HandsOff
February 22nd, 2004, 04:02 PM
Hey -
I have Norton Personal Firewall 2003. I have it configured NOT to automatically configure access for "safe" programs. Instead got to manually configure by having NPF scan for internet enabled programs, and then i go down the list and make sure only the few programs that need to access the internet are allowed to do so automatically.
If i have one complaint about NPF it is that it is quirky about granting programs automatic updates. I assumed I must be doing something wrong, perhaps doing an update, which was considered an installation granting the program rights to automatic internet connects, who knows, i didn't. Then I notices something very disturbing. (First let me just say that i do not give ANY of my programs the ability to automatically update. Not XP, not anti-virus, nothing!) I use Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0, but there is an Adobe Acrobat 4.0 listed, and it had access. Normally i would reset the access to "Block All", but in this case since i assumed the program was not on my machine at all i chose "Remove From List"...well it was back again today. In itself this is trivial but it opened my mind to the unpleasant thought that perhaps the programs that i was setting access for did not corrospond to the list. That i was granting access to one program when i thought i was to another.
Sound crazy? There is more. One of the programs that was granted "Automatic Access" to the internet was listed as
"SYMANTEC NORTON WEB SERVICES",
Yet, i could read its little yellow dialog pop up balloon (metatag?) and it said:
"C\PROGRAM FILES\321 STUDIOS\PCSETUP.EXE"
I quickly found others that did not match! I was sure it was a mistake, so i performed this test: I went to C\PROGRAM FILES\321 STUDIOS\PCSETUP.EXE and I removed pcsetup.exe and put it in a new directory called "Ed Norton Works Here" and did another scan for internet enabled programs. Result: SYMANTEC NORTON WEB SERVICES is listed again, as expected....only now the metatage lists its location as the new folder "Ed Norton Works Here".
My conclusion, and I hope I am wrong, is that NPF is easily fooled into misidentifying programs that are being configured for internet access. Either that, or it is common knowledge that you need to check the metatags and what not, and I am just uniformed. Still, I have to believe that many others have being making some dicisions based on false information, not just me. I feel this is important, but now i am asking you? Should people be aware of this?
-HandsOff
I have Norton Personal Firewall 2003. I have it configured NOT to automatically configure access for "safe" programs. Instead got to manually configure by having NPF scan for internet enabled programs, and then i go down the list and make sure only the few programs that need to access the internet are allowed to do so automatically.
If i have one complaint about NPF it is that it is quirky about granting programs automatic updates. I assumed I must be doing something wrong, perhaps doing an update, which was considered an installation granting the program rights to automatic internet connects, who knows, i didn't. Then I notices something very disturbing. (First let me just say that i do not give ANY of my programs the ability to automatically update. Not XP, not anti-virus, nothing!) I use Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0, but there is an Adobe Acrobat 4.0 listed, and it had access. Normally i would reset the access to "Block All", but in this case since i assumed the program was not on my machine at all i chose "Remove From List"...well it was back again today. In itself this is trivial but it opened my mind to the unpleasant thought that perhaps the programs that i was setting access for did not corrospond to the list. That i was granting access to one program when i thought i was to another.
Sound crazy? There is more. One of the programs that was granted "Automatic Access" to the internet was listed as
"SYMANTEC NORTON WEB SERVICES",
Yet, i could read its little yellow dialog pop up balloon (metatag?) and it said:
"C\PROGRAM FILES\321 STUDIOS\PCSETUP.EXE"
I quickly found others that did not match! I was sure it was a mistake, so i performed this test: I went to C\PROGRAM FILES\321 STUDIOS\PCSETUP.EXE and I removed pcsetup.exe and put it in a new directory called "Ed Norton Works Here" and did another scan for internet enabled programs. Result: SYMANTEC NORTON WEB SERVICES is listed again, as expected....only now the metatage lists its location as the new folder "Ed Norton Works Here".
My conclusion, and I hope I am wrong, is that NPF is easily fooled into misidentifying programs that are being configured for internet access. Either that, or it is common knowledge that you need to check the metatags and what not, and I am just uniformed. Still, I have to believe that many others have being making some dicisions based on false information, not just me. I feel this is important, but now i am asking you? Should people be aware of this?
-HandsOff