[SC-Help] Re: Spammers getting smarter?

[Geoff Lane]

"Mike Easter" <MikeE at ster.invalid> wrote in
news:cuaaso$b4m$1 at news.spamcop.net: 

> Most people who are using spamcop are simply reporting that spam, and
> it is a rare spam which needs to be rendered in order to accurately
> report it.  So, you can spamcop report spams without opening them by
> either accessing them by the message properties to paste the item into
> the webparser or by mailing the closed item as an attachment to the
> submit address.  During the examination of the spamcop parse such
> things as innocent bystanders in a spam can almost always be perceived
> in the spams which have never been opened or previewed.

Oh dear ... are you really that sure that you can identify Spampal false
positives without looking? Pray, how do you identify innocent bystanders
in a spam can from the spamcop parse? I strongly suspect that you can't
and I suspect that someone doing exactly as you suggest led to my being
falsely accused of spamming recently. 

If you don't want to open suspected spam, please delete unopened and
*unreported* anything you're reasonably sure is spam. If you're going to
report it, you must be sure that it is spam. This means you should at
least look at the thing in something that won't fetch off-page resources
or execute attachments (such as The Bat!). But please, I implore you,
don't take Mikes advice and report spam without verifying that it is
spam. Someone did recently, which resulted in my ISP issuing unwarranted
threats to close my account, and cost me nearly five-hundred dollars in
lost production. 

-- 
Geoff Lane
Cornwall, UK