[SC-Help] Re: Giving them my email

[Mike Easter]

Erin wrote:
> I'm new to this whole thing.

> Is it a very bad idea to put in the
> message "Take my email, emailwhere at spamwasreceived.com, off your
> list!"?

SpamCop sends a report to the provider for the spamsource.  Typically, a
spamsource is an abused proxy;  so that provider has nothing to do with
the actual party who injected the spam via an abused user's insecurity,
except for the provider failing to force the userIP to either get secure
or stop sending mail out its port 25.

SpamCop also sends reports to the provider for the spamvertisers.  Such
providers range in hat color from white to gray to very black.  The
whitehat providers are concerned about and against their clients
spamvertising and may kill the account of a spamvertised site.
Blackhats are 'in cahoots' with the spammer and communicating with pure
blackhats is a little bit like communicating with a spammer, except for
the problem of 'plausible deniability'.  Obviously there is a huge range
of grayhats.

A few spams are 'straightup' -- in which the spamsource = the From = the
spamvertised site.  That is, the spam has a little bit of 'honesty' in
that it is from who it sez it is and it is promoting 'itself'.  For a
variety of reasons, straightup spam usually does a different style of
list management than ordinary common abusive spam.

Another straightup item is the item which the recipient requested, such
as a mailing list;  or a mailing list item which someone else requested
for the recipient;  or a mailing list item being run by someone who
isn't doing a good job of mailing list managment.

A proper mailing list management scheme involves a removal process.  So,
it is clear that using removal methods for something which you asked to
be mailed is appropriate.  Almost all other removal methods do not work
for a variety of reasons, and commonly the removal 'process' is
counterproductive in spam management.

Many spammers interpret removal requests as a sign that the person who
got the mail not only opens their spam and also reads it, but that they
also click on spamcontained links and believe what they read in spam.
That makes the recipient a better target than anyone else on the
spammer's old list.

So, if you provide addy information to a blackhat provider/spammer, you
will have contributed your address in a direction which is
undesirable -- not quite the same as responding to a remove gizmo,
because you gave the address via a spamcop report, but you still gave it
to a blackhat.

SpamCop's deputies do a little tiny bit about responding to reporter's
opinions that this or that is a blackhat, but most of the SC reporting
addresses are algorithmically derived, not by some magical human wisdom
of being able to read hatcolors in databases.

> I actually want to get my email off these lists instead of
> having to block them.

If you ever become a famous anti- which some spammers are 'afraid of',
your addy might make it to an anti- list;  but that won't stop a great
deal of spam, just some.

It is also possible to get removed from some mainsleaze list.
Mainsleaze spam is typically straightup and some mainsleaze would rather
not mail to those who don't want the spam, and spamcop's reports can go
to the mainsleaze provider who will help the mainsleaze listwash you
from their list.  Straightup mainsleaze spam is an insignificant
contribution to the spamload, so it isn't useful to be acting toward
your general spam as if it were straightup mainsleaze.

> Even if one spammer gets knocked offline, my
> email is still on whatever list is floating around out there.

Correct, but there isn't much about SC reporting which is going to knock
any spammers offline -- where 'spammers' is the entity which is actually
cranking out the email by the hundreds of thousands;  not to be confused
in this usage with the spamvertiser.

> Is it
> not a better idea to have my email marked as potentially dangerous if
> you send spam to me?

That's the concept of becoming a famous anti-.  I suppose it is a
feather in an anti-'s cap to be found in a spammer's anti- list, but it
doesn't eliminate spam.

-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin