Note: Version 2.0 is now under development. If you would like to be notified when it is available, please see the mailing list subscription information at the end of this page.
ABouncer is an application for Win32 systems that reduces the work necessary to submit reports of broadcast email abuse. It provides convenient tools to simplify identification of source (whois, lookup, ping, traceroute, text-only HTTP client), and to generate email subject lines and introductory paragraphs to be inserted into the report before it is sent. The intent of this application is to reduce the amount of time per spam necessary to send an individual, customized report to each party involved (dialup provider, email account provider, victimized relay server, web host provider, network service provider and upstream providers as may be necessary).
It was originally created for ISP network abuse team members, but individual combatants in the Spam Wars may also find it useful.
When you paste a complete copy of the offending message into the Body window, URLs, email addresses and Received: lines are automatically highlighted to make it easier to spot them. Customizable "boilerplate" buttons allow you to generate subject and introductory text that may optionally include the original spam's subject and any text you have highlighted from the message before clicking the button. By highlighting a domain name in the message and clicking the "postmaster@" or "abuse@" buttons, the report can quickly be addressed to the relevant recipient (as illustrated below).
The application contains an integrated set of network tools (whois, lookup, ping and traceroute) to assist in identifying the destinations for the report. Highlighting a domain name, host name or IP address in the body and clicking the TOOLS button will open the Tools window with the highlighted item in the target slot, ready for the operation you want to perform. A simple text-only HTTP client can be used to verify the status of unpingable sites, and to examine the source code of advertised web pages without loading images or executing scripts or applets.
If you wish to investigate this tool for personal use, you
may obtain a free copy here.
A set of sample "boilerplate" messages for use with ABouncer is available here. The "readme" file for the samples is here.