SiteAdvisor -- strange

The volume of rogue infections for the past couple of years was incredibly high in my local area, setting them up with Wot really helped these people to avoid potentially dangerous websites. Which mounted to lot less work for computer technicians but increased loyalty.

So I believe in site ratings, and the potential it has. I personally been using Wot for awhile now, and I haven’t noticed any issues with it this far, but If I do, It’s definitely worth contacting Wot in good faith that they’ll promptly respond and address the true false positive.

No question about it, we rather NOT see any false positives in the first place, but this is a far from perfect world we living in. When a product has good intentions, and potential, and I’m using their product, I’m willing on providing a moment of my time and report any bugs and false positives that I observe, up until I don’t see the expected end results.

Now McAfee SiteAdvisor, I sent out a very detailed e-mail on the 19th, and still no response back, nor wanted end results.

 

Just when I thought that rating an ALL GREEN EVERYWHERE site as RED/DANGEROUS was the extent of their damage, they now block ALL EMAILS from bitsum.com to SiteAdvisor and Mcaffee support. That's right, they bounce right back. It isn't like I harrassed them. I was polite, asked for their help in correcting these matters. I was less polite with the McAfee Secure team, but who cares how polite I was to those who make unsolicited calls to me to sell me certification that costs thousands, then suddenly I have all these problems when I finally say NO.

I am prepping a formal FTC complaint and need other stories. I don't think any eclipses my own, where a fully green site (in every way, by their own scans) is rated RED shortly after I refuse to pay for their certification, but cases of injustice should be reported to me so I can include you in this complaint. Other actions are also going on I can't mention.

REMEMBER, THERE WAS NO FALSE POSITIVE THAT CAUSED THIS PROBLEM. IT JUST WENT RED. NO FILES ARE RED. NO LINKS ARE RED. NO REVIEWS ARE RED.

 

For the error message why it bounced back, can we see just this error message?

 

The ENTIRE message most recently rejected follows, including my contents
Note this first started after I emailed my McAfee Secure contact. Later that day, I sent a second email and it bounced. This one is from SiteAdvisor support though. Their server rejects it as disallowed.
Please note: I use Google gmail, but send from bitsum.com
------------------------------------------------------------

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

support@siteadvisor.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 Denied by policy (state 1. [EDIT: That is eighteen, not a smiley)

----- Original message -----

MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.227.177.10 with SMTP id bg10mr3310887wbb.148.1295807908175;
Sun, 23 Jan 2011 10:38:28 -0800 (PST)
Sender: jeremy.collake@gmail.com
Received: by 10.227.8.152 with HTTP; Sun, 23 Jan 2011 10:38:28 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <1295766527.4d3bd3ff30edd@dmz-cerberus-1.sa-cluster>
References: <201101220140.p0M1evmZ002813@dalsadoss2.prod.mcafee.com>
<1295766527.4d3bd3ff30edd@dmz-cerberus-1.sa-cluster>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:38:28 -0500
X-Google-Sender-Auth: M8spaCwMq8_bNj1q1LJM7HrLVXs
Message-ID: <AANLkTikAXD=D5nAexfFVLfPXh4bK83iTsCfJDeppaRnn@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Ticket ID #YEJ-31169-461] Invalid/mistaken RED rating
From: Jeremy Collake <jeremy@bitsum.com>
To: McAfee SiteAdvisor Support <support@siteadvisor.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=00248c0eefcc105ec4049a87cabb
- Hide quoted text -

Hi,

I will be patient. Please note that I was previously called by Mcafee Secure
to get certification, and all these problems happened after I finally said
No. I don't know if this is a coincidence or not, but it is all I can think
of given that, as you see, EVERY download is rated GREEN, EVERY link is
rated GREEN, and the sole user review is from a 9/9 ranked review and it,
too, is GREEN. Yet the site is RED. I dunno.

Again - ProcessLasso.com --
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/processlasso.com

I act with the strictest ethical guidelines. Please do correct this apparent
misunderstanding as soon as possible. My reputation, which I've built up
over 10 years, eclipses your own, so in many ways correcting this improper
rating 'fixes' your legitimacy too, as I am well known in the 'techie'
community, and right now they are stunned (yes, this issue has already
picked up media traction, though I am trying to slow that to give you a
chance to fix it).
<http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/processlasso.com>
Thank you,
Jeremy Collake
Bitsum Technologies

 

lol! That proves it then. to McAfee

 

And I THANK you ALL for giving me your time and attention. We all have our problems, and I am glad to see there are those out there willing to help others.. With that attitude we can 'come back' as a society, IMHO

I posted on Site Advisor's own forums now, their own community is scratching their heads... and I haven't even told half the story.

 

But why would a security company accept email from an address associated with a known malicious site? Do they have a page for spam block list? You better check.

 

What you saying don’t make any since, McAfee SiteAdvisor provides e-mail to be used if your site was wrongly rated.

 

Let us hope it does not make sense.

 

“McAfee welcomes feedback about its site ratings and encourages site owners to contact us ...” -

If they going to be black listing flagged domains by their e-mail servers, you’d think they be smart enough to mention this little detail. So the honest people won’t be wasting their time, trying to e-mail and dispute the site ratings giving.

I know my website been in the SiteAdvisor Red Zone for longer than a couple of years now, I now for the first time sent a e-mail to them disputing the site rating giving, this was on the 19th. It was obvious that my domain wasn’t black listed at that time, because I promptly received an automatic e-mail response from them. But I never received anything additional since, and no changes to the false site rating.

So what happened to jcollake, they manually set the policy to have him blacklisted from further contacts.

 

Was actually a joke but then again... If their system is completely messed up who knows. There is no logic to site being red either, or is it green, red, green, red.

 

So now they are digging in my past and they find PEBundle.. it scans safe by McAfee, *IS* safe, but they see the word 'bundle'. Now, this utility is like VMWare's ThinApp or MoleBox, it bundles a single application with its dependencies. So, there is some misunderstanding. Sadly, there are a couple false positives too, of this product I discontinued long ago. It being an EXE manipulation tool, such things are expected.. especially since it has been off the market.

HOWEVER, McAfee is NOT one of the false positives, and you'll see the rating of that file is GREEN. So, it does NOT explain my site's RED rating.. though may give them some excuse, lol.

I dunno, they are really digging... I guess checking me out, but come on. Just do the right thing. I fear my attempt to get them to do so will cause further harm.

 

There is logic. $$$$

 

... And I have proof previous emails got through, they added the block after I asked for an explanation. Them responding to those previous emails proves this. Also, I emailed from a GREEN domain.

 

Federal Trade Commission Complaint

Look, I am going to be straight up, I am going to first make a complaint to the FTC over this issue. I don't have a lawyer (yet). I likely will soon though. First things first, and I am being advised, so I guess I sort of do have a lawyer in a way. This is going all the way.

I have to get all my ducks in a row. Note that if McAfee would simply cease and decist in their defamation campaign against me and others, then this wouldn't be as much a problem. However, unlike other sites, once I get my personal problem fixed (as I did years ago), I am not turning the other cheek and chalking it up to a bizarre mistake. This is twice now. I am battling on behalf of ALL THOSE affected by SiteAdvisor. I'd MUCH rather be coding, but McAfee leaves me no choice.

Again, for involvement in FTC actions email jeremy@bitsum.com. Please note I only will take people with false positives or misunderstandings not fixed in a timely manner. I need to show a pattern of negligent behavior regarding improper site ratings. I mean, how many sites were improperly rated RED for a month or more? Most anti-virus false alarms are fixed within 24 hours because they realize the importance of them. A whole site advisory to 350 million+ users is even worse, and so requires MORE attention.. not less.

There is no money in this, only bills and lost sales. I may at some point call for donations to help with expenses, but will foot everything I can. I don't care if it takes everything I have. I will battle them to my grave. Nobody calls me a scammer, nobody. All I have is my integrity. That's it. Without it, I am nothing.

Any McAfee representative who wishes to simply discuss a change in their POLICIES so that they GET THINGS RIGHT is also welcome to contact me. If FTC action isn't necessary to make changes, then I won't do it. If it is, then I'll do it. Simple as that. The changes I ask for are not for me, but for the broader community. Someone has to stand up and really care about businesses hurt every week by this crap.

 

To update everyone, now both sites are GREEN after a hard fought battle. It is at this point that so far EVERYONE says 'thank God', and moves on.. hoping to not be victimized again. I've been victimized twice, so no more of that. So, I am going to continue on behalf of other sites victimized. There are several web ratings sites, and I've only had troubles with SiteAdvisor. Their business practices MUST be changed by themselves, or the FTC will do it for them.

It appears, from the posts, that the person who finally fixed the problem was the person not associated at all with SiteAdvisor (according to him). This person, the owner of the bot that first defamed bitsum.com. Yea, not affiliated, but lotsa power I guess . I do not know if he realizes he is taking all the risk of defamation lawsuits. Say a company goes out of business before even realizing they were put out of business by a false positive at SiteAdvisor... because of your automated bot that uses IPs (which don't account for colocated servers at all, afaik).. What then? SiteAdvisor would throw their hands up and say "Not us", it was our "Reviewers". The 'Reviewer' would say, 'not me, it was my bot.. '. Sadly, the latter defense wouldn't hold much water.

If you wish to support me in my efforts to get SiteAdvisor to reconsider their policies and agree to a totally new rating system that is 1/100, instead of GREEN or RED (they don't seem to use YELLOW much), and that mandates any reviewers using automated tools be non-anonymous, then please comment at my blog so I know I have support: http://bitsum.blogspot.com/2011/01/processlassocom-now-properly-rated.html

Also, I have limited time, so need help of all types... donations of time or skills are appreciated... or hosting.. whatever.

 

Apparently FPs and FTC is not new to SiteAdvisor. Check this interview with the guy who founded SiteAdvisor and later sold it to Mcafee. http://mixergy.com/siteadvisor-chris-dixon-interview/

 

The founder is now somewhat eccentric, and not so involved since he sold off that malfuctional piece of crap. McAfee was not bad back when he founded it, but now it is more greedy than usual corporation with a terrible company culture.

Edit.. Later I saw it was the siteadvisor founder previous poster responded to.

 

I’m still waiting for a response to the e-mail I had sent off to McAfee SiteAdvisor on the 19th, I knew It would be a complete waste of my time to e-mail them and dispute the false rating.

 

They might respond, some day, but in both my incidents other channels were much more effective. I took them ALL.

 

I also put that other old red flagged file (no changes, same file hash and everything) back up on the server, the one which supposedly to be ‘Generic trojan,Artemis’. I want them to fully clear me of ALL falsely detected files on my domain ... but I guess that is asking to much?

 

Hey, it isn't like they would hire more people just to stop defamation of businesses more expiediently.. (sarcasm).

 

And you should restore that file, it takes less time to fix a false, positive if they can rescan it.

 

That's what I said.

There is two red flaggings, one file I still had up, the other I removed but now I have it back up on the server.

 

They can simply re-scan it, but the file is still flagged by their engines, plus several other used engines shown on VirusTotal page http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan...5d8309698b853c6ccf8979dda4e339fbab-1263981303


That was the installer file, I extracted and ran the same test on the main application file, had pretty much similar results.