Symantec Labels Vicars' Software as Spyware 268
ukhackster writes "The curse of Norton Antivirus has struck again. This time, Britain's vicars have been hit. Norton mistook a legitimate file for a piece of spyware, and those who followed the instructions found that their sermon-writing application no longer worked. Norton was once an essential application. Is it turning into a joke?"
well... yes? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:well... yes? (Score:5, Informative)
so yes, norton is a joke and i would not recommend anyone purchase anything from symantec until they get their act together.
that being said, this is simply a mistake. it happens. mcafee had one that detected excel.exe as a virus.
Re:well... yes? (Score:3, Funny)
Guess what Norton Uses to update Norton Security? You guessed it!
Re:well... yes? (Score:3, Interesting)
I got my former employer to buy me a copy of NIS so I could help with problems they might have at work. I usually worked from home. I ended up switching to SAV 8/9/10 since I got a free copy as a student.
Re:well... yes? (Score:5, Insightful)
I like the small memory footprint, the timely updates, and the ease of interface. (hit it and forget it)
Is there a reason they are not to be trusted? (seriously... not being a smartass)
Re:well... yes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:well... yes? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:well... yes? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:well... yes? (Score:5, Interesting)
A client of mine had Norton 2003 on one of her machines and I attepted to get that sucker off so I could install Norton 2005. Hell no. Followed the crazy instructions on their website to the letter.
To this day, whenever they reboot the machine Norton 2003 asks them to register (which it then errors out on). Then Norton 2005 takes over.
(I would format the machine and reinstall, but there's a number of issues there that I won't get into, and the computer is only used a few hours a week.)
Re:well... yes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:well... yes? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:well... yes? (Score:4, Informative)
Notice in the article they only talk about anti-spyware in that people should have it and don't. They don't say they tested it.
Norton and McAfee's AV have been jokes for years. But malware isn't why.
Re:well... yes? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:well... yes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Kaspersky AntiVirus. [kaspersky.com] It's a small enough company that the malware writers don't test against it.
Re:well... yes? (Score:2)
turning into? (Score:5, Informative)
Its been a joke for quite a while now.
Re:turning into? (Score:3, Funny)
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Really? (Score:2)
Why am I afraid it really can?
Back in the day when total system memory was measured in single-digit/low two-digit MB ranges, there was a reason why emacs was known to stand for "Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping".
Cheers
Re:Really? (Score:2, Informative)
Bite thine tongue! For everyone knows that VI (specifically VIM) illuminates one's true path to salvation!
Re:Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
VI users don't preach, they just get the job done.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
I heard they tried to add that feature once but blood started pouring out of the PC speakers and all the text kept getting rewritten in demonic sanskrit. Apparently some incompatibility between the word of God and a Pure Evil OS. Works just fine in OpenOffice though!
Re:Really? (Score:2)
But not under BSD. Something to do with Daemons.
Re:Really? (Score:2)
You joke, but my parents, who recently updated from Works 2.x to Word whatever certainly didn't laugh when they realized that all their documents had indeed become incomprehensible.
I guess it says something about Microsoft when jokes like these bring back memories of actual events...
To be fair... (Score:3, Funny)
Works just fine in OpenOffice though! ;)
OpenOffice's equanimity is similarly unchanged if you do inserts from the Necronomicon. (User sanity is appreciably affected if you do, but not so much as merely caused by using MSWord.)
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn....
Re:Really? (Score:3, Informative)
A sermon-writing application? Word doesn't have a Insert->Scripture option?
Actually, on OS X you can add a Word->Services->Insert Scripture option by adding a service, and it should work in most of your other applications as well.
Re:Really? (Score:2)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Funny)
Word->Insert->Scripture->John->Chapter 3->Verse 16
Clippy:
"I'm sorry, I can't find that file. Would you like to:"
Cite the Koran
Cite the Book of Mormon
Cite the Rig Veda
Cite the Watchtower Bible
Cite the Book of Common Prayer
No matter what the user does next:
You have chosen The Road Ahead by Bill Gates
Re:Really? (Score:2)
sounds like it's doing a pretty good job to me... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:sounds like it's doing a pretty good job to (Score:4, Informative)
Re:sounds like it's doing a pretty good job to (Score:5, Informative)
Re:sounds like it's doing a pretty good job to (Score:2)
Re:sounds like it's doing a pretty good job to me. (Score:2)
Re:sounds like it's doing a pretty good job to me. (Score:5, Funny)
I'd buy two copies.
PlatePal (Score:5, Funny)
MOD UP, NOT DOWN (Score:2, Interesting)
Norton is an anti-virus program. It makes perfect sense that it should impead the effectiveness of the most long-lived and devastating virus of all time: religion [google.com].
Don't mod me down becuase you disagree with me. Post a response explaining why you think religion gets a bad rap and why you think it's such a huge benefit to mankind. Moderating me down so no one can read what I and paulsgre wrote is chickenshit. You're abusing the system. Mod down the "first post" and GNAA trolls; not someone who you disa
Re:MOD UP, NOT DOWN (Score:2)
once an essential application? (Score:5, Interesting)
An anecdotal Norton lifetime experience:
At one time I considered Norton an essential application/utility because I couldn't explain sufficiently to new computer owners why Norton (and McAffee, etc.) were unnecessary, evil, and just wrong for them. So, I'd always get their credit card number, hold my nose, and ante up their money for their peace of mind.
But after years of being called back and finding computer disarray on these "happy" users caused directly or indirectly by the intrusive "anti-virus" software suites such as Norton, I've switched tactics and now the very first thing I do when working on others' computer (with their permission of course) is uninstall any of the mainstream virus protection programs, download AVG free version and am done with it.
I've found since taking this approach virtually no call backs where any problems were created by AVG, with much happier friends and family who have at the same time saved themselves a couple of bucks.
Once an essential application Norton? Only in as much as Norton had been able to (and continues to) convince the world they are essential, not a hard task in the FUD universe that is Windows.
Re:once an essential application? (Score:4, Interesting)
Man, is this the truth. My dad runs Norton and I told him once that I thought that Norton caused more problems than it solves, but he trusts (sigh) Norton. Long story short, just last night as a personal favor I went over to help a retired guy I know who was having trouble with his PC. He also runs Norton and it sucks! He has some crazy Norton program running to warn him about "unsafe" web pages. I was trying to help him with access problems to an online account he had and all this program did was pop up a box on every single account page saying that "This page is unrated." and making him check off one of three boxes (basically - continue, don't go there, go there this time only) AND then enter a password. This is a retired guy who is 73 years old. I can't imagine living like this where you have to click on a box and give a password just to surf the web, but that's how he lives. He doesn't even question the logic of this. I really don't know if he is maybe protecting the PC for his 5 year old granddaughter (why not just not let the kid use it?) or if he thinks it will save him from accidentally going to a "bad" site (he is very religious, by the way).
I feel pretty strongly that friends don't let friends use Norton. I work in IT and I don't know anybody in my field who uses Norton at home. I agree that AVG is better than Norton AV. The only Norton product I like is Ghost.
Re:once an essential application? (Score:5, Informative)
Give ntfsclone [linux-ntfs.org] a try. Here's [alma.ch] a good tutorial on using it.
It's easily scriptable, and is great in conjuction with ms-sys [sf.net]. If you spend a few minutes customizing something like RIP [tux.org] you can have the restore completely automated.
As a plus, everything's GPL'd. No licesence fees.
IMHO, Unattended [sf.net] + WPKG [wpkg.org] is still the best option, though...
Re:once an essential application? (Score:2)
I completely agree (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree 100% (Score:2, Interesting)
An omen perhaps? (Score:2, Funny)
*ducks behind cliched fantasy story*
stupid nitpick, please ignore (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/mgun_vickers.ht
Yes, I realize it's a pun, but it would have worked either way, really.
Antivirus (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Antivirus (Score:3, Funny)
We'd like to thank you for your "If I don't know it's there, it must not be" attitude. We'll be seizing your assets now.
Sincerely,
Black Hat Pirates
Security Thru Sense of Security - NOT! (Score:2)
We'd like to thank you for your "I'm sure my antivirus software will warn me about EVERYTHING bad on my machine, like the advertisements tell me it will" attitude. It demonstrates that you apparently place waaaaay too much trust in antivirus software, especially the latest and not-so-greatest. Hopefully you'll get infected by something written by your own associates when Norton doesn't catch it, and that will get you off our backs.
Sincerely,
The Rest of Us
Re:Antivirus (Score:3)
I have no had 1 single issue of spyware, malware, or virus problems on my machine. I keep everything up-to-date and I know who, what, when, and where I'm downloading all my files from the internet.
An up-to-date Windows install running Firefox and anything but Outlook will protect you from the lion's share of what is out there. There have, however, been several zero day worms that do not involve user interaction that can quietly have their wicked way with your Windows box while it is sitting idle but con
Dawkins aproach... (Score:5, Funny)
I think the program may be working properly as designed.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Dawkins aproach... (Score:3, Interesting)
I saw this article [alternet.org] on AlterNet today. There is a San Antonio, born again bible thumper, John Hagee, who is currently leading a national crusade to invade Iran because they think it will trigger the second coming of Christ, oh and the EU is the Antichrist. From the article:
"Thanks to the viral marketing made possible by the hundreds of evangelical leaders who have signed on to his new organization, his warmongering has rippled through megachurches across America for months. Hagee calls pastors "th
The CoE needs to call... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The CoE needs to call... (Score:2, Funny)
Viruses and Virus scanners .. a vicious circle (Score:2, Interesting)
In a related story..... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:In a related story..... (Score:3, Funny)
"But when my oldest son just dropped dead right in front of me, I knew we had to get out of there."
Re:In a related story..... (Score:2)
To be fair.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Best line of the article (Score:5, Funny)
I love the Brits.
Essential? (Score:2, Insightful)
On another note, now that this software has lost its credability with the clergy (as CHP has advised members to ignore threat warnings dealing with this software) im willing to wager that many clergy members would be willing to ignore many future threat warnings with the fear
Re:Essential? (Score:2)
What this world needs... (Score:3, Funny)
After one of my users uttered that spoonerism the other day, I am more and more convinced it needs to happen.
Re:What this world needs... (Score:2)
I believe there are several virii out in the world that look for and try to shut down or erase NAV. And here we thought they were a bad thing! I haven't used it for years, ever since I had the devil's own time trying to get the corporate version off my computer after I changed jobs.
This is why... (Score:2)
If a bumper sticker says, it must be true!
Only certain sermons erased? (Score:2)
Mcafee getting confused with Norton? (Score:2)
http://www.forbes.com/facesinthenews/2006/03/13/mc afee-samenuk-microsoft-cx_cn_0313autofacescan11.ht ml [forbes.com]
turning into? hardly.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The real solution to virusses lies not in signature-based scanners, but in policing applications. The discontinued Thunderbyte AV (of DOS days) had the right idea. It scanned files for instructions that shouldn't be in normal programs, like an API call to format your hard disk. It had a list of exceptions (format.com etc.), but otherwise, it would complain loudly.
Nowadays, we can do much better. We have usernames, credentials, priviliges etc. Why don't programs run as separate users with separate priviliges? There is NO reason why Word (or openoffice for that matter) should be able to access every part of the registry or harddisk that the user running it can. Firefox should basically be restricted to making TCP connections and writing it's configuration, cache, and a download directory. The security model now allows it to write to c:\windows\system32 if you're logged in as administrator, even though it clearly has no business doing so.
