will eat in to that $1Mil pretty fast.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
Ironport makes a living selling hardware that is used for spamming. What other reason is there for a piece of hardware that can send a half a million pieces of mail per hour? Take a look at their products for yourself. Bye bye SpamCop. You've just been bought by the enemy.
I personally opt for SpamAssassin Milter
You do realize of course that two of the checks in SpamAssassin are for Spamcop and the Ironport Bonded Sender whitelist?
Now am I that far off? Are there redeeming qualities about SpamCop that I'm overlooking that make this blocklist a good thing? Who controls who's blocked? Is it fair? Is there a human contact when things go awry?
Spamcop blocks nothing. It simply tells you whether an IP address is on the list and provides you with a URL to use to make the final determination yourself. Spamcop itself does not recommend automatically blocking based on SC listing alone. Spamcop is quite trigger happy because it's largely automated (and unfortunately the DNSBL doesn't include things like volume statistics to help automate it -- I suspect that'd be a commercial value-add). If you want a more carefully researched blacklist, I recommend the spamhaus SBL.
The contact process is documented on spamcop's site. Humans do read and act on it. They're generally a lot more reasonable than, say, the folks on usenet you'll have to speak to if you wind up on SPEWS.
I'd be astroturfing if I told you the overall "safe" solution I recommend, so I'll leave it there.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
They provide great service. Very easy to set up and no fuss. They filter all of our mail. Very few false positives. It's cheap too. We route all of our mail to spamcop and they tag what they think is spam and send it back to us. It is easy on our side to move the tagged mail into a "Bulk mail" folder. They developed a very fair way to block spammers IP addresses based on compaints and blind email accounts. The scores "age", so if spam stops coming from a IP address, it is taken off the list. They also use SpamAssassin for content filtering. Between IP and content filtering, they get most of the spam. They are a small outfit and they have had several serious denial of service attacks targeted at them. They would not be attacked if they where not effective. I dont think that they charge enough given the value of the service they provide. If you have a spam problem, you could do a lot worse.
I stopped using Spamcop when they struck a deal to send data to Cyveillance. Is that going to end?
Hey, I don't know about you, but no price is too small for that great selection of penis enlargement offers they must have at their fingertips.
I got one the other day, with a subject line saying "upgrade your wang".
I snorted my coffee through my nose laughing at that one.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
InfoWorld is reporting that SpamCop is about to be sold to IronPort Systems for an undisclosed amount of money...
why do these frickin' tech guys have to CamelBack EveryThing?
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
In a much darker period of my life, I found myself working for Virtumundo.com, a so-called legitimate, 'opt-in' (read: 'failure to opt-out') email marketing company. They were using IronPort boxes to SEND spam because the machines were dedicated and could handle the high load. In fact, Virtumundo even got IronPort to alter some of their software to improve performance...
Now, IronPort is buying SpamCop for use in it's anti-email products. This reminds me of the companies who make both police radar guns and radar detectors...
It's rather ironic that Ironport, which makes spam sending appliances, is now going to be behind the two most wildly inaccurate 'spam came from here' lists.
First, they started with their own 'senderbase.org' misfeature. Senderbase.org lists addresses in unassigned, reserved, and even multicast ranges as having sent dozens, hundreds or more spam messages. Apparently, they blindly pick up IP addresses forged by spammers in Received headers, and declare the forged IP as the spam origin.
Second, they'll now be supporting Spamcop. Spamcop relies upon ignorant reporters, and fails to guide them away from commonly understood errors. Thus there is much non-spam reported as spam to Spamcop. Worse, Spamcop obligingly lists the IPs that were misreported.
All in all, I think it's par for the course for spam sending appliance vendor Ironport to build on their highly inaccurate senderbase.org operation by supporting the only slightly less inaccurate Spamcop. Bravo!
Look at what happened when Hotmail, a service that provides free e-mail accounts, got bought. Microsoft turned it into a pay service and cut down what had been available to free customers. For example, free customers are more strictly limited in how much they can hold in their inboxes and how large of attachments they can send or receive. Others seem to agree that Microsoft ruined Hotmail.
Will I retire or break 10K?
sort of like a racoon winning the bid to protect your hen house
IronPort is not a friend of the average user, they are a friend of the spammer. They make high volume Mail Pumps! They couldn't find enough spammers to sell to, so they are going to the other side of the equation and trying to sell products to enterprises to protect them from IronPort's other products. Talk about making money both ways. This reminds me of back in the 80's when Brian Bosworth was playing for the Seattle Seahawks. You may remember his trademark haircut. There was a very strong backlash to the boistorous asshole. Lots of "I hate Brian" and "We love Brian" tee-shirts in the parking lot being hawked by very aggressive vendors on both sides of the issue. Who did they both work for ? Brian's marketing company!
"Companies must be judged by capability and not intentions, for intentions can change overnight."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Personally, until I have confirmation from the source, I see nothing that warrants getting my knickers into a twist. As of this moment, the purchase plan is nothing but a rumor; kind of like the official release date for Duke Nukem Forever.
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
I thought meaningless acquisitions and corporate mergers died with the dot-com crash...
Yup. It's Ironport's new patented SpamCannon(tm), whose sole possible purpose is to allow the Ralskys and Marins of the world to evade IP-based anti-spam blacklists. Makes you wonder why they bought SpamCop, now, doesn't it?