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."

Comments

NO NO NO

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you've missed the point of SpamCop. YOU are still supposed to VERIFY that EVERYTHING you submit is ACTUALLY SPAM. False reports hurt SpamCop and all SpamCop users.

If you want to cut down on Spam, then tighten you filters and reject it at SMTP level. Then anything that still makes it through, submit it to SpamCop. Automating your initial submission is okay, but DO NOT AUTOMATE THE VERIFICATION PROCESS.

Re:NO NO NO

[AaronLawrence]

The point is, that YOU should CHECK the results of spamcop's parsing, to make sure something dumb hasn't happened - like listing your own provider as the spammer.

This can happen outside your control because your email provider has changed configuration and messed up headers.

Spamcop only needs small numbers of properly checked submissions. Piles of submissions don't help - it's not a statistical process like Bayesian filters.

I have spamcop turned off

[JanneM]

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.

Do you think anybody at spamcop cares?

[Russ Nelson]

Do you think anybody at spamcop cares about false positives? If they care, there's no evidence of it. My server was blocked by spamcop this past week. Why? I have no idea, and no way to correct the problem, because when they block you, all they say is "You sent email to one of our secret addresses."

Good Tutorial

[Ythan]

Mechanize::SpamCop is another tool you can use.

spammers avoid spamcop

[0xC2]

I'm a longtime spamcop.net user. I've used it to filter numerous email addresses through its spam filter, which is effective and accurate, and highly configurable. However the allure of GMail prompted me to forward my other addresses to GMail and begin phasing out the spamcop address. Which is when I noticed something interesting:

I don't receive spam to my spamcop.net address! This result is very interesting, mainly because my spamcop address is a "dictionary word" address. I can only conclude that spammers must avoid spamcop.net email.

Which is making me rethink my decision to phase out spamcop.net. Have any other long-time users noticed this with their spamcop.net email?

Ummm, they just TOLD you what happened.

[khasim]

Do you think anybody at spamcop cares about false positives?

Yes, I think they care a lot.

My server was blocked by spamcop this past week.

No, your IP address may have been included on one of the blacklists, but your server was not "blocked".

The person controlling the server that your server was trying to send a message to was using a SpamCop blacklist as a rejection list.

If you want to complain, complain to that person.

Why? I have no idea, and no way to correct the problem, because when they block you, all they say is "You sent email to one of our secret addresses."

The reason to keep those addresses secret is because if the spammers found them, they would not be useful anymore.

If you have a static IP address, the problem is you. Someone with access to your out-bound email is sending spam.

If you have a dynamic IP address, you need to get a static address.

If you cannot get a static address, do not expect your email to always be delivered. You must monitor your logs for the rejection notices and then take whatever actions are necessary to get that site to whitelist your messages.

Don't blame SpamCop for the situation that results in your IP address being reported to them. No one is forced to used SpamCop's blacklists. They choose to use them because they believe they are useful in reducing spam.

Re:Ummm, they just TOLD you what happened.

[Anonymous Coward]

(Posting as AC, but I'm a registered user who posts often)

I work at an EMail marketing company (no, not spam) and we have had our servers placed on blacklists multiple times ... you know why? People who are competetors to our clients signup a spamtrap email to their lists, getting our mailserver blacklisted for sending mail to an address -- even though the mail is a "are you sure you wanna subscribe?" message?

Your casual attitude toward "oh well, shouldn't have sent email to $secretspamtrap" without telling us *what* email or giving us details on how to avoid it in the future (like maybe adding your spamtrap domains to our lists that trigger "oh no, spammer" in our checks), you end up making RBLs more useless, and my job harder.

Re:Ummm, they just TOLD you what happened.

[techno-vampire]

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.

Investment

[Zindagi]

Think of the time spent verifying spam as an investment; use your time now and have far less spam/worries about genuine mail being marked as spam in the future. Not to mention the saved minutes that you can spend browsing slashdot more thoroughly.

Great, I guess this means more of these:

[mobby_6kl]

Technical details of permanent failure:
PERM_FAILURE: SMTP Error (state 9): 550 5.7.0 Your server IP address is in the SpamCop database, bye

No, I don't send spam, and this was bounced back to my gmail address anyway.

I believe Spamcop sold my "private" address

[Radi-0-head]

I was a Spamcop subscriber, using their SMTP forwarding/filtering system. I got fed up with the downtime and the false positives, and canceled the account. A month later, I start getting MASSIVE amounts of spam directed to the "secret" account that is set up for forwarding of "clean" email. Most of these messages had both my true email account and the secret account as recipients.

There's no possible way anyone could have guessed this address (it consisted of random characters), and Spamcop was the only other organization that ever had record of it, and that ever used both of these addresses together.

I don't trust them at all.

Re:I believe Spamcop sold my "private" address

[mmclean]

Amen to the don't trust them at all bit. They are more than happy to provide customer service when you are spending money to establish and account, but once they have your money forget it.

I had an account over a year ago, the real email account with storage and was having a problem with it. I emailed support, no answer. I posted in the Spamcop form and the moderator (the great and powerful Wazoo) decided that I was full of shit and my problem didn't exist. A few days later, I posted different symptoms of the problem in a new thread and the great and powerful Wazoo decided that I was reiterating the same problem (didn't even take time to read and realize that I was posting different symptoms). He then merged the threads -- essentially burying my problem report at the end of a long thread so that no one could read it without clicking through 3-4 pages of the previous post. I posted in the forum actually begging for support -- and was constantly squashed by Wazoo.

When I finally did get an answer from my email to support, the content of that email was essentially "we saw the thread in the forum and Wazoo says it's not a problem."

This was one of the worst, most pathetic customer experiences that I have ever had -- and I had previously thought Spamcop were the "good guys" and directed many different friends, relative, and clients to them -- needless to say I cancelled, a number of my friends cancelled, and they've gotten zero new business from my recommendations.