Comments on: Barracuda & EmailReg.org: Pay-to-play or just joined at the hip? http://www.spamtacular.com/2009/04/28/barracuda-emailregorg-pay-to-play-or-just-joined-at-the-hip/ Where Email, Delivery, and Law come together Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:11:18 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4-alpha-19841
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By: victum of Barracuda http://www.spamtacular.com/2009/04/28/barracuda-emailregorg-pay-to-play-or-just-joined-at-the-hip/comment-page-1/#comment-1626 victum of Barracuda Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:28:44 +0000 http://www.spamtacular.com/?p=902#comment-1626 This is a great gig they have going. They appear to randomly black list domains. If your selected, your emails are rejected and you get a link from them that leads you "Pay the Registration fee (currently $20.00) for the domain" in order "to reduce the chance of their email being blocked by spam filters. Registration is easy and convenient." Of course, they tell you doing this may not work. The power and the money they are taking from people in one of the worst times in US economic history. You won't find an address, executive team, building photo, or any of the standard information a company boasting Harvard as a client should have. You will find numerous complaints; even businesses trying to communicate with customers are affected. To contact them via email form is even difficult as the random letters you are required to type in order to submit cannot be read. This should be of an urgent nature since even doctors are increasingly communication with their patients via email not to mention a thousand other life threatening or life saving, job related, or child safety and other communication they are stopping. I am desperately looking for work and cannot afford to have them denying delivery of my resumes just so they can extort money from me only to declare boldly that paying them doesn’t fix the problem. This is a great gig they have going. They appear to randomly black list domains. If your selected, your emails are rejected and you get a link from them that leads you "Pay the Registration fee (currently $20.00) for the domain" in order "to reduce the chance of their email being blocked by spam filters. Registration is easy and convenient." Of course, they tell you doing this may not work. The power and the money they are taking from people in one of the worst times in US economic history. You won't find an address, executive team, building photo, or any of the standard information a company boasting Harvard as a client should have. You will find numerous complaints; even businesses trying to communicate with customers are affected. To contact them via email form is even difficult as the random letters you are required to type in order to submit cannot be read. This should be of an urgent nature since even doctors are increasingly communication with their patients via email not to mention a thousand other life threatening or life saving, job related, or child safety and other communication they are stopping. I am desperately looking for work and cannot afford to have them denying delivery of my resumes just so they can extort money from me only to declare boldly that paying them doesn’t fix the problem.

]]> By: Marc Perkel http://www.spamtacular.com/2009/04/28/barracuda-emailregorg-pay-to-play-or-just-joined-at-the-hip/comment-page-1/#comment-1367 Marc Perkel Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:19:16 +0000 http://www.spamtacular.com/?p=902#comment-1367 Barracuda is behind emailreg.org but I don't think that it's like buying a license to spam. If someone pays the $20 and starts to spam then thousands of barracuda servers detect that and it would be removed from emailreg.org. Thus the spammer wasted $20. I think that emailreg.org is just about reducing false positives and the $20 is like a captcha. But I'm sure it's not a license to spam otherwise it would undermine barracuda's main business - stopping spam. Barracuda is behind emailreg.org but I don't think that it's like buying a license to spam. If someone pays the $20 and starts to spam then thousands of barracuda servers detect that and it would be removed from emailreg.org. Thus the spammer wasted $20.

I think that emailreg.org is just about reducing false positives and the $20 is like a captcha. But I'm sure it's not a license to spam otherwise it would undermine barracuda's main business – stopping spam.

]]> By: Mickey Chandler's Spamtacular | Top 10 Posts of 2009 http://www.spamtacular.com/2009/04/28/barracuda-emailregorg-pay-to-play-or-just-joined-at-the-hip/comment-page-1/#comment-1258 Mickey Chandler's Spamtacular | Top 10 Posts of 2009 Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:16:40 +0000 http://www.spamtacular.com/?p=902#comment-1258 [...] Barracuda & EmailReg.org: Pay-to-play or just joined at the hip? This post was just plain fun to do. There’s some sort of agreement between Barracuda Networks and the EmailReg.org people, but no one outside of those two groups knows what it is. But that duck sure is loud. [...] [...] Barracuda & EmailReg.org: Pay-to-play or just joined at the hip? This post was just plain fun to do. There’s some sort of agreement between Barracuda Networks and the EmailReg.org people, but no one outside of those two groups knows what it is. But that duck sure is loud. [...]

]]> By: Jonathan Brown http://www.spamtacular.com/2009/04/28/barracuda-emailregorg-pay-to-play-or-just-joined-at-the-hip/comment-page-1/#comment-690 Jonathan Brown Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:33:43 +0000 http://www.spamtacular.com/?p=902#comment-690 Thanks for your post. After getting a request to resolve undeliverable mail from a client and going through a similar process as above, I am convinced that I will never recomend this product ot anyone. If anyone askes about a Barracuda firewall, I will hel them this is a poorly designed product and to go to another vendor. Even thouh I have 20 years as a consultant specilizing in e-mail, I almot got taken until they asked for a credit card. Then I surfed the web for these guys and found this among other negitive posts. Jonathan Brown Net Data Systems, Inc 5605 Woodman Avenue, #204 Sherman Oaks, CA 91401 818 782 5394 Phone 818 475 1600 Fax E-mail: jbrown@netdata.net Web: <a href="http://www.netdata.net" target="_blank">www.netdata.net</a> Thanks for your post.

After getting a request to resolve undeliverable mail from a client and going through a similar process as above, I am convinced that I will never recomend this product ot anyone. If anyone askes about a Barracuda firewall, I will hel them this is a poorly designed product and to go to another vendor.

Even thouh I have 20 years as a consultant specilizing in e-mail, I almot got taken until they asked for a credit card. Then I surfed the web for these guys and found this among other negitive posts.

Jonathan Brown
Net Data Systems, Inc
5605 Woodman Avenue, #204
Sherman Oaks, CA 91401
818 782 5394 Phone
818 475 1600 Fax
E-mail: jbrown@netdata.net
Web: http://www.netdata.net

]]> By: Neil Schwartzman http://www.spamtacular.com/2009/04/28/barracuda-emailregorg-pay-to-play-or-just-joined-at-the-hip/comment-page-1/#comment-688 Neil Schwartzman Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:30:32 +0000 http://www.spamtacular.com/?p=902#comment-688 I would like to add some perspective to potential use of the BRBL. Three weeks ago, I began requesting de-listings of any IP (active or suspended) on Certified that was listed on the Barracuda BRBL. When I started on April 29 there were 431 such IPs, as of today there are 22, of those there are 5 repeat listings. Of interest is the verbiage Barracuda sends to listees, stating repeatedly that the IP is on a compromised host. I suspect this is incorrect as these IPs never had listings on other DNSBLs dealing with such issues, like the CBL. They also assert the mail is ‘not CANSPAM compliant’. This would imply either using the Lashback DNSBL or similar service if such exists, or manual parsing of the payload. None of the listed IPs showed up on the Lashback list. I don’t know what to make of this. One aspect of note is their heavy reference during the delisting process to their pay-for-play whitelist, Emailreg.org (I signed up one of my personal domains at the service to see how it worked). They suggest that registration therein will help to avoid ‘inadvertent’ listings, but that does raise the question how a listing due to compromise or lack of CANSPAM compliance could ever be inadvertent. I certainly do not think we should ever suggest or recommend to clients to make use of the Emailreg.org service, it works on a per domain basis and this could become very expensive for large senders at $20/each. Also, it is not clear if domains and sub-domains are treated as equivalents. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Thank you for contacting Barracuda Networks regarding your issue. Your issue is important to us. We have assigned a confirmation number: BBR21243333460-MUNGED to this case. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you. Since this is is your first request for this IP, the reputation of this IP address will be temporarily upgraded from "poor" for 48 hours *or* until we complete our investigation. When our investigation is complete, you will receive a decision via email. It may take up to 1 hour for the changes in the Barracuda Reputation System to propagate to all the Barracuda Spam Firewalls in the world. There are a number of reasons your IP address may have been listed as "poor", including: 1. The email server at this IP address contains a virus and has been sending out spam 2. The email server at this IP address may be configured incorrectly 3. The PC at this IP address may be infected with a virus or botnet software program 4. An individual in the organization at this IP address may have a PC infected with a virus or botnet program 5. This IP address may be a dynamic IP address which was previously utilized by a known spammer 6. The marketing department of a company at this IP address may be sending out bulk emails that do not comply with the CAN-SPAM Act 7. This IP address may have a insecure wireless network attached to it which could allow unknown users to use it's network connection to send out bulk email 8. In some rare cases, your recipients' Barracuda Spam Firewall may be misconfigured" ----------------------------------------------------------------- -- Neil Schwartzman Director, Accreditation Security & Standards Certified | Safelist Return Path Inc. 0142002038 The opinions contained herein are my personal stance and may not reflect the viewpoint of Return Path Inc. I would like to add some perspective to potential use of the BRBL.

