[geeks] Email blocked due to "Barracuda Reputation"

[Cody Swanson]

Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
>   
>> A mailing list I am currently on suddenly started to use Barracuda
>> Networks "whitelist" to block email.
>> Is this legit, or is it just some way of making you register with them
>> so that they can get something out of your registration?
>>     
>
> Barracuda is a slightly scummy but legitimate company.
>
> I say scummy because they will not allow you to buy a used piece of
> their hardware and then buy their subscription updates; they also expire
> out old hardware in order to force you to upgrade your system (making
> them more money of course).
>
> As part of their scoring, they use the idea of "reputation" which is
> basically all the things that don't fit into the regular spam-assassin
> scoring methods.  Things like how long the netblock has been assigned,
> whether they saw spam from that IP before, etc. etc.
>
> --Patrick
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks
>
>   
This sounds like what F5 Networks does. They also have a policy that if
you let your system support lapse for a few years on a piece of their
hardware they want you to pay for all the previous years you didn't pay
before you can buy support for the current year. So if you have a 5 year
old BigIP that hasn't had support for 4 years they want you to buy the
last 4 years of support plus a new 1 year support contract before they
will even talk to you. Seriously sketchy if you ask me.