Blue Security Throws In The Towel

"At the end of the day if we continue doing so, within a few days, major websites will go down. I cannot go ahead and rip up the internet to make Blue Security work." - Blue Security's CEO, Eran Reshef

Found this story on Digg today. Really interesting for the following reasons:

1. there are means to fight spam and they seem to hurt big spammers

2. big spammers are powerful enough to wage a war to protect their "business" (and I don't quite understand the business model)

3. the venture capital fund supporting the start-up supported their decision to protect the Internet (so much for greedy capitalists able to do anything to succeed)

4. techies working for spammers seem to be quite competent - question is are they too competent and organized to be just a collection of individuals? If there are organizations generating spam traffic, who are the direct and indirect beneficiaries of such activity? At a time when there is talk about making people pay for outgoing emails and talk about how the government should do (even) more for our security, it's a question worth asking for (still) free citizens

5. a protectionist and xenophobic argument used by Anne P. Mitchel of the Institute for Spam and Public Policy to make a point against Blue Security claiming their practice breaks the law (when a lawyer and former advisor to President Clinton cleared th e model) and I am quoting: ""They don't care because they are sitting in Israel." This type of lines of argumentation sends shivers down my spine because it reminds me of the 1930's when everything alien was suspect (not particularly in the US but in many European countries). Who wants the neo-nazis of any nationality back in power? Unless of course they already are in power in some parts of our world...

Anyway, I just wanted to praise the attitude of Blue Security and their venture investors. I also want to use this "case" as a message to some of my customers who are sometimes anxious about the relevance of letting investors in when in fact they do need the funds to achieve their full potential. It boils down to selecting decent investors (yes there are decent people dealing with money unlike what some cultures lead to believe) and then preparing the negotiation properly.



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