Re: Does it work?

On 04 May 2006, - Gareth entered spamcop and left
news:[email protected]: 

> I am new to spamcop. I recently opened an email account with my ISP 
> which has obviously been used before and receives around 10 spams per
> day.

It is more likely from a dictionary attack, this is when they use a list of 
names in order to "guess" eMail addresses. Also. posting your address 
anywhere, especially newsgroups and message boards, will get you spam.

> I have been reporting all the spam for nearly a month now but
> have not noticed any change in the volume of spam I receive.
> Is this normal? Should I persevere or are these spammers just too good
> at avoiding being being blocked?
> 

It depends, I can say with some certainty that reporting will NOT increase 
the amount you receive. However if you open even one message, and that 
message loads an image or any link to another site (which may indicate to 
the spammer that your account is active), you will definately see an 
increase in spam.

There are things the ISP can do to reduce dictionary attacks, and if they 
do nothing, then you could see an increase. "Gazza" doesn't seem like it 
would be an easy guess, but I don't know it could be common in some other 
language, but my point would be that "mixing it up" would reduce the chance 
of it getting a hit.

And then, the more you use an address, the greater the odds of getting 
spam. I have addresses that I never use, so I know they can get spam even 
if not used. Several are used only for newsletters and some only for 
mailing lists of which at least one gets the occasional spam. Some 
addresses go through block lists (and other anti-spam methods), and some 
only get tagged. So I can say with some certainty that reporting probably 
does help, but so far as I've seen, no method is anywhere near 100% 
effective. 

-- 
| Ric
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