This is one of the 26 reports generated on August 11, 2003. This piece of spam was forwarded by a Nyx user
to his Spamcop account by inserting a ".forward" file in his Nyx home directory. Spamcop misidentified it as
originating from Nyx and when 26 came through this source, they listed anubis.nyx.net automatically as a open relay without
checking whether it was an open relay. Nyx responded via Spamcop's website form within an hour. Spamcop did not check
to see if there was an open relay until the following afternoon. At that time Anubis was "de-listed". However, their
website continues to erroneously it as having been an open
relay, which is false.
Spamcop claims it was the fault of the Nyx/Spamcop user. They claim that he had to manually checked a box
making Spamcop report the 26 messages after they were forwarded to his Spamcop account. I have no confirmation from
the Nyx user yet. The only communication we had from him was one of surprise that the Nyx admins had shut off his
.forward file. Even if the Nyx user had a chance to avoid sending these reports, there are two errors here by Spamcop:
1) A parsing error identifying Nyx as the source of the spam; and 2) Automatically listing Anubis as an open relay without
checking it first. Spamcop's response to the first is that Nyx's headers are wrong, though they do not explain how.
They have offered no rebuttal to #2. (Please note that Nyx had no way of stopping the listing since it received the
26 reports at the same time it was listed. Spamcop did not respond in e-mail and did not delist it for 18+ hours.)
A Message that Merely Mentions Deadmalls.com-- July 16, 2003
Spamcop sent the following complaint to Nyx. The website www.deadmalls.com is on a server at IP 206.124.29.118.
That server shares the same IP block with Nyx. (There are several unrelated servers and several hundred unrelated
domains sharing this IP block.) There is NOTHING else in common between this complaint and Nyx.
Spamcop users insist that does not base complaints on URLs and would not possibly send a complaint to
an unrelated IP in the same block. Explain this one then.
Spamcop insists that this is the fault of the reporter. But Spamcop is forwarding these messages under its name
with the name and contact information of the reporter removed. Therefore, Spamcop has taken legal responsibility
for the veracity of these reports and has failed to live up to that responsibility. This recent report shows that the
sanctioned abuse of the reporting system continues.
Spamcop insists that this is the fault of the reporter. But Spamcop is forwarding these messages under its name
with the name and contact information of the reporter removed. Therefore, Spamcop has taken legal responsibility
for the veracity of these reports and has failed to live up to that responsibility.
Not An Open Relay
Various people have also claimed that Anubis.nyx.net or Nyx.nyx.net is or was an open relay (claims vary).
Here is some data on that. Note that no site other than Spamcop claims that Anubis had an open relay on
August 11, 2003 (or at any other time):
We recently tried to set up a Spamcop ISP account to attempt two things: 1) get Spamcop to stop munging the headers and
2) get Spamcop to send the notices to the correct e-mail address. (board@nyx.net is intended only for business and financial
matters and is not the correct address for system administration matters. It actually has fairly heavy spam filters on it.)
However, attempts to do so on their website resulted in 401 errors.
Complaints by Other People
If you are interested in reading webpages and USENET posts from other people who have also had problems with
false positive spam reports and inappropriate black listing by SpamCop follow these two links:
The purpose here is to inform people that SpamCop harasses or allows its system to be used to harass innocent parties and
that due to the number of false reports that come from SpamCop it is not a reliable source of data upon which to base spam
filtering.
We have seen the following errors: 1) abuse by Spamcop users unfettered by Spamcop (most commonly retaliation for reporting
USENET spam); 2) reports based on unrelated URLS contained in mailing lists sent to IPs/domains unrelated to URL or spammer;
3) Erroneous Parsing of headers; 4) automatic listing of an IP as an open relay based on hits without checking whether the
relay was open.
If SpamCop desires to help solve the problem of spam then they must provide reliable data. Otherwise they are
indistinguishable from any other sources of junk mail promising to get rid spam.
If Spamcop wants to police the Internet, then it has a legal and moral obligation to check reports sent to it before passing them on.
If Spamcop wants to merely passively forward spam reports with no responsibility for their veracity and no repercussions to
itself, then it needs to remove the blacklisting completely and send messages with headers intact.
Written by Darlene A. Cypser, Esq., Secretary/Treasurer, Nyx Net
Addendum (8/5/2004): It has come to my attention that some anonymous person has decided to
post their own rather inaccurate version of my complaints
here. You can read my responses
here.
