Comments on: Spam reported from our mail server

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:28:02 +0000

Nope, you’re right. It’s not Spamcop that’s to blame… Thank for the interest!

By: Porpoise

Porpoise — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:22:56 +0000

Hi Scott,

Wow! That was a quick response

I accept what you’re saying. I do tend to jump in with both feet when I come across those type of posts (those which appear to be attacking spamcop for blocking their mailserver), as it so easily gives the wrong impression to people who don’t understand the underlying complexities and they end up shooting at spamcop with guns ablazin’.

Cheers,
Steve

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:11:53 +0000

Thanks Porpoise, and I do understand. When I said “…blacklisted my entire domainâ€™s ability to send mail” I should have clarified that by adding “to any mail servers that use Spamcop for their spam control, of which there are many.”

By: Porpoise

Porpoise — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:05:51 +0000

You seem to be under the mistaken illusion that spamcop.net blocks spams.
They don’t. What they do is provide spam-free email subscription accounts and a list of IP addresses which have been reported for sending spam (or have hit spam-traps - which no legitimate email is going to do). They then provide this list for mailserver admins to use as part of their overall anti-spam measures. If a mailserver admin decides to use the list to BLOCK an IP (which is explicitly NOT reccommended by spamcop) that is down to them (their server) NOT spamcop.
In fact, appearing on the spamcop list is a good “early-warning” call, as it makes you aware of a problem early - thereby enabling you to fix it before ending up on all the other lists (which are much harder to get off).
There is a lot of good information on their site to help mailserver admins to correctly configure their servers to operate in the current climate (as opposed to outdated climate that was in existence when some of the (now outdated) RFCs were written.

(Spamcop user - not admin)

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 20:23:13 +0000

You’re absolutely right Jacob. Although at PDXTC we manage about 160 domains, and many are on dedicated IP addresses, the mail server is shared. That’s what creates the problem.

I’ve looked at your website, and I remember we met at the East Portland Chamber meeting.

Doing legitimate email marketing is something I wish everyone would do instead of sending out spam, and OI hope some people checkk out your site at http://www.beprivy.com

By: Jacob Reiff

Jacob Reiff — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 18:26:28 +0000

This also happens in shared webhosting environments, even with dedicated IP addresses, usually since the mail server is a dedicated IP while the WWW is a whole range. One bad apple makes it a pain for everybody else hosted on the same server. If you’re a minor offender, Spamcop releases their block after 24-48 hours in most cases.