Sandboxie Does Hidden Online Validation?

Dear Tzuk,

2 weeks ago I registered Sandboxie as I think it is one the best applications to have nowadays. Like with everything in life some people won't like it, that shouldn't concern you as I'm sure if one did a survey/poll here at Wilders about the most popular security program ever, Sandboxie would win with a large margin.

 

Contradict yourself much?

I admittedly do not recall if I had any such popup, if I did, I most likely moved swiftly passed it. Thank you for explaining.

I'm sure all the Sandboxie fans would love that after having their favourite software criticized.

Yet I've still not mentioned anything about you personally other that my first post, you repeat that I am "slandering your character". Err no, I'm following up claims of hidden validation in your software, what does that have to do with your character?

Maybe you're right, we should silence everyone that tries to criticize software, wrong or not, like we do here right?

No software is immune to scrutiny, whether it turns out to be correct or incorrect.

edit: I'm not the only one scrutinizing your software here, yet I love how you place all the blame on me.

 

I'm a registered Sandboxie user of several years and consider that program to be the top gun in my modest anti-malware arsenal. Overall, my experience in their forum has been positive. However, to be honest, I believe some (not all) of their regular posters - including tzuk - occasionally show a bit of impatience and curtness to newbies or to others who are struggling with understanding certain aspects of the program.

Has elapsed been on the receiving end of a curt response and has that contributed to his attitude? I don't know. But it's wrong for him to make exceptionally strong drive-by statements ("hatred towards the author") and then refuse to explain himself when tzuk asks why he feels that way*.

* (tzuk) "elapsed, did I do something to you personally that you need to assume the worst about me and adopt a "guilty until proven innocent" attitude?"
(elapsed) "Yes. But that's not for debate in this thread."

 

Mods (Cudni or LowWaterMark): Time to put a fork in it and close/lock this thread.

 

I think it is ok to" criticize software", we get to see both sides of a coin and learn but personal attacks ,and fan boy attitude leads to only pointless arguing.
Unless we have something solid that can prove Tzuk is wrong we will have to go with Quote: "I already said on this thread that there is no hidden validation or activation or whatever" and move on .

 

I don't think there was any display of fanboy behaviour here. The various refutations (or refudiations (Sarah Palin)) were quite informative and Tzuk has the right to defend himself.

 

OK, I did a simple test with wireshark.

1. Close my browser
2. Close and exit sandboxie
3. Ran live capture with wireshark
4. Open Sandboxie Control Panel
5. Open Firefox sandboxed

For more than 1 hour, there was no connection to sandboxie ip address 67.227.172.122 . (or the one indicated by Sully).

I'm not a pro and I believe Tzuk's explanation and what other experts have said here. My simple test reinforce that sandboxie does not call home.

Mod, pls close this thread.

 

Nobody wants a program to do things behind thier back.

Is it "spying" if a program does a check to make sure you are not using an illegal key?

Is it wrong for a programmer to seek to not let pirates diminish his income?

Do you believe the author when he says none of this is happening?

Are you such a fanboy that you will dis-credit a possible issue without testing?

Are you such an anti-fanboy you will credit questionable issues without testing?

This could have been a different thread all-together if it had started something like this:

Whoa! Mark.Eleven already did exactly what I had just written. Wierd.

Sul.

 

That's what you should had did before starting this thread.

Also, and it's something I forgot to mention before, if Sandboxie was in fact calling home, then I'm pretty sure someone else would have noticed that behavior, like respectable sources.

Now, all this hype for nothing, is just insane. One cannot state that some person using a hacked version is not to trust, nor can't one say the developer is someone to trust.
When you wish to use a certain application, read quite a few reviews from respectable sources and see what they're saying.
And, if you see certain claims, whether they come from respectable or non-respectable sites, try to check them for yourself and see what comes out. Then ask others to check it out too. Or, if you don't know how to check it out, ask others to do it.

I do understand the reason why you started such thread. I'm not targeting you. I'm targeting in general.

This isn't the first time people discuss this sort of situation or similar, and that some like to discuss it and others, that for some reason just love too much the application/service, won't like it.
The best approach is a healthy discussion.
I haven't seen anyone targeting anyone in this thread. All I've seen was a healthy discussion and, in my concern, that's always welcome.

Please, take in consideration that I'm not taking any sides.

Anyway, I don't think there's anything else to add to this, as you've stated.

 

mark.eleven: Thanks for doing the test and sharing the result.

Case closed.

elapsed: In the time you needed to write everything you wrote in this thread you would have had time to do the same test at least 3 times, so in my opinion you never had the intention to refute or prove anything, you just pretended to discuss with the hands empty.

 

I wasn't the person that brought forth the evidence, how could I debate with anything other than that? Then even more evidence was brought forth, it was more than enough to start a debate over. Should everyone that reads anything online double-check all evidence that's brought forth? If that was the case, no one would believe anything they read until they tested it themselves. Somehow that's not how it works, there's an element of trust involved behind who's bringing forth the evidence, and who's protesting against it.

None-the-less I agree with Sully and m00nbl00d.

 

Sometimes it´s not easy to check or verify something due it requires a technical skill that not everybody have, but this is not the case. Anyone can easily check if Sandboxie calls home or not.

mark.eleven made a question:

And you replied like that was a fact instead checking the information:

You have almost 3,000 posts in this forum but for me your level (personal and technical) is null.

