Comodo Aquires BoClean!

There have been a few posters that seem to be unaware of the history as to why BOClean was originally released. And even for those that are, here's a few refreshers.

August 17, 1998

Back Orifice threat: Getting caught in the digital crossfire

http://www.everythingcomputers.com/1998 Columns/August/august_17_1998_column.htm

Cult of the Dead Cow responds to Microsoft about Back Orifice

This is our response to Microsoft's damage control statement of 1998-Aug-04.

(Extract from the CDC article)

"Microsoft has repeatedly shown little interest when contacted about security holes in their products in the past. In general, they have needed to have their noses rubbed in it before acknowledging any problems."

http://www.cultdeadcow.com/tools/bo_msrebuttal.php

(That was written going on for 10 years ago, and wouldn't be so out of place if written today)


StevieO

 

Kevin and Nancy even though having never even tried BoClean myself (shame on me ) your efforts were also echoed thoughout the land & masses time and again by reports from users who you couldn't dissuade from this superior product even if it fell out from their machine into their lap. That speaks immense volumes to both of yours character and most of all your sincere concerns to the users, of that there is absolutely no denying whatsoever. And most all the replies pouring into this Topic bear out that both of you and especially Nancy have established your place in the IT world as well as in the hearts of everyone that what you have accomplished is indeed Legendary in nature. I now rest these comments with that FACT!

THANK YOU!

 

There are still a few of us out here: handshake is a contract as far as I'm concerned. Hah: drives my lawyer to tears.
You can work for/with me any time

Hey careful: we're not that old. I'm off on a surfing trip in the Maldives with a couple of other silly old dynosaurs next month

Look at what;s just happened. It was always there, you just had to be true to your background (even to your own detriment; in my books that is honorable)

( Read about the other type of spivs in the white colour crime pages.)

Then, sometimes, good things do happen to good people.
OK no doubt I've done my quota in this thread.

Roll on Version5.

 

Hi StevieO,

The oldies here know

 

Just looking at the number of views to this week old thread one can tell there are a lot of hot little hands being gleefully rubed together waiting on their FREE copy of BoClean.Pity so few supported it when needed.I would say that the fight between M$ and PSC was a 50/50 split.PSC closed for M$ side yet BoClean lives on to bigger and better things for Kevin and Nancy.Keep up the good fight Kevin.

 

I would imagine that there are many in this forum like myself that are unaware of the history and that are simply excited to have a chance to finally try this product for free. I feel like I possibly do not understand the issues as I would think that the developers would be happy to sell and to finally have access to more resources and to finally end the struggle which seems to have consumerd much of their lives. Small business and working for yourself isn't always what people think it is. The way I see it, this could be a new beginning for Boclean, the start of the next chapter of the product's life cycle rather than the end.

Am I missing the issues?

 

Yeah....all of those people too cheap to purchase BOClean in the past are now jumping up and down demanding their free copy. If they had only purchased BOClean in the past (instead of living off of handouts) maybe Kevin & Nancy wouldn't have had to sell.

JD - thankful for having purchased BOClean years ago.

 

Well, this is the first time I have ever heard the consumer being blamed for the failure of a product to sell. In general, if your product isn't selling, it is because the company has failed in some way. You either didn't market the product properly, didn't price it properly, or didn't produce a quality product that people want to buy. If blame must be assigned, I cannot blame the consumer.

In this case, even though I haven't yet tried Boclean, I do think it is a good product. I personally chose not to try the product because it did not offer a trial period. My guess is that many others were the same. That is the norm for security software. For whatever reason, the product was not sold in this fashion and I personally think they missed out on a lot of potential sales.

Would that have been enough to keep them up and running? Who knows? I can really and truly only speak for myself as to why I did not buy it. I would have tried the product with a free trial. Years ago I got a free trial to counterspy and bought it. I got a free trial to Spysweeper and bought it. I even got PC Tools to give me a free trial of Spyware Doctor and bought it. The only security product that I did not purchse after the free trial was Ewido and that was because it slowed down my machine.

Anyway, that's just my $.02 worth. I sincerly hope that the developers got paid well. They certainly put a ton of effort into Boclean.

 

I think consumers should be blamed when good companies go out of business. You never see the biggest company have the best products, all they do is make themselves look good so consumers will go for their products. Leaving less business for the smaller companies with products that are actually good.

 

Common, lets be serious. Blaming consumers, rubing hands for a freebie, etc.

Except for some posts here and there, saying that BOClean was good, i never saw anything that made me buy. That's the end of the story.

Also, have i known what was the company like (not talking about financial dificulties), i already said, i probably would have payed for it. It was a man and his wife, and a small company "family". I relate to that, and i also trust more in companies like that. Things are done better also.
I did not know. I did not buy. It's now freeware. I will try it out. Thank you Melih. Thank you Kevin and Nancy.

 

Probably the reasons no one used BoClean very much (Besides a few concerned with Security Like Wilders members) was there was no Trial. Who was going to pay for something & install on reputation. It was also a small company & a relatively unknown application. It did not scan in the traditional sense. I'm sure it was not everyones cup of tea. People understand what a traditional scanner does but would they understand what BoClean does? I guess it scans files in memory (correct me if Im wrong) I've also never seen it for sale in retail outlets so there was really no great efforts made to promote it . I'm sure it sold by word of mouth & reputation. I predict that when all those who really want this product for free when comodo releases it quite a few will be unsure that they really want it. I have many unanswered questions like if you do have preexisting malware will BoClean catch this or do you need an on board scanner? Does it work with your antivirus & other security applications which may also scan memory? Times change small security companies like BoClean just do not usually survive forever. I think we are all lucky it just did not disappear.

 

If anyone is to blame it is the malware writers these days. Their greed is
causing more economic problems then most want to admit. This is causing the
small security companies to fall out. Like Kevin said, it becomes overwhelming trying to keep up with maleware now days and FREE WARE. BoClean is and always will be the only security on my machines as long as Kevin still controls it, weather he is working alone of for someone else. I found in my old 50's age it is easier to work for someone else if you enjoy that job. There are much less headaches.
In my mind there never has been a company that gave better support.
I think you made the right choice as apposed to just disappearing like DCS did.
I am sorry to hear you were going through so much troubled times the past years and hope things go well for you now that you have more free time.
Life is definitely short as we old timers realize more every day.
Good luck to you Kevin & Nancy and the Comodo Team.
Forget my earlier Symantec statement LOL

Bruce

 

The question Woody is do we really need a slow file scanner when everything that runs is running by use of and in memory?

I am wonder about something though. If Vista was the finial nail for Boclean, what is different now? Vista is still here. Does this mean you will need to write totally different code for Vista to be compatible with Vista or is there no code that will work right on Vista?


Bruce

 

Woody,read post #60 of this thread and you will learn why there was no free trial of BoClean.That is one of the main reasons I bought the program years ago on faith,rep or whatever you call it.Damn glad I did by the way.
ps. I wish the hand rubbing would stop it's causing my computer to heatup,lol.

 

While not Woody, I will attempt to provide an answer here...

For signature-based security (anti-virus, anti-trojan, etc) a file scanner is most definitely desireable, and BOClean has always been marketed as a supplement, not a replacement for anti-virus software.

The reason is that file-scanners get to check a program before it starts running. Memory scanners check it as it actually runs - so can only work if they identify malware before it does any real damage.

Kevin's past argument about packers and encryptors causing problems for file scanners is most certainly a valid one. However a memory scanner is not a 100%-sure solution since it has to be able to intervene at exactly the right moment (after malware has unpacked/decrypted but before it does anything else) and a skilled malware author could certainly exploit this.

BOClean itself will detect Steve Gibson's Leaktest so subscribers can use this as a test (my experience has been somewhat inconsistent in that it will usually pick it up immediately on the first run, but often does so too late on subsequent ones).

Another point to consider - if BOClean is now free, malware authors will be able to examine it in more detail. PSC did "harden" it following Ntl's review (encrypting the signature database in particular) but if BOClean has any hidden faultlines, they are going to be more exposed now.

 

Points to be considered. Thanks Paranoid as always for posting your point of view as it always gives me something to think about.

 

4.11 review,bit old I would say.

 

Say one uses fw,strong av, strong as and strong hips, would it still make sense to add comodo boclean to this setup whilest it will lose one of the advantage u speak off?

I presume malware authors crack any software

 

I think It'll make it stronger.

 

Paranoid2000
Security Expert

I truly respect your comments. I still wonder if a file scanner can detect morphed files. If it does it becomes much slower.
I also know Boclean uses sigs even for mem scanning and if it don't have the sigs it don't catch it.
I also know with the gromozon thang there was only a few that sent urgent files to BOClean first.
I am thinking the best answer to todays infections is a great product that can find infections without Def's. This is where it is going today.
I am sure Kevin forgot to mention the privats of the new software to come out of this merger.
I am excited to be able to see it and would like to be one of the first to say
I WANT TO BETA TEST IT!!!
I truly hope you don't disrespect me for my ROOTKIT ranting in past years.
They are now a reality as you & I know.



Bruce

 

@Paranoid
well put

ntl alluded to the "secret' nature of BOClean coding because of the 'no trial' option adopted by PSC: lol I dont think he ever paid for a copy: he refused.
You are right that if the code is now freely available that some hackers will prolly pull it apart, especially if there are lots of Dls now it is free.

I recall some spirited discussions involving ntl and various vendors : I miss his biting comments and skill. He did put a lot of time in.

That review was 2004 with v4.11 and afair Kevin did respond and I dont think ntl ever did a formal review of V4.22 ??

Afaik that reallwas the only lab test of BOClean that I ever saw from "recently"

There was this from 2006: http://illusivesecurity.pytalhost.com/viewtopic.php?t=136
Look down the page, even while (as we now know when Kevin was in trouble) BOClean was developing, and that was V4.12.

there was some "toing and froing" here, That didn't really extend his test results.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=131785&highlight=cats.

Much of that thread is now somewhat irrelevant nowthat BoClean will be free

Heh: maybe ,.- will retest it as he can get a free dl under a nom de plume.

 

BOClean/PSC facts

I don't know if a lot of people realise this, but it was Nancy who set up and owned and ran the company day in day out from the beginning, and right up to it being sold. Kevin did the techy stuff, and Nancy handled everything else.

So they both deserve a lot of credit for all the've done over the ten years since it's inception.

Originally, and for many years, they had quite a number of corporate/governent clients which enabled them to survive and promote the business. But as has been recently explained, due to cutbacks etc these contracts were not renewed as they instead decided to just rely on an AV to try and protect them. False economy i know, and i wonder how many of them got infected due to their decisions !

Unfortunately due to the way PSC was set up, and for very good reasons so they couldn't be sued by the bad guys, they wern't able to offer a try before you buy option. This was a catch 22 situation which led to less people being able to install it and then spread the word around to everyone else. Not only that, but as they didn't and wouldn't charge for yearly updates as most other Anti companies do, they had to rely on new customers. Due to the previous explanations, this wasn't happening as often as it could have.

So i think Nancy deserves a lot more recognition for ALL she did, and also tried to do, on behalf of her customers throughout the years. And i certainly hope she was rewarded handsomely for all this by Comodo, because without her BOClean as we know it today, and a lot more peole will now be able to in the future, would not have existed at all !!!

Thank you Nancy, and of course not forgetting Kevin too,


StevieO

 

Re: BOClean/PSC facts

FWIW here is the other BOClean thread.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=169978

 

Re: BOClean/PSC facts

I didnt know this, if I would have I would have bought it because I hate this sick loophole that [not yet caught] criminals or big companies with resources use to make sure that they can do whatever they want.
tbh I thought that PSC only used the buy before you try concept to earn money on the fact that many users doesnt bother to get a refund. But reading all the comments about PSC I see that I was utterly wrong.

 

The part that I don't get is everyone assuming that this change will be for the worse. They still have Kevin and supposedly Kevin is now going to have more resources. I know that the trend is for products to go downhill after being purchased, but theis time very well could be different.

On some level, you gotta think that Kevin is releaved. He's been a slave to Boclean for how long? He might actually be abe to work normal hours now and still improve the program.

This really could be a win, win, win situation (Kevin wins, Comodo wins, and consumer wins). It will be interesting to hear the feedback from the people that presently use Boclean once Comodo-Boclean is released...