Re: Spamcop missing a LOT of spam lately

Kevin Hurni wrote:
Subject: Spamcop missing a LOT of spam lately
> Usually maybe 1-5 pieces of spam slips through/day.

I'm not posting here as an experienced user of spamcop's mail service,
since I don't use it -- but as an experienced newsgroup participant who
understands how very hard it is to newsgroup communicate.  In order for
it to work best, the words have to be contextually integrated with each
other, like a conversation between us, as this post does.  That requires
trimming and contextualizing.  Top posting is not trimmed or
contextualized and doesn't work right and leads to bad communication.
You should also put important remarks in the body, not just the subject,
because that aids in the contextualizing.

> However, the last week, I'm getting 20-40 pieces of spam that spamcop
> is missing.

Likely you don't have your filters configured optionally.

> And they're ALL very similar subject lines like:
>
> jewelry
> watches
> Home.finance
> long.formula
> home.cash

Characterizing a spam by its subject is not helpful.  My personal
spamfilter which is not spamcop uses IP addresses blocklists, called
dnsbl/s.  It also uses a regex filter on the body, which is similar to
SC's usage of SpamAssassin.

> What's going on with Spamcop?  Did they switch filters?

You configure your SC filters.  There's not much in the faq about that,
but there's quite a bit in the webforum which discusses leaky filters.

The best page is
http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1895

If I were using SC mail, I would configure it like I do my SpamPal,
which is to make heavy usage of the dnsbl blocklists, including
countries.  You can also tighten SA SpamAssassin's scoring system.

> Even after reporting these, I continue to get the same type of emails
> (message bodies are all the same).

Reporting a spamsubject doesn't do anything to prevent a future
occurrence of that subject.  SC reporting reports spamsources and
contributes them to the SCbl.

-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin