#1 2020-06-30 10:26 am

Dagmar

Member

Registered: 2017-05-30

Posts: 2

Issues with invalid email addresses

First off thank you very much for your service. It has really helped us get our spam signups under control and for that I thank you. I have been using StopForumSpam for many years now without issues.

Yesterday I found out that when I run a query with an invalid email address I get a response that indicates that the email has been listed 255 times with the current date/time for last seen. And if search for that email manually (on StopForumSpam), I get 0 results.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Use GET request: https://api.stopforumspam.org/api?email=my.test.account@gmaill.com

Expected response:

<response success="true">
	<type>email</type>
	<appears>no</appears>
	<frequency>0</frequency>
</response>

Actual response:

<response success="true">
	<type>email</type>
	<appears>yes</appears>
	<lastseen>2020-06-30 10:21:21</lastseen>
	<frequency>255</frequency>
</response>

I am sure this isn't how it used to work?

If this is the correct/expected behaviour, please explain how I can detect invalid email addresses.

Thanks!

Alex Kemp

Moderator

From: Nottingham, England

Registered: 2009-12-02

Posts: 2,422

Website

Re: Issues with invalid email addresses

pedigree will give you a definitive answer, but the figure of '255' is the sign that you have received a result from a toxic email and/or IP address. The following is just one result for 'toxic':

https://www.stopforumspam.com/forum/vie … hp?id=8955

---

Alex Kemp

IP Aggregation (Help) · Easy Firewall Generator (Help)  · Conteg v0.13.14

Dagmar

Member

Registered: 2017-05-30

Posts: 2

Re: Issues with invalid email addresses

Thanks for the reply and the link.

I just thought to search 255 and found another thread where someone posted about "gmial.com" https://www.stopforumspam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4168&p=5.  The answer was that "gmial.com" was listed for abuse, but I also get 0 results when I do a search.

I see that gmial.com does go to a website while gmaill.com doesn't, so not sure if it's the same issue ... However, I just tested with the email testing@gmmmmmmmmail.com and I didn't see 255 (toxic).