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Automate Spamcop Submissions
hausmasta writes "Spamcop is pretty much dependent on user input. If no one submits and verifies spam, then they will have no blacklist. However that whole submission and verification process is a bit annoying. Why should I bother to actually submit spam to Spamcop and have it verified? If I just delete it, that will take less time.. This tutorial shows how to automate the Spam Cop submission and verification process. All I do is just put the spam into certain folders and our good old friend cron does the rest."
I guess this will make it much faster to build black lists. But doesn't this also increase the potential risk of submitting wrong messages?
... you might want to reconsider using any of them. Lots of companies that have nothing to do with spam have been targetted due to proximity in IP space, or using a provider the RBL maintainer hates.
RBLs are a waste of time, they give immense power to a few individuals and groups, more often with an axe to grind. Do you really want to do that? Rhetorical question, you don't.
I have spamcop checking turned off. Maybe because the service is tuned to north american audiences, I don't know, but its recommendations seem completely arbitrary and frequently mistakenly marks genuine email for me. With two emails (from a legitimate source) one can be marked OK, the other one not.
By contrast, local filtering generally works excellenty. When I finally turned off all on-line checking, I have a perceptible bump in the quality of filtering.
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they constantly list and relist one mf my servers because it bounces mail back to them. well, it is not a bounceback. it is an auto reply to a mailing list submission that customers actually use.
measuring the mail we get from non-customers, the amount of mail that is not valid that gets a reply is negligible.
yet, spamcop decides that ALL auto replies are spam.
the only explanation I can come to is that most of that mail is from their super secret spam finding system.
wrong.
Step 1. You submit the spam to Spamcop.
Step 2. Spamcop parses it and notifies you that it's ready for your to inspect
Step 3. You inspect the spam to verify that it is spam and no innocents are being sent reports.
Automating step 1 isn't the problem; automating step 3 is. He's using PHP to fake a form submit to automate step 3, and that will hurt SpamCop.
The more widely known your email address becomes, the greater the chance that some zombie or virus will see it in someone's address book and send spam pretending to come from you. Spamcop will generally believe that you sent the spam, as far as I can tell.
They routinely list w3.org (W3C) as a source of spam for this (incorrect) reason.
Spamcop says you should not use their results as authoratative, but only as one factor to consider, but in practice a number of large companies blacklist anyone listed by spamcop automatically.
If you are going to automate submissions to spamcop, please at least use SPF to verify that the sender was in fact associated with that domain, where SPF records are available.
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Unless you're talking about consumer level ISPs, there are going to be more than two options for your exit traffic. If there aren't, you can buy the right to relay via a non-pink server.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Fuck you you little shit sucking worm. You and your "business" is the reason that SpamCop and others are necessary. And every single shit for brains like you will always start their posts "I don't send spam".
Yes you do. And I have to spend time finding ways to stop you from filling up my end users' mailboxes with your spam.So
Sure they do.Here's a free clue. I don't give a rat's ass how fucking hard I make your job.
Company A = you
Company B = your client
Company C = evil competitor
You were talking about working at an "EMail marketing company"
Right
So
Otherwise, you're taking email addresses from a blacklisted company and sending "not spam" ads to them.
And you expect me to believe that or have sympathy for you?
Hahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha
I'm pretty sure this would be impossible if you used a double opt-in subscription system.
Plus, since they use secret spam traps, then your competitors couldn't sign them up unless somehow they knew what the spam trap addresses are. And if they did know the secret spam trap addresses, they'd probably be making money off selling the addresses to spammers so the spammers could clean their lists. They probably wouldn't worry too much about thwarting your spamming -- I mean marketing -- business.
It's clear you haven't realized that some email marketing companies are hired by people other than sleazeballs, for reasons other than distributing unsolicited ads. I belong to at least a couple of non-profit organizations that don't run their own mail servers. These organizations use third-party mailers to contact me with news and action requests related to certain political issues. And these organizations have enemies.
...
Do you morons ever stop to think about your role in a chain of events like the following?
1) An RIAA lobbyist writes some legislative atrocity and pays off a bunch of US congressmen to introduce it as a bill
2) The EFF catches wind of it, and uses an email marketing campaign targeted at its members who have asked to participate in such campaigns to ask its members to protest the RIAA-authored bill
3) The RIAA lobbyist, who has cleverly subscribed to the EFF's mailing list, reports the email to SpamCop
4)
5) Profit! (For the RIAA)
The same thing happens with AOL, where the users themselves don't have the cerebral capacity to remember which mass-mail lists they've opted into. SpamCop, by not maintaining a whitelist that allows them to ignore spurious or dishonest spam reports, is serving the interests of worse people than spammers.
But I guess you didn't think of that before you flamed the grandparent to a crispy golden brown, huh.
Not all email marketing is spam. I get regular emails from a mail order company, advertising their wares. I get them because I asked for them, and occasionally buy something. That's not spam. Spam is unsolicicted commercial email.
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There is no way to signup a spamtrap address to a mailing list if you use confirmed opt-in.
And if you don't, you are a spammer.
So either you're a spammer, or you're lying. Which is it?
My favorite is the emails they send (or at least used to send) to the upstream provider. Roughly translated "So, since we're obviously perfect and have them dead to rights, will you terminate them and roast their testicles over a bonfire or are you a dirty stinking whore?" Notably absent in the multiple choice was 'this is such an obvious joe job my grandma could catch it", "moron who reported this signed up for and confirmed membership in the mailing list", and of course "we're his hosting provider and the email was his monthly invoice!".
The best bet is still Spamassassin or similar where no single RBL is enough to reject the mail.