Bill [EMAIL PROTECTED] at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 8/13/03 9:15 AM -----
>>>What is SpamCop? >> >> Um... SpamCop is a service to which you can send copies of spam messages, >> there it is parsed, and notices sent to all ISPs through which it passed. >> The hope is that these folks will then take notice and either cut off the >> spammer (the initiating ISP) or close relays which are used (remaining >> ISPs). For better (read: correct and detailed) information Google on >> spamcop (sorry, I don't recall the exact URL) and go there for a look-see. > >here's an anti-SpamCop site: http://jhoward.fastmail.fm/spamcop.html >this sounds like a mess, I'd rather not get into. > >on top of the amount of effort it takes to report Spam through SpamCop >-- it's faster just to set up some rules and then just delete those >messages. > >but if you want to get into the fray: http://spamcop.net is the URL. This may be telling you more than you want to know: SpamCop does two related things: (1) it serves as a kind of clearinghouse for reporting spammers, and distributes that information and (2) it publishes a web service via SOAP that allows mail servers to maintain "blacklists," email servers that generate Spam. The second service is controversial. One of the reasons it is controversial is that SpamCop treats "open relays" - sites that don't authenticate email before passing it along - as spammers. SpamCop does that because, of course, spammers use open relays the disguise where spam is really coming from. Since native Emailer can't properly authenticate without add-on's like Chris's Baton, this hits us where we live. (In fairness to SpamCop, it describes the blacklisting service as "experimental" and recommends against use in production sites. Nonetheless, it is very, very widely used. I use it, in fact, on sites I maintain.) A second reason SpamCop is controversial is that it also decides what is spam and who should be blacklisted by looking at reports it receives from folks who send in purported spam. So if there's an email server you don't like, if you send in a series of messages reporting its stuff as spam, that email server gets blacklisted, without further investigation. SpamCop has aggravated this controversy by being coy - some would say lying - about the rules it uses to determine when to blacklist a server. By the way, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of similar services available. SpamCop is perhaps the best known. Jim DeWitt ------------------------------------------------------------- James D. DeWitt Voice: (907) 452-8986 Icicle Software Fax: (907) 452-7015 PO Box 72750 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fairbanks, Alaska 99707 http://www.iciclesoftware.com ------------------------------------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
