[SC-Help] Re: image reporting

[Mike Easter]

RandallW wrote:
> Does anyone think the Spamcop parser should be allowed to detect the
> urls of the image references in spam?

Since I think that sometimes 'temporarily' making an issue more complex
can contribute to the 'simplicity' of a solution to a question, I'll
throw in this opinion, which is 'oblique' to the issue...

I also don't think that Remove website links should be reported.  I
realize that the vast majority of them are one and the same as the
spamvertised link, so in that case the issue is moot, because I do
believe in reporting spamvertised links ;-)  but I consider the
reporting of a Remove link which is a separate and different provider to
be 'assuming facts not in evidence'.  I uncheck them on the spamcop
report and don't report them manually.

The idea is that what is wrong is the 'spamming' - that is, the sending
of the spam.  There's no 'rule' against having a website selling
something [except when that breaks some other rule or law].  The reason
we 'justify' notifying the provider for the spamvertised site is because
we 'believe' that the spamvertiser is providing 'spam support'.  That
is, there wouldn't really be any purpose for the spam if the
spamvertiser weren't benefitting from it - so the spamvertiser /must/ be
involved /somehow/.  That also assumes facts not in evidence, but it
isn't really very hard to make the 'leap of faith'.

Weak-kneed rule makers like the US congress seem to believe that
spamming is OK and *require* a remove.  You can see what a paradox you
create if you expect a provider to do something about providing a
facility for a remove, especially if a remove is really doing removes.
And there is such a thing as marketers who market to lists and do
removes from one list and not remove from another list, and various
combinations thereof.

The fact that spammers use Remove sites to harvest addies to spam seems
to contribute to the assumption that a remove site /is/ 'bad' - which
isn't necessarily true, anymore than a graphic site is bad or associated
with spamming.

-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin