Great article on fighting spam for your server

[bturner]

Most of the fixes suggested here will work on your FQ site.

http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/08/champeon/

If you don't already subscribe to this swell magazine (Web Techniques), I suggest doing so. Plus, it's a free sub if you qualify:

http://as400.halldata.com/cgi-bin/subscribe/wb?pk=MWT99

Bill

[janderk]

Originally posted by bturner:
Most of the fixes suggested here will work on your FQ site. While mod rewrites will block some email harvesting tools, it will by no means be a real solution. More and more of these tools just masquerade themselves as Internet Explorer.

Spamcop is still my friend and seems a very efficient way to get of spammers email lists. Takes a few minutes each day, but I have a personal honor to kill accounts as soon as possible.

Now the only thing I want is a shortcut key to select the source of a selected email directly. At this moment the fastest way I know to do this in Internet Explorer is:

Ctrl + F3 (Open email source window)
Ctrl + A (Select All)
Ctrl + C (Copy)
Alt + F4 or use mouse (Close email source window)

Jan Derk

[BOF]

I'm not convinced of the value of Spamcop. On many occasions I have reported multiple instances of the same Spam but still they keep coming.

[janderk]

Originally posted by BOF:
I'm not convinced of the value of Spamcop. On many occasions I have reported multiple instances of the same Spam but still they keep coming. I agree it's not a perfect solution, but it is the best I can find. Spam fighting is probably a combination of all methods mentioned.

The worst spam comes from China, as there seem to be many webmasters over there not being worried by spam at all. I'm very close to filtering out several major chinese domains on the server. Spamcop is most effective when used against spam coming from a western world server.

JD

[Maynard]

Another intriguing scheme for qmail systems is Tagged Message Delivery Agent
historically at http://tmda.sourceforge.net/ but not responding well at this moment.

I've been using a mailto of the form
<a href="mailto:%20%6D%61%69%6C%74%6F%2E%6C%69%6E%6B( mailto )%40%73%70%61%6D%66%72%65%65%2E%6D%65%6E%74%61%62%6F%6C%69%73%6D( link )%2E%6F%72%67">Email to me</a>
which is intended to work in browsers but not legible for harvest bots.
Note the leading %20 and the spaces within parens; parens are before the @ [%40] and before the '.tld' [%2E]

If the mailto address does become abused, dump it for another one [i.e. mailto.link.2@]. Nobody should suffer.

With mail forms into which you've hardcoded the recipient so that it cannot be forged,
if some spambot starts pounding the thing, you'll get a gazillion goops which the spammer though were going all over kingdom come.

-Maynard

[Bob]

Hi everyone :)

This ZDNet article contains information and download links for three, FREE (still my favorite word), spam filtering programs. One of which is advertised as having the ability to check up to 12 different email boxes.

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2789383,00.html

Two of them come with preset (but configurable) filters and one with a database of over 15,000 known spammers. Which they claim you have the ability to modify the list and/or add addresses yourself.

Of course one specifically mentions that it won't work with AOL, go figure, the largest ISP in the world which claims to be so intolerant of SPAM. Right???

Hope someone finds this useful.

Have a Good One,
Bob

- SPAM if we're not busy deleting it we're busy talking about it :P -

[BOF]

Thanks, Bob. That could be a useful alternative to SpamCop.

[zmax]

With mail forms into which you've hardcoded the recipient so that it cannot be forged,
if some spambot starts pounding the thing, you'll get a gazillion goops which the spammer though were going all over kingdom come.
I posted my personal solution to this problem in another topic here.

(later edit)
Oh nevermind I think I misunderstood what you were saying.
Im not sure if my solution prevents a spam bot from spamming me
a bazillion times. but it should stop them from sending it to other addresses. It would probably take more coding to prevent them from
pounding the thing. Or maybe not as Maynard did a short test on it and seemed to think it was ok, not poundable, not redirectable to others. . . ??

David

[frankc]

Chris, SpamCop digs into the headers of the emails you give 'em to find out the root domain that was used to send the spam. Then it allows you to sends a notice to admins at the email host, possibly the admin of the IP block, and perhaps admins at the domains mentioned in the email. They have no control over spam, per se--they're just a reporting tool. From that point on it's the responsibility of the admins to fix the problem if they're so inclined.

With new software installed about 3 months ago at SpamCop, I've opted to not see all the messages back from the admins (99% were from 'bots) but I know I've helped get a number of 'em kicked off past and present. AND you can use your @spamcop.net email address (if you become a paying member) to filter inbound emails as well as have it retrieve emails from your FQ accounts and filter 'em.

That said, there seem to be a number of domain owners/hosts that just don't seem to take any action. :confused: The other side is that if spam didn't work, it'd die on the vine, so *someone* buys stuff/services from spammers.

Frank
==SpamCop -- another tool in my holster==

[BOF]

I take your points, Frank. I appreciate that SpamCop themselves can't control spam - I was just querying whether it's really worth the effort of submitting reports if the e-mail hosts take no action.

I have a SpamCop account but I confess that I haven't set up filters, etc. Maybe, to be fair, I should delve deeper into the facilities they offer. I think we are all resigned to the fact, though, that spam can never be stopped.

My pet hate is the spam which states that the irresistable offer concerned is available only in the USA! If that's the case why send it to me? :*

[Maynard]

Actually, SpamCop can filter you inbound mails;
and can optionally POP from your other boxes in order to send it through SC filters.
I don't use this personally, but I'm certain that it is available.

-Maynard

[zmax]

Can we clarify which spamcop is the one you are all talking about?! :confused:

I go to www.spamcop.com and all I see are a bunch of links.
Nothing like you are talking about.

I go to spamcop.net and that looks more like what you are talking about. Is that it?

Thanks.

David

[Maynard]

We're talking about SpamCop.NET
the other one (.com) is considered to be spammers