[SpamCop-List] Re: SC still can't parse these links, needs updated

[Mike Easter]

Bob Itguy wrote:
> And in any event my message was for someone that works at SpamCop in
> hopes that they would note the error that SC was having with these
> types of emails and hopefully fix it so that SC can become better at
> what it does, parse spam...

Well, that's the reason I say and do some of the things I do
'forgery-wise' -- so that if the powers are lurking and they/he feels
like tweaking something, some of the discovery of the mechanism for the
problem process has already been done or 'fingered'.

But, some 'errors' of html or urls which a browser or even a GET console
tolerates 'shouldn't' be fixed in the parser.

'We' get me in trouble if I'm trying to be helpful for diagnosing and
'forging' experimentally and talking about the effect of those changes
and then someone actually does the material change to the spam and
reports with it.

As a separate but slightly related issue...

Of course, there's also the officially sanctioned derivatives of
derivatives of derivatives of a spambody -- in which some kind of html
of a spam is converted into a MAPI derivation of that html for storage
and to fulfill Outlook's function as a mail client for Office's MAPI
driven application suite.  Then, an OL user wants to play like OL is a
spamreporting tool, so it asks OL to provide the message source.  Oops.
The source which is no longer available in its original form.

So, OL manufactures or recreates an html derivation of the MAPI spambody
store for the 2nd derivative or derivative of the derivative.  Then the
OL reporter feeds that derived derivation into the bottom half of the SC
parser which was designed to 'digest' OL and Eudora spambody
submissions, and then the parser makes yet another derivation or hack of
the doubly derived html.

But, those changes of changed changes have been built in and approved -
by design.

'Freestyle' user changes to help SC find something it wouldn't find are
not approved.

Unhappy admins of various hat colors are receiving these spamcop
reports, and fostering the perception that SC allows its users to just
manufacture their own spam links doesn't go over very well for spamcop's
reputation.

-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin