*resolved* - spamgourmet about to be shut down due to ...

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*resolved* - spamgourmet about to be shut down due to ...

Postby josh » Wed Feb 13, 2013 5:54 am

This is a message to spamcop users who are also spamgourmet users. This applies to very few of you here, but it will impact over 250k spamgourmet users.

Spamgourmet's hosting provider is about to shut us down because of numerous reports by spamcop users of spamgourmet's IP addresses I believe due to improper mailhost configuration. As you may know, when a message goes through spamgourmet, the headers of the originating servers are preserved, then headers are added for spamgourmet, then it comes to you. When you report the message to spamcop, if you include the spamgourmet server along with the originating server in your report, our hosting provider automatically gets a notice from spamcop telling them that we're spammers.

Our IP addresses are 216.75.62.81 and 216.75.62.102 (and have been for years).

This has been a problem for quite a while, but has increased in frequency recently. Initially, and whenever they have personnel turnover, the hosting provider (cari.net) accuses me of being a spammer, which is pretty messed up, but you have to hand it to them for executing on their policy. But more troubling now: they know that the reports are false, and yet they also know the potential consequences for them and their other customers are real, and at a minimum they're having to spend a lot of time on the issue -- so they're saying they're going to shut us down if the reports don't stop. Can you blame them?

If they shut us down, that will pretty much be it for spamgourmet - I don't see myself going through the monumental effort of moving the service (and where? Um, I've got this strange service that pulls email for 6 million addresses and I can't pay you much because it's free, and, oh, you'll be getting a bunch of false spamcop reports...).

Effective immediately, I have no choice but to quickly and quietly disable any spamgourmet account that is the basis for a false spamcop report - it's the only way I can immediately tell the hosting provider that the problem has been resolved (at least for that one reporting user). Trouble is, even this may not be enough because there are a number of you, and I have no way of knowing who you are until you make the report, and very soon there'll be one too many reports.

Josh
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Re: spamgourmet about to be shut down due to spamcop reports

Postby josh » Wed Feb 13, 2013 3:36 pm

crisis averted:

http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.p ... opic=13153

Don at spamcop is going to have reports about sg come to him personally. This puts a burden on him which sucks, but it's much better for us than actually being whitelisted at spamcop, which could cause other problems (among them, it would make our service an attractive target for spammers to try and quietly compromise), and of course it's mountainously better than the probably intractable task of trying to get everyone to report correctly all the time.

But still - fix your mailhosts! You'll be causing headaches for Don now until you do.
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Re: spamgourmet about to be shut down due to spamcop reports

Postby lwc » Wed Feb 13, 2013 4:39 pm

What can the average user do to help avoiding this issue?

Stick to mainstream mail providers? Cut off the Spamgourmet's Received lines in reports? Or not report at all to Spamcop about messages from Spamgourmet?

Speaking of the the former, Gmail recently started flagging my incoming Spamgourmet messages as spam. Having to constantly check my spam folder is a huge pain!
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Re: spamgourmet about to be shut down due to spamcop reports

Postby josh » Wed Feb 13, 2013 6:49 pm

If you don't report to spamcop, there's nothing to do. If you do report to spamcop (which is a good thing, by the way) learn about how to configure your reporting software to exclude the spamgourmet IP addresses. I don't know the spamcop system, but I understand that there's a file or configuration repository called "mailhosts" that lets you do this.

here are details on how to enable mailhosts: http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/lofiver ... t4068.html

I get some spamgourmet messages in my gmail folder, but not all of them. When you're in your spam folder, be sure to remove the spam tag from any false positives - this will help teach the gmail spam function that they're not spam.
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Re: spamgourmet about to be shut down due to spamcop reports

Postby lwc » Thu Feb 14, 2013 11:33 am

I don't report much because thanks to Spamgourmet I almost get no spam...when I do report, I usually remove Spamgourmet Received lines manually.

As for Gmail, I always mark as not spam. But it still happens.
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Re: spamgourmet about to be shut down due to spamcop reports

Postby scottb » Mon Apr 22, 2013 6:32 am

@josh

Josh, my apologies to you as I am sure I was one of the one's to help cause this problem recently. Since I had started using spamgourmet and moving to using it for all my online emails, I have had to report very little to Spamcop; however, in the last 2 months, I had started receiving spam through one of my spamgourmet addresses with a reputable website that I haven't had any problems with up until a couple of months ago. I have attempted to report the problem directly to AOPA as I don't think they would have intentionally given out my address, but maybe somehow they were breached. But I never heard anything back. So I decided to report a few of the emails through SpamCop and apparently didn't pay close enough attention that there was spamgourmet info in it that got reported on. Don at SpamCop had me disabled in due time. After following up with him, I think I got the mailhost configuration figured out for my Spamcop account and Don has enabled my account again. I decided to give up trying to make anything happen on the spam going to my disposable address for AOPA and just let everything else coming in get eaten except from my exclusive sender. If you had disabled my account, it appears it is working again since I was able to get my registration email for this forum through my spamgourmet account. However, I will send you a PM with my account name in case you need it. Again, sorry for any trouble.