Three weeks ago, I began requesting de-listings of any IP (active or suspended) on Certified that was listed on the Barracuda BRBL. When I started on April 29 there were 431 such IPs, as of today there are 22, of those there are 5 repeat listings.

Of interest is the verbiage Barracuda sends to listees, stating repeatedly that the IP is on a compromised host. I suspect this is incorrect as these IPs never had listings on other DNSBLs dealing with such issues, like the CBL. They also assert the mail is ‘not CANSPAM compliant’. This would imply either using the Lashback DNSBL or similar service if such exists, or manual parsing of the payload. None of the listed IPs showed up on the Lashback list.

I don’t know what to make of this.

One aspect of note is their heavy reference during the delisting process to their pay-for-play whitelist, Emailreg.org (I signed up one of my personal domains at the service to see how it worked). They suggest that registration therein will help to avoid ‘inadvertent’ listings, but that does raise the question how a listing due to compromise or lack of CANSPAM compliance could ever be inadvertent.

I certainly do not think we should ever suggest or recommend to clients to make use of the Emailreg.org service, it works on a per domain basis and this could become very expensive for large senders at $20/each. Also, it is not clear if domains and sub-domains are treated as equivalents.

—————————————————————–
"Thank you for contacting Barracuda Networks regarding your issue. Your issue is important to us. We have assigned a confirmation number:
BBR21243333460-MUNGED to this case.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused you. Since this is is your first request for this IP, the reputation of this IP address will be temporarily upgraded from "poor" for 48 hours *or* until we complete our investigation. When our investigation is complete, you will receive a decision via email. It may take up to 1 hour for the changes in the Barracuda Reputation System to propagate to all the Barracuda Spam Firewalls in the world.

There are a number of reasons your IP address may have been listed as "poor", including:

1. The email server at this IP address contains a virus and has been sending out spam
2. The email server at this IP address may be configured incorrectly
3. The PC at this IP address may be infected with a virus or botnet software program
4. An individual in the organization at this IP address may have a PC infected with a virus or botnet program
5. This IP address may be a dynamic IP address which was previously utilized by a known spammer
6. The marketing department of a company at this IP address may be sending out bulk emails that do not comply with the CAN-SPAM Act
7. This IP address may have a insecure wireless network attached to it which could allow unknown users to use it's network connection to send out bulk email
8. In some rare cases, your recipients' Barracuda Spam Firewall may be misconfigured"
—————————————————————–

–
Neil Schwartzman
Director, Accreditation Security & Standards
Certified | Safelist
Return Path Inc.
0142002038

The opinions contained herein are my personal stance and may not reflect the viewpoint of Return Path Inc.

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