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Memo to Users: SpamCop Winding Down Webmail Service
LuserOnFire (175383) writes with word that on Saturday SpamCop users received an email that says in part: "For over 12 years, Corporate Email Services has been partnering with SpamCop to provide webmail service with spam filtering via the SpamCop Email System for our users. Back then, spam filtering was rare. We heard story after story about how our service rescued people from unfiltered email. Nowadays, webmail service with spam filtering has become the norm in the general public. As such, the need for the webmail service with SpamCop filtered email has decreased. Due to these reasons, we have decided to retire the SpamCop Email System and its webmail service; while SpamCop will continue to focus on providing the World's best spam reporting platform and blacklist for the community. As of September 30, 2014 (Tuesday) 6pm ET, the current SpamCop Email service will be converted to email forwarding-only with spam filtered by SpamCop for all existing SpamCop Email users."
I've been using their paid email service for years and they cancel it three months after I paid for my next year of service. I'm owed a refund, IMO, for only three months of that service. I still haven't heard back yet...
In english, this means "Spammers make a lovely crunchy sound when you step on them. Just like tribbles."
Great for you and all 6 people you communicate with. In the real world, that doesn't work, you know for those of us who have to communicate with all sorts of random people who aren't computer dorks. I use the term specifically because you're acting like a computer dork rather than a geek.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
And the useful alternative is?
Twitter because you can't be bothered to complete a thought so you think 140 characters is enough?
Facebook or G+ because you think everything should be public?
Random message boards/forums scattered all over the Internet with no central repository because you like using an infinite number of services to accomplish what we solved 35 years ago with one?
Or is it just that you're such a douche that no one communicates with you, so you truly have no need for it?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
It's a shame to see the service go, but I can't say I'm surprised.
When it was introduced the SpamCop email service was cutting edge for its time, offering extremely reliable spam filtering at a time when most other email services were capable of no more than a token effort. With the ability to utilize RBLs and even select which RBLs to use, and later features like greylisting, it was far more effective of a server side solution than anything else. Heck, some spammers wouldn't even hit spamcop addresses due to the fact that it just increased their odds of being quickly reported and added to the SpamCop RBL.
However it's generally outgrown its usefulness, which is reflected in the fact that the service has so few users and now is shutting down. Most email services are utilizing RBLs these days in some form - if only through SpamAssassin - and the largest services such as Google and Hotmail see so much email that they are second-to-none in their ability to identify spam based on heuristics alone. This means the SpamCop email service no longer has the large advantage in spam prevention it once held, and in some ways it may as well be worse since it can't rival Google's heuristics.
Plus the service has generally grown stale. The Horde webmail interface is functional, but badly out of date and lacking the functionality of Google & co's webmail interfaces. And the service itself has grown into disrepair; there have been repeated hardware failures and CESmail (the company that actually provides the service) has been slow in repairing them and responding to user support tickets.
Anyhow, the SpamCop email service lived a good life, but as is the case for many Internet services it has failed to adapt with the times and is now justifiably on its deathbed. The good news is that the SpamCop RBL itself is unaffected (it has been owned and operated by Cisco for several years now), so naming confusion aside the all-important RBL will continue offering spam protection for users world-wide.
They need to stop encouraging filtering. Filtering email will never resolve the spam epidemic. Filtering only encourages spammers to craft ever-more-obfuscated spam to drive down the signal-to-noise ratio and improve the chances of their spam getting through.
Spamcop and others, if they actually want to perform a valuable service, need to put their profits elsewhere. Namely, they need to start working on disrupting the flow of money to the spammers themselves. Spam is an economic problem. Treating it otherwise is just stupid. Spammers don't do what they do to piss you off (regardless of how some may feel otherwise), they do it to make money. You also cannot solve the problem by exposing, jailing, or murdering spammers (regardless of whether or not it makes you feel better) as it does not resolve the profit motive.
There are demonstrated avenues where one can disrupt the flow of (often illegal) money. If Spammers don't get paid, they don't send spam.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.