A script for PocoMail to help report spam
The script
To report spam, select the spam message in its mailbox and run the script. When SpamCop opens, paste the spam into the text box and follow directions.
Tested with PocoMail 2.5, Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 6.
"Munging" spam reports, that is, concealing information in spam reports by replacing text with characters such as [...] or <*deleted*>, is considered bad form by some. Some system administrators refuse to handle munged reports. So says one veteran of the spam wars (spamlinks.net). To skip the munge section of the script, or any other optional section, delete it or comment it out or jump over it.
Possibly the serial numbers and cryptic text found in the subject line and body of many spam messages are there to identify the complainer to the spammer. A paranoid would munge these too. (This paranoid does.)
On the upside, SpamCop has excellent features and is child's play to use. On the downside, some complaints relayed through SpamCop are ignored. Abuse.net says, "Some system managers welcome reports from Spam Cop, others have gotten so many false alarms that they reject all mail from it." Also, with SpamCop the complainer is anonymous; some administrators ignore anonymous complaints. How many do? Occasionally SpamCop screens out a target for complaint, saying "This address refuses to accept mail from SpamCop." Whether others do so quietly without notifying SpamCop -- that's beyond my ken.
The Execute command that launches SpamCop could as easily launch any other URL. Or it could launch any program you happen to have: ABouncer (the T E S P Abuse Reporter Tool), Sam Spade for Windows, etc. Sam Spade, for example, would load from your hard drive; you would paste in the raw spam message, let Sam parse the headers for you, then, after some effort, have Sam mail out your reports. (Sam's help files alone are worth the download.) All these alternatives demand a higher geek quotient than does SpamCop, however.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men
to do nothing.
--Edmund Burke (apocryphal)