On Sat, 2009-10-17 at 09:30 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> 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?
The 'add' libs... LOL managed to get in a nice advertising pun. I'll get
my coat.....
>
> --
> 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.]
