SpamCopper - Easily report spam to SpamCop

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InvisiBill
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SpamCopper - Easily report spam to SpamCop

Post by InvisiBill »

Many people (including myself) have asked for an extension to easily report spam. I stumbled across the BlueFrog extension listed below, and realized that it worked just as a SpamCop extension would. I essentially just did a Find & Replace, substituting SpamCop's info in place of BlueFrog's. As such, this "brand new" extension has had some testing in the form of that extension. Likewise, I'll be the first to point out that very little of the work can be credited to me.

It's pretty simple. It just creates a new mail message with all Junk messages in the current folder attached. For security reasons, Tb won't send mail without interaction, so you do still have to hit Send, but the mail with all the spams is created automatically. There are only two options, your unique SpamCop reporting address and how to handle the messages once they're reported. It defaults to moving them to the Trash (so they're out of the way but not completely gone) and it should prompt you for your unique ID if you don't enter it first.

Nothing major, but hopefully it'll help some of you out.

http://pctech.invisibill.net/mozext/spamcopper/

Here's a copy of the ReadMe:

SpamCopper v0.01


What is it?
SpamCopper is a Thunderbird extension which allows a SpamCop.net user to easily report Junk messages to SpamCop. It is almost an exact copy of the BlueFrog (http://www.bluesecurity.com/) extension written by Vladim Z (http://www.teramips.com/bluefrog/). This extension is not affiliated with or endorsed by SpamCop.net, IronPort Systems, or anyone at either of those organizations. It is an independently created tool which simply makes using SpamCop a bit easier.


How do I use it?
Once installed, the extension adds a toolbar button. If the button doesn't show up automatically, right-click on the toolbar and choose Customize - the button should be available to drag to your toolbar. SpamCopper will create a new message with all messages in the current folder marked as Junk attached. Thunderbird cannot forward messages automatically, so you will need to send the message manually, but the email will be addressed, written, and have all Junk messages attached automatically.


How do I configure it?
You can access the two configurable options of SpamCopper from its entry in the Extensions window. In the options, you must enter your unique SpamCop reporting ID. That is middle section of your personal "submit.________________@spam.spamcop.net" address, replaced here by underscores. If you do not configure the ID before using the toolbar button, you will be prompted to enter your ID. In the options, you can also choose how Junk mail is handled after being reported. You can leave it as is, delete it, or move it to the Trash. By default, reported Junk will be moved to the Trash. This moves it out of your way, but it is still available if you would like to make a copy of it.


This is great! How can I help?
Use it! Get a SpamCop account and report spam. By helping to stop spammers, you're helping me and everyone else on the internet. Be sure to properly configure your mailhosts in your SpamCop account so it knows which headers come from your valid mail servers, and can more easily see the spam source (and not get your ISP blacklisted).

If you have the skills, write some code. Make improvements to the extension, use it as a base for creating your own similar extension, or just let it inspire you to make something else that helps people out. Just as I was able to modify the BlueFrog extension to meet my own needs under the MPL, you can modify this to suit your own needs. Please report any issues with the extension to me so that I can fix them. You are more than welcome to submit patches to me for the code, as I would like to keep the best working version in one place so as not to create a bunch of different derivatives that do the same thing and cause lots of confusion. I would also be interested in hearing about
any other projects stemming from this.

If you feel that it's more appropriate, you can send me money. I have a personal (no credit cards) PayPal account for my email address. If that doesn't work for you, get in touch with me and we can work something out. This extension and its source code are available 100% for free. Any payment sent to me is done voluntarily, in appreciation for working on this project.


What do you have planned for future?
This is my first Thunderbird extension. It is essentially a Find and Replace on the BlueFrog extension, so it has had some testing in another environment. I plan to watch the BlueFrog extension for any improvements or fixes, and incorporate those into SpamCopper as appropriate. I would also like to make this work on the Mozilla Suite, Seamonkey, and any other Mozilla-based mail programs. I have no timeframe for doing so, but it is something I would like to do.
InvisiBill
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Post by InvisiBill »

FYI, Jazzle has spamcopper.mozdev.org setup already (but with nothing there). I've emailed him about it to make sure there aren't going to be any problems. But for now, just remember that this extension isn't on MozDev, and the name could change (I basically just picked a placeholder name so I could put the extension together).
jazzle
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Joined: March 14th, 2004, 11:45 am

Post by jazzle »

This is exactly what I had planned for 'SpamCopper' anyway, so have said that I'm very happy for Bill to use the name (and mozdev space).
(I do in fact think it should do both!)
InvisiBill
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Post by InvisiBill »

I released a new version with a few minor changes.

  • Added fr-FR from Olivier Booklage
  • Added pref for quick reporting (Set spamcopper.method to "quick")

Todo:
  • Look into attachment failure ("SpamCop could not find your spam message in this email")
  • Add "Move" option after reporting (Move to SpamAssassin learning dir)


Sorry to those people who have emailed me and I haven't responded to. I had several people email me about SpamCopper sending empty attachments and therefore SC complaining about the submission (first ToDo above). I didn't run into the problem myself, and haven't had a whole lot of time lately. However, that was an issue with BlueFrog v0.11. It looks like in v0.12, that problem was related to the Delete Messages option. They list v0.13 as having no known issues, so hopefully they've got that fixed. I'll take a look at updating my code with his changes, hopefully fixing this problem. I'm aiming to have a v0.3 out soon to cover that. Looking at it again, I think I may have missed something for the FR translation, so I'll fix that too.

http://dev.bluesecurity.com/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/ThunderbirdSpamReportPlugin for future reference, since this stuff is a bit buried around a few different sites.
InvisiBill
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Post by InvisiBill »

Ok, v0.3 is out now. It's based on BF v0.14 now, which looks like it should correct the problems with empty attachments. Try this version out and let me know if you still have problems. I'm subscribed to this thread, so I'll get notification of any posts.
jazzle
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Joined: March 14th, 2004, 11:45 am

Post by jazzle »

(just checking, did you mean v0.2?)
jazzle
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Post by jazzle »

Unfortunately I have problems again with the extension.
I don't know what's wrong, but SC complained
SpamCop encountered errors while saving spam for processing:
SpamCop could not find your spam message in this email:
...


It might be something to do with my ISP, but that wouldn't explain the fact that submitting them manually works fine.


It's weird that I now want spam so I can test this!
InvisiBill
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Post by InvisiBill »

I released both v0.2 and v0.3 just recently. v0.2 was basically just adding the pref for quick reporting and some of the stuff for fr-FR. v0.2 should have the same bugs with it submitting empty messages, v0.3 should not.

For testing, you can just move any message(s) to a new folder and mark it as spam. When SpamCopper brings up the new email, it should have a subject of [SpamCopper] Spam Report and have attachments named Attached Message for each spam you're reporting. They may show filesizes along with those attachments (I have some extensions installed specifically to show attachment sizes, so they may not be there by default). You can change the To: address to your own for testing purposes - see if the attachments are coming through as they should or if they're just blank.

I would appreciate feedback on the fr-FR stuff. I think I did it right, but verification would be nice. =)
BlueNoteMKVI
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.3 broken?

Post by BlueNoteMKVI »

Hey there InvisiBill, thanks for the contribution! I was just uninstalling my Blue Frog app since they folded, thinking somebody should do this for SpamCop...

I tried to install .3 from your site and I got this error:

var msg_spamcopperIdPrompt = "&spamcopper.IdPrompt;";

There may be a typo in there, I'm not able to copy/paste that error message. When I try to edit the options, I get another error message (same caveat about typos applies):

XML Parsing Error: undefined entity
Location: chrome://spamcopper/content/options.xul
Line Number 73, Column 34:

<label control="scuserid" value="&spamcopper.options.idLabel;"/>

I had a look at the source but it's far over my head. Any ideas?

I'm using:
Ubuntu 6.4
Thunderbird 1.0.8
InvisiBill
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Post by InvisiBill »

Both of those errors seem to be pointing at the same general area. That's the stuff to pull the text strings from the localization files. It's trying to pull the string to display in the dialog asking for your SpamCop ID in the first one, and the label for that box in the Options window.

Honestly, I just copied the version stuff from the BlueFrog extension. It's possible that it has problems with 1.0.x. I've only ever used it with 1.5.x. Do you use a non-English language? It's possible that I didn't do the international stuff correctly also.
BlueNoteMKVI
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Post by BlueNoteMKVI »

I'm using English language, so I don't think localization is the problem. I've got 1.5 on my Windows box at work. I'll try it there today and report back. Thanks for the quick reply!
Carlton Bale
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Great Extension! Some suggestion to make it better

Post by Carlton Bale »

This is a great extension! It makes submitting spam to spamcop.net easier.

The process is still a bit of a pain after submitting the spam. Is there any way to parse the e-mails received from spamcop to automatically go the reporting screens? This is the step that is cumbersome, clicking on each link individually, waiting for the window to open, and then clicking the "report" button.

Also, would it be possible to do a date check, so that spam older than 2-days is submitted? Spamcop will not do anything with spam that is not "fresh", so it would be nice to ignore/delete this older spam messages instead of going through the reporting process for no reason.

Thanks again for all of your work!
Carlton Bale
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Post by Carlton Bale »

Here is some info on how to automate the process, although it is not Thunderbird-specific:
http://www.howtoforge.com/automate_spamcop_submissions
vcf
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Joined: May 30th, 2006, 12:19 am

Post by vcf »

Carlton Bale wrote:Here is some info on how to automate the process, although it is not Thunderbird-specific:
http://www.howtoforge.com/automate_spamcop_submissions


A have created an automate for windows : http://www.keosystems.com/files/AutoSpamCop.zip

Regards.
User avatar
el cameleon
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Location: France

Post by el cameleon »

Hello,
A simple question : is there a difference between spamcopper and Okopipi?
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