On Saturday 17 October 2009, rich...@buzzhost.co.uk wrote: >On Sat, 2009-10-17 at 07:26 -0400, Aaron Wolfe wrote: >> On Sat, Oct 17, 2009 at 5:47 AM, rich...@buzzhost.co.uk >> >> <rich...@buzzhost.co.uk> wrote: >> > On Fri, 2009-10-16 at 13:29 -0700, John Hardin wrote: >> >> On Fri, 16 Oct 2009, John Rudd wrote: >> >> > Me. I work for one of their clients (a University). One or two of >> >> > our divisions use them for large mailings to our internal users. >> >> >> >> How is Constant Contact better than (say) GNU mailman for that >> >> purpose? >> > >> > It's so you can pay someone to send spam, skip past lots of things like >> > Barracuda Network$$$ devices and other filters and not have to face the >> > music and termination from your provider for spamming. >> > >> > Constant Contact = Constant Spam. A IPTables dropping all of their >> > ranges from SYN is a great way to cut *lots* of crap mail >> >> For a personal server, I'd agree they send nothing I want to receive. >> >> However, for anything more, I think you will get complaints. Constant >> Contact is one of the "better" ESPs, kind of like a kick in the shin >> is "better" than a kick in the teeth. They do have some legitimate >> customers, and they do have some spamming customers. The truth is not >> so good as Tara would like it to be, and not so bad as some have >> claimed. > >Tara is very good at 'reputation management' and getting into bed with >all the right people. She pops up in Spam lists, NANAE and other places >to tell people just how positive CC are on dealing with abuse. Of course >it's all spin - their core revenue is to help to deliver bulk mail that >would normally be blocked on reputation based RBL's. Remember, if the >sender was really clean, their would be zero need for CC. > >I won't go into the nuts and bolts of it, but I've been giving 550 'no >such user' and '550 blocked' messages to CC on a honeypot domain. Still >they keep knocking.... > >> What I really can't understand is why they are on any kind of >> whitelist. Putting this type of company on a whitelist is great if >> you're trying to support their revenue model.. now they can tell their >> clients to use their service because they are on whitelists, this is >> very attractive to spammers. But what good does it do for anyone >> else? Why not let their messages meet the same scrutiny as any other >> potential source of spam? If they get blacklisted, great, now their >> revenue model is hurt until they find ways to avoid it. If they >> manage to stay off the lists, even better, they are running as spam >> free as they claim to be. Why are we covering for their mistakes and >> supporting a company that profits from sending spam, even if its only >> sometimes, by whitelisting them? > >Whitelisting them is a total travesty and the only reason for it has to >be money or favours changing hands. It's really that simple. They appear >on the Barracuda Whitelist and there has been some suggestion, albeit >uncited, that Baraspammer Micheal Perone has some kind of 'interest' in >them. I'm not sure of the status of whitelisting elsewhere for Constant >Spamcrap anywhere else, but as it's being discussed here - I'm guessing >somewhere in SA something is 'greasing the wheels' for them. > >The crux is this - they emit a constant stream of trash that would be >rightly blocked if it were not whitelisted - so whitelisting them is >clearly not appropriate at all for anyone interested in blocking spam. > >Still, what you will now see is Tara and friends go into meltdown >stating they take spam seriously and request 'off list' resolution. > Which verse/chorus would this upcoming instance be?
-- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. <https://www.nrahq.org/nrabonus/accept-membership.asp> I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy. -- Fred Allen [Also attributed to S. Clay Wilson. Ed.]
