Speaking of red herrings ... No, I do not believe that emailreg is particularly laughing, nor making numerous trips to any bank. Yes, barracuda sponsors emailreg - and NOT the other way around. As an aside, we have a few company "cuda cars" around here (saves on rentals) but they're mostly little Scions. If there was any shred of truth to the wild speculations about thousands of emailreg signups per day, there would probably be expensive "EMAILREG" sportscars filling the lot on meeting days, but the reality is more like they can't even afford their first Scion.
I'm a recent sign-up to this list - more to learn than to represent - but this unrestrained wild speculation has gone far beyond the ridiculous. I might be able to address some *reasonable* questions about Barracuda and/or emailreg. The emailreg fee should really be looked upon as a CAPTCHA-like test, and a rate-limit to abuse. As the owner of a now-defunct whitelisting attempt from (>10) years ago, I can state from personal experience that abusers _will_ try. Paying is NOT the only way onto the emailreg list, it's just currently the only way to self-nominate. A portion of my responsibility here at Barracuda is to nominate additional hosts based on observed performance. Even before I joined the effort, hundreds of thousands had been exported in this fashion: http://www.emailreg.org/index.cgi?p=news&id=3 If someone cares to begin a separate thread here about emailreg, I will attend. But can we please redirect this thread back to the original _blacklist_ question? Bob "O`Bob" O'Brien -----Original Message----- From: Rob McEwen [mailto:r...@invaluement.com] Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 8:10 AM To: users@spamassassin.apache.org Subject: Re: Barracuda Blacklist Karsten Bräckelmann wrote: > We're not going down the path of judging blacklists based on whitelists > or certification services, or vice versa, do we? > If the whitelist involves possibly questionable business practices (trying to reserve judgment here), then the information that Neil provided _should_ be factored into any such decision. One thing is for sure, (extortionist or not) Barracuda (or whoever owns emailreg.org) is laughing its way to the bank. The more SA usage of its list, the more $$ that goes to emailreg.org... I'm sure that they will be very happy if/when BRBL gets added to SA by default. And to not factor this into such decisions... and turn a convenient blind eye... is tantamount to the SA community acting like a bunch of sluts... grabbing onto any freebee spam tool, regardless of these other implications. However, if it can be shown, after careful consideration, that everyone (or the SA powers that be) is OK with BRBL/emailreg.org business practices... that is one thing. But to sweep this under the rug is another very very sad and possibly unethical thing. > BTW, Neil, may I remind you... "red herring" ---------------------------------- Check out the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall - offering the fastest virus & malware protection in the industry: www.barracudanetworks.com/spam