Didn´t you learn anything from this forum since 2004, when you joined?

 

Thanks for turning this thread into a thread about me. Why do debates on this forum always have to end with personal insults? Seriously?

Sully joined in 2005 and brought forth evidence that Sandboxie was accessing the sandboxie domain.

M00nbl00d also voiced his/her opinion, and even though he/she hasn't been a forum member for very long, has a lot of posts.

Does that mean they also know nothing? This thread is turning into rubbish.

 

Internet forums have a history of "flaming". There are many reasons why we flame, impotence and disenfranchisement in "real" life, educational and real poverty, pride,"ego",clique cultures developing within forums, "us" and "them","have and have not" "tech" and "in the know" against"newbie"; Snobbishness and oneupmanship are commonly found. Our Internet "voice" is sometimes the only voice we have and a lot "hangs" on that fragile persona and we are are offended easily by "perceived" "slights" and "sloppy" "offhand" or (unnecessarily) "sharp" "terse" "language" "casually" dispensed at a frustrating "distance"
The internet is not generally a face to face environment and people can get into the habit of "saying" things with little fear of consequence.
I believe that perceptions of "power" and "no power", inequalities, divisions between us drive the fear and the anger that are at the root of this problem.

 

LOL, thanks .I just remembered my English teacher late Mr.smith from high school.

 

You turned a question into an affirmation without affording any evidence to sustain it and additionally you expressed personal feelings. That explains why the thread, instead being a technical discussion as it should have been from the beginning, turned into something personal.

So now don´t complain if the thread is personal. You´re the responsible of that.

 

You gotta be kidding! In your very first post in this thread you used the word "hatred" and started the personal insults trying to turn this thread into a thread about tzuk.

Acadia

 

Thanks for the irrelevant psychology lesson there. Okay, it's time to kill this before it goes further.

@Elapsed: So far the original link posted hasn't really proved anything, and you're just digging yourself in further by answering these posts criticizing and, in a few cases, insulting you. Let it go, Funky. If in the future something is weird about the program, somebody somewhere WILL find it, believe me.

@Tzuk: You almost sound like you're demanding the moderators force him to apologize to you. I don't think so, you're a big boy I'm sure, you can handle this. One person took a single post on the internet a bit too seriously too quickly, that's all that happened here. Nobody insulted your mother or your dog, so chill out and move on. You made your point, obviously the majority of this forum has your back, whether fanboy-ish of them or not. Nobody owes you an apology, the poster didn't go to FoxNews, PCWorld, or somewhere like that and make an accusation.

@The rest of you: It isn't your battle, and the battle is pretty much over anyway since nothing, so far, was found. You don't need to chime in with your insults and "you need to learn" comments, or anything else. Those that investigated the matter, thank you, more expertise was needed to see just what, if anything was going on. Now, can we end this?

 

Acadia: Hypocrisy.

 

I sell advises but for me I don´t have.

 

Every since I started using Sandboxie, I have used it together with COMODO Firewall, which as most of everyone knows uses Default-Deny, I have mine set to Custom Policy Mode which will deny EVERYTHING that I have not reviewed first, or is not in my policy. I have never, not even once, seen "Sandboxie" in any popup whatsoever.

I see no more point to the thread, the author has said what can be said to dismiss these claims, members have spent time testing this to dismiss it as well. Further posting will only hurt everyone's reputation, if there is something more personal behind this, it should be handled in a [P]ersonal [M]essage.

 

Having read all the posts, I will advise elapsed to take a few steps back and reflect on his attitude when posting the comments he had put up here.

We can argue and debate here intellectually using facts based points and even agree to disagree on many issues but running a personal agenda is clearly a NO.

I hope you will now have the decency to do the right things to put things right.

 

This thread is typical of many here. It was not concieved as a technical thread, thus it recieved answers based on opinion. Whether the opinions are one-sided and biased or smack in the middle and shooting for some common sense is a moot point.

Had the OP started with his later "test bed" it would likely have evolved around tests and comparisons.

Name calling and throwing out biased opinions is typical. Not everyone online attempts to maintain neutrality. That is the way it is.

I suggest those interested in these types of threads refrain from slinging thier pure opinions unless they expect to recieve the same in return.

The facts are simple here, as LowWaterMark has already pointed out. Simple tests can show whether or not Sandboxie is guilty of any activity deemed as "spying". The author has said it does not, and those who have gone to the effort of actually testing it have agreed. You can take "thier" word, or not. If not, you can either choose to test it yourself or live with your pure "opinion". I did not pull that ip address out of thin air, and I also did not state Sandboxie was doing anything nefarious. It is just a fact that it does contact home, and Tzuk has been forthright in telling us why. It took all of 5 minutes to verify that he is not hiding anything.

If people here rely on others for thier knowledge, they should examine the data before passing judgement. If people here are sharing thier knowledge, they should attempt to disclose thier knowledge based on facts not opinions.

This is an interesting thread to learn from, as it exposes many facets of what can make a thread totally lose it purpose and how peoples differing ways of expressing themselves in this type of environment can either ruffle feathers (perhaps inadvertantly) or be misconstrued to a meaning not originally intended.

The case is closed in my opinion.

Sul.