[vlc-devel] Killing the user mailing list

[Guy Perkins]

Hi - Just a note re Forum Blacklist

>From the VLC Forbidden 403 Page, I trawled through the list of blacklist
maintainers to try and identify why I am blocked from page access.

I found a potential problem for VLC Forum here.
http://www.tornevall.net/ appears to use Barracuda lists.
http://barracudacentral.org/
Barracuda generate blacklists based on some strange criteria & their
list appears to be an "Email" based blacklist & so not suitable for the
browser accessed VLC "Forum" (Maillists possibly would be OK, but not
ideal IMO)

Barracuda detection (Quoted from their site)
Users that place multiple computers behind a NAT gateway/firewall system
should block all outgoing port 25 traffic from all computers which have
not been explicitly configured and maintained specifically as email
servers. A single infected machine sending spam out through a network
utilizing NAT can result in blocked email from the whole LAN. 

So, if I read this correctly any workgroup behind a NAT router where
client machines are running an Email client using port 25 for
SMTP(default), would (in their words) be spammers & so automatically
create a blacklist against the WAN IP used.
AND, yes it does appear that the "IP" is globally blacklisted & then
individual "email" domains are excluded upon request. Thus all WEB
browser scenarios would still hit the blacklist as the ISP's IP is still
blacklisted and the recipient domain is not reffered to at all in the
browser session!!
(Think dynamic IP as well here. Some users, like me, have & prefer to
have a dynamic WAN IP, thus if the pool of ISP IP's become effected,
which on this criteria is very likely, no banannas...All browser
sessions from the pool are Blocked...)

FYI (again quoted from the Barracuda site, note EMAIL references)
http://barracudacentral.org/rbl/removal-request/
==============================
Barracuda Central Reputation System – Removal Request
•To request adjustment of your "IP reputation" on the Barracuda
Reputation System, please enter your EMAIL server's IP address, your
EMAIL address, phone number and an optional reason for removal below.
Please note that the BRBL is generated by automated systems. Requests
without valid information will be ignored. Multiple requests will also
be ignored. 
•Removal requests are typically investigated and processed within 12
hours of submission if provided with a valid explanation.
•Barracuda Reputation System honors domains registered at EMAILReg.org.
If you want to avoid email with your domain and IP being inadvertently
blocked, you can register your domain at EMAILReg.org.
==============================

Another note, to clarify. I have come across these guys before & an
email address that I use has been successfully whitelisted.
Hence my confidence that the "ISP IP address" being used hits the
barracuda block, but emails sent from the same ISP IP that match their
"mail" whitelist pass!

Has the world gone potty?

Guy


-----Original Message-----
From: vlc-devel-bounces at videolan.org
[mailto:vlc-devel-bounces at videolan.org] On Behalf Of Rémi Denis-Courmont
Sent: 04 May 2012 12:24
To: Mailing list for VLC media player developers
Subject: Re: [vlc-devel] Killing the user mailing list


On Fri, 4 May 2012 12:19:38 +0200, Jean-Baptiste Kempf <jb at videolan.org>
wrote:
> On Fri, May 04, 2012 at 12:14:43PM +0200, Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote :
>> So I accidentally got my mail box to receive vlc at v.o emails again. I 
>> am quite surprised that this mailing list is still open. It made 
>> sense before the web fora were created. But now I don't see its 
>> point.
> 
> See 
> http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/vlc/2012-February/020627.html
> and the subsequent mails.

The points made there are rather silly.

You can be much closer to anonymity on the forum (only VideoLAN and
French authorities can get your IP address) than on a mailing list (all
the From: fields are sent to everyone).

Archiving is also much crappier on the mailing list.

And false positive spam filtering is also an issue for both.

But the main point is,  people waste their time posting to the mailing
list since there are far fewer volunteers answering there. In
particular, those who opposed the closure do not seem to be very
actively answering questions.


We cannot complain that support is a mess if we do not even try to
simplify and fix it. I shall ignore that argument if it's ever made
again then.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
Sent from my collocated server
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