@lwc

I had noticed the same issue a while back with Gmail in that it seemed to be marking everything coming through spamgourmet as spam. It wasn't doing this when I first started using it but now it seems to be pretty consistent. And like you, marking it as not spam didn't seem to change anything, so that is why I ended up setting up a filter in Gmail to fix the problem. Create yourself a filter and in the To field put spamgourmet.com or whatever domains you are using with multiple domains separated by OR and then on the next page, check "Never send it to spam." I usually make sure this filter is at the bottom below all my other filters so it gets processed first. Obviously this means that any real spam that comes through one of your spamgourmet addresses with be forced to bypass the Spam folder in Gmail, but this should be less of a hassle than the other way around.

Scott
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Re: spamgourmet about to be shut down due to spamcop reports

Postby ragingdragon » Mon May 06, 2013 10:05 pm

I don't use spamcop, but I use gmail. I read this thread a long time ago and since then I've setup filters so that spamgourmet messages NEVER go to spam. Does anyone know of a suggestion where sg isn't reported to gmail but the incoming spammers are?
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Re: spamgourmet about to be shut down due to spamcop reports

Postby gourmet » Sat May 11, 2013 8:55 am

lwc wrote:Cut off the Spamgourmet's Received lines in reports? Or not report at all to Spamcop about messages from Spamgourmet!


I've been always doing that and checking that the spam reports seem to be going to right destination, and not any well known ISP. Usually smaller hosting companies in Asia or so.
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Re: spamgourmet about to be shut down due to spamcop reports

Postby jpa » Tue May 14, 2013 8:29 am

My understanding of the spamgourmet usage is that spam should arrive to spamgourmet email addresses. So there should be no need to report it.
From my point of view, I would just abandon the compromised address and pick a new reputable webiste. I would blame the company that exposed my email address (accidentally or not).
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Re: *resolved* - spamgourmet about to be shut down due to ..

Postby pogue972 » Thu May 23, 2013 8:26 am

@ragingdragon: Can you describe the filters you've setup to prevent SG emails from going into Gmail's spam folder?
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Re: *resolved* - spamgourmet about to be shut down due to ..

Postby scottb » Thu May 23, 2013 2:49 pm

@pogue972

Take a look at the second paragraph in my post above and see if that helps.

Scott
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Re: *resolved* - spamgourmet about to be shut down due to ..

Postby pogue972 » Thu May 23, 2013 9:47 pm

scottb wrote:@pogue972

Take a look at the second paragraph in my post above and see if that helps.

Scott



Thanks, that seems to have worked.

FYI, for future readers: to set up filters in web based Gmail, you hit the drop down arrow in the search box and once you're done click "create a filter with this search".
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Re: *resolved* - spamgourmet about to be shut down due to ..

Postby unitacx » Mon Jun 10, 2013 2:32 am

I would guess a very large percentage of s.g. users are also spamcop users, but two things reduce the reports:
    - the spamcop report goes to the wrong host; i.e., runs backwards through the chain of email hosts
    - Spamcop reports indicate where the report is going to, so the only way a false report will go through is if the user fails to recognize the report is going the wrong direction.
i.e., I think most spamcop reports identify the correct email source and not s.g.

Still, if a caution against false spamcop reports is listed in the FAQs, I think most people will avoid spamcop misfires.
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Re: *resolved* - spamgourmet about to be shut down due to ..

Postby gourmet » Sat Jun 15, 2013 2:52 am

unitacx wrote:I would guess a very large percentage of s.g. users are also spamcop users, but two things reduce the reports:


I have a quite a good reason to suspect that SpamCop sends messages to spammers itself, because I have started receiving spam to a few addresses where spamgourmet actually is forwarding the mail (and addresses are only used for that), but after using thhe spamcop for a few times. Therefore I actually wouldn't recommend using SpamCop at all, because it helps spammers, and does not prevent them from sending spam.
Last edited by gourmet on Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Non-Spamcop reporting

Postby unitacx » Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:51 pm

On reading this, I realized that non-Spamcop reporting of spam targeting a SG address can be more risky. I can parse a spamcop report before hitting the "send" button, but do not know how "forward your spam" hosts handle their received spamgourmet mail.

On reading this, I'd say the only safe way is to purge any SG address. That basically renders the spam report useless because the SG domain would be identified in the first hop.

OTOH, bounced mail sent to a SG address would show up in the sender's message bounces as ... a bounce.

But I guess it's best to not report any mail received at a SG address unless you can clearly see who is being reported.
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