Talk:Barracuda Networks

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[edit] Rhyolite "Controversy"

I removed the following from the main article:

Controversy
Rhyolite Software, LLC maintains a spammer blacklist that includes Address.com, a company co-founded by Barracuda Networks founding member Michael Perone. This apparent conflict of interest has led some to question the sincerity of Barracuda's spam-fighting intentions, considering that one of its key executives is himself an alleged spammer. Perone has aggressively addressed these claims, but, according to Rhyolite, failed to provide convincing evidence against their allegations. Rhyolite's website maintains a transcript of this debate.
As of 2006 Michael Perone no longer is the owner of address.com.

This is hardly a controversy that affects Barracuda Networks in any significant way. Rhyolite is a one-person company, and that one person got a marketing message he didn't ask for, so (as is his right) he summarily declared address.com a spam source. This is not significant enough to remain in the article, because (1) the advertising wasn't for Barracuda, (2) the blacklist entry isn't directly related to Barracuda, (3) it was almost two years ago, (4) for an unrelated domain that's no longer even controlled by the alleged spammer, (5) who just happened to be a co-founder of Barracuda but was also involved in other "internet enterprises."

Who are the "some" (see WP:AWW) that are said to question Barracuda's sincerity as a spam fighter? I've read all the material at Rhyolite and I'm not led to that conclusion, and haven't ever heard anyone question their sincerity. Hollaback22 calls this a "perfectly valid criticism" but I don't see how it's anything but tangential.

—RandallJones 00:57, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this example is not very good to show how this company is not 100% clean. The fact that by default, the spam firewall has "bounce-back" enabled and impossible to disable on the 300 model is way worse. It is like a bait for spam. It encourages it. Once you install the entry-level product, not only you cannot remove it but you are forced to upgrade because the amount of spam keeps on increasing exponentially. -- User:207.35.240.157 19:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by "100% clean", but whether or not to send NDRs for spam is a policy decision that has to be made at each site. If you feel it's wrong, fine, I'm not arguing, I'm just saying for the benefit of others that as a postmaster for over ten years I do understand both sides of the question, and there are at least two well-established camps with firm opinions. And, this is the wrong place for product support and my time is on a 400, but there are many messages on the forum that indicate that NDRs are optional in the 300. —RandallJones 01:12, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The NDR point has been addressed with Barracuda at least since November 2004. Two and a half years later, they still haven't sorted it out. Given that the product is based on FOSS mail tools that are able to do the right thing, it seems surprising that Barracuda are not able (or willing) to implement rejection of spam as an option. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.214.209.34 (talk) 23:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC).
I have to agree that Barracuda seem to show bad netiquette. Writing about it here may make a difference, since you can't give them feedback about the backscatter you receive from them unless you happen to also own one of their machines. They refuse any comments at their support email unless you supply a product serial number and you need that too, to get on the forums. They seem to be ignoring the SMTP Reject option. It is a way to avoid backscatter yet still to guarantee that a blocked false-positive spam will not be dropped. All basic mail servers can reject email at the SMTP level, for example when connecting IPs are on zombie block lists, without creating backscatter. All the backscatter I have analyzed coming from Barracuda firewalls comes from spam sent by zombies! Here's a web page showing how easy it is to configure various MTAs to reject mail coming from IPs on DNS block lists: How do I configure my mailserver to reject mail based on the blocklist? Why can't Barracuda Firewalls do that? Why do they have to create bounces? The Barracuda Networks tech bulletin from 6/29/05 says

“Backscatter” is email that is sent from your Barracuda Spam Firewall to a forged email address. Spam and virus emails generally contain fake email addresses. By default the Barracuda Spam Firewall is configured in a SAFE configuration. This SAFE configuration will send a bounce message whenever an email is blocked by the Barracuda Spam Firewall.

I think Barracuda acknowledge it's bad to bounce mail to fake addresses, just like the anti-virus firewalls did. So, why is it that the default config for their firewalls? Why can't the default config be to REJECT any spams at SMTP connection time? By the way, a REJECT will still generate an NDR, but it won't be sent by the Barracuda firewall to the forged email in the spam that got rejected. In 99% of the cases, a zombie-sending spam won't do anything when an email it's blasting gets rejected at SMTP level. I have had my share of backscatter from Barracuda boxes. With each new one that is sold, I get more of it (until the customers clue-in and turn off the default setting, many of them thank me for explaining). I'd be very curious how many admins "like" the 'SAFE' mode -- they surely get lots of complaints from SpamCop about the backscatter. I get 900+ backscatter messages/day, not all of it comes from Barracudas, but I report it all to SpamCop, which in turn dings the admins of the offending servers (Barracuda customers included). Fuhrmanator (talk) 19:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
UPDATE: a user that is under a "bounce storm" has recently contacted me and has begun forwarding me his catch-all bounces, since spammers are forging his domain name. In less than 24 hours, I have received more than 15,000 of this user's bounces. They go to a Gmail account for easy analysis via IMAP. Barracuda Spam Firewalls account for THOUSANDS of the backscatter messages in the 15,000 so far received according to my Gmail search. I am going to tabulate this data and make it public as part of my backscatter research. Roughly, the numbers are of 49305 misdirected bounces received in roughly 3 days, 2959 came from Barracuda Spam Firewalls (matching a subject of "**Message you sent blocked" OR "**Le message que vous avez envoyé a été bloqué" OR "**你发送的邮" OR "あなたの送信" OR "**El mensaje que usted envio ha sido bloqueado" OR "**A mensagem que você enviou foi bloqueada" OR "*Aluminati spam filter has blocked" OR "**El missatge enviat ha estat bloquejat"). That's 6% of backscatter created by Barracuda Spam Firewalls according to my study. Fuhrmanator (talk) 13:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:BarracudaNetworks.png

Image:BarracudaNetworks.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 23:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Promotional Information

While self-published sources are acceptable in many circumstances, it is not acceptable to use them for promotional material. If you can rephrase them to use a more objective tone, that would be fine. It would be better if you could find third party reliable sources for the content. -- Scarpy (talk) 21:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not understand the problem with extracting clearly factual data from a first-party source. The rephrasing to objective tone was (in my opinion) accomplished the very first time (with a single-word exception corrected later) Filterbob (talk) 20:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
There was a related discussion here which Filterbob later removed from his talk page.
(Added links to aid Wikipedia:Third opinion.) — Athaenara ✉ 02:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thank you for that. My intent removing it was not to conceal it, but I thought it had served its purpose. Also, one of my own friends said my tone was objectionable. Now that I have learned of the three-revert rule (which was done to my suggestions within an 8 hour period) perhaps my tone can at least be understood. Filterbob (talk) 18:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:3RR applies only when wikipedians revert a page more than three times in a 24 hour period. If you look at the history of the document, you'll see that the 3RR was not violated. -- Scarpy (talk) 18:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Three purely reversion edits were done. (19:57 13 May, 20:11 13 May, 3:47 14 May) I did not assert more. I did not even know about the rule then and am not very concerned about it now. I merely explained, for the benefit of others, that at the time you really got on my nerves by exhibiting nothing but obstruction. Filterbob (talk) 18:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Content disputes should be discussed on the article's talk page. I started a section for it on this page, and made a more than reasonable effort to get you to participate in the discussion. -- Scarpy (talk) 18:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree that you made that effort. What you missed was that, as a complete neophyte to wiki (which I did state), I was unable to understand terse direction, or even much of the terminology. And it appeared that my requests for clarification were being met with obstruction. The frustration was apparent, but it came across as obstructive nonetheless. I know enough now to hope that you can find this feedback informative. Filterbob (talk) 20:55, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, there's a learning curve. I pointed you to information and gave you advice that if read and followed would very quickly and efficiently get you up to speed. Learning, however, requires time and effort. I'm a volunteer, not your personal wikipedia tutor, and even if I was, I still can't make you read. You're welcome. -- Scarpy (talk) 02:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 3rd opinion

A read of this article gives me the impression that it is as much about the products offered as the company, which is supposed to be the subject. To me, this makes it read more like a promotional brochure than an encyclopedia article. In my opinion, everything after the Trend Micro lawsuit paragraph, up to the backscatter section should be condensed to a single paragraph, or perhaps a list. The inline citations are not really required if the website link at the end leads to the same info. The backscatter sections read more like instructional material, and are not particularly encyclopedic in tone. I do not believe that those sections should be kept in the article. Finally, the external links section should have one link to the main website.

I understand that my opinion is going to seem one sided to one of you at least, but this is the way I see it. I hope it is of some help. Kevin (talk) 10:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

After some reflection, I can concede to what you suggest. Filterbob (talk) 17:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC) Although, rather than remove the product information, might it make sense to build a separate page, such as "Barracuda Networks Products", linked from here? Or would you feel that need is met by referring to the first party web site? I admit that would have brought me to the information I sought when I first began this journey. Filterbob (talk) 17:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Also, I suggest that some of the backscatter material has technical merit (instructional, as you say) and could be useful if pared down and incorporated into Backscatter (e-mail). I'm still pretty new here but it seems to me one good approach may be to relocate the entire backscatter sections to talk:Backscatter (e-mail) as a potential resource, and let whoever works on that page choose what to do with it. Filterbob (talk) 17:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
wikiHow is a good place to put tutorials like that, or even write a document and put it on scribd. the WP:EL guidelines allow articles to provide external links to that kind of content. -- Scarpy (talk) 19:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't know those other resources, and can't find time right now to learn them. But now that I see that the content could be recovered from history regardless, I would not oppose the changes as suggested by Kevin. Filterbob (talk) 20:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
If you want to create a separate products page, then you will need to find some 3rd party sources to show that the products themselves are notable of themselves. I'm not advocating complete removal from this article, just trimming it down to a list, or a paragraph in prose form, without all the detailed description of each. For those who want more, the link to the company site provides that. User:Scarpy's suggestion for the instructional stuff is good, if you have the time, and your for the backscatter section works as well. Kevin (talk) 22:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. I believe I have learned quite a bit more about what wikipedia wants, and wants to be. I like to complete what I've started, so -even though it entails removing everything I attempted to contribute and more- I will undertake the edits as recommended. I understand now that the information will be recoverable and not lost, and hope to find more time soon to apply to potential improvements on Backscatter (e-mail) Filterbob (talk) 01:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
No problem. Kevin (talk) 02:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)