Re: Does it work?

Gareth wrote:

> I am new to spamcop.

Good.  Being a spamcop reporter is a more advanced form of good mailbox
management than simply managing your Inbox to prevent spam annoyance -- 
it is actually slightly more trouble than just keeping spam out of the
Inbox and out of your visual range, so it is important that your higher
priorities should be met first.

IMO, your first 'responsibility' is to manage your Inbox conveniently
and your second responsibility is to never aid or profit any spammer,
mainsleaze or otherwise, intentionally or inadvertently.  That is a
passive antispammer responsibility.  The next higher level of
antispammer action is to spamcop report your spam which has already been
diverted from your Inbox by fulfilling the first two responsibilities.

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

That doesn't mean the address of the user+domain was used before.
Spammers put usernames + various domainnames, so choosing a username
which has ever been used by anyone with any domain will get you spam
before you ever expose it.

> 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.

That is to be expected in the current condition of modern spam.  Modern
spam is mostly injected/sourced by abused user IP proxified trojans and
mostly spamvertising bulletproof spamvertisers whose providers do not
intend to terminate the spamvertiser.

> Is this normal?

Yes, as long as you are able to handle your spam conveniently and
non-frustratingly and also report it sufficiently conveniently and as
long as you are not profitting any spammers in the process of handling
your spam.  If you are profitting spammers in any way, I would suggest
that you restructure how you are mail handling and fulfill the
non-profitting role before you begin to report spam.

If you are handling your spam insecurely to report to spamcop, I
recommend that you do not do that.

> Should I persevere or are these spammers just too good
> at avoiding being being blocked?

If the other responsibilities are otherwise met, ideally by having a
proper spamfilter diverting all of your spam to the Junk folder from
which it is reported, and if the submission to spamcop is performed
properly and easily, then there is a benefit to the spamcop reporting.

That reporting will not reduce your spam, but it will contribute to the
SCbl which can help you and others filter your spam more effectively.



-- 
Mike Easter
kibitzer, not SC admin