[geeks] Email blocked due to "Barracuda Reputation"

[Patrick Giagnocavo]

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