Newly downloaded applications should be granted permission only to write to registry keys they themselves created, and files likewise. And if an app overstretches its default permissions, the OS should complain loudly and ask permission (OS "professional" edition), lookup a policy file (OS "corporate/enterprise" edition) or simply disallow it and require some sort of wizzardry - e.g. editing an
This doesn't require rocket science to implement, though it will break some stuff and force users to copy files from My Documents\Microsoft Office to My Documents\Firefox if they want to upload a document. Small price to pay, I say.
Of course Norton and McAfee suffer not just from being unreliable in detecting virusses, they also fuck up your OS so it won't work properly anymore, and are a bitch to uninstall. But the solution to that is simple; switch to another product. The fact that the other product would, again, be a signature based scanner is the lamentable part.
Re:turning into? hardly.. (Score:2)
Why don't programs run as separate users with separate priviliges?
You can do this today on Solaris using containers or on FreeBSD using jails, or obtain the functional equivelent. None of them are well integrated into the UI portion of the OS yet and I don't think there is a well established set of defaults and description of violations yet. I expect this to be the direction of the industry for security so expect it to be integrated into every OS except Windows within the next five years. I'm actually c
Re:turning into? hardly.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The other problem is that a scheme like this requires that someone determine what privileges a particular application needs. You cannot trust the application to do this, obviously. I don't see a good way for the OS to know what privileges are needed. Really, I think this requires a technically sophisticated administrator for the machine. That may work well for businesses or high-security environments, but it's not going to fly at home, where most machines are administered by someone who knows enough to insert a CD and run install but not much else -- and that's the optimistic characterization.
Re:turning into? hardly.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The other problem is that a scheme like this requires that someone determine what privileges a particular application needs.
The answer to this is good defaults, possibly based upon templates. First, provide an official service for licensing and registration, that is locked down. Next give all new (not factory installed) apps access to their own registry and source files, that licensing service, and the ability to write new files in the users docs, but not read or overwrite existing ones. If it wants inte
Re:turning into? hardly.. (Score:2)
The security model on my webhost allows my scripts to write to system32. But not to my own directories. There is something seriously wrong with either their sysadmin or Windows, and I believe it's the latter since we're just using the permissioning system that comes with Windows + IIS....
Re:turning into? hardly.. (Score:3)
I think you just basically described SELinux...
Re:turning into? hardly.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Only when you are clearly lying; in this particular case, you are trying to make it seem like Digital Restrictions Management is increasing security for the user of the computer, as opposed to some remote authority, which is a lie.
This is only usefull if the goal is to lock the user of the computer out of the data - that is, to prevent the user of the computer from doing anything with the data that the program make doesn't want them to, such as, say, opening a Word file in OpenOffice.
For increasing security for the user, kernel-enforced access controls are far preferable - they are both sufficient and allow the user to transfer data from application to application. For an example of such controls, see the access control system of Unix-like operating systems, such as GNU/Linux; these controls need to be revised somewhat to allow finer-grained control, but this doesn't require DRM.
I hope your corporate masters gave you a good price for your soul, astroturfer, but I doubt it very much.
Norton AV? Essential? BWAHAHAHAHA!!! (Score:2)
Re:Norton AV? Essential? BWAHAHAHAHA!!! (Score:2)
Re:Norton AV? Essential? BWAHAHAHAHA!!! (Score:2)
Trust me, I am an IT professional... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Trust me, I am an IT professional... (Score:2, Interesting)
I would have agreed with you... until Symantec wiped out VNC earlier this week because the latest patterns have determined that it is a "Remote Access Trojan".
No. (Score:2)
No. It has been a sad joke for years. The fact that so many IT professionals actually choose norton is a testament that a ton of IT professionals are complete idiots. Naturally, in most cases it is thrust upon them by a director of IT who couldn't find his ass with both hands, a map, a gps, and a sextant.
The quick answer (Score:2)
Ans: Yes.
However, Norton seems to be playing catch up with its OSX counterpart. Norton Systemworks (Utilities) became a joke for Mac users years ago now at the start of OSX having been an essential app for OS7/8/9. In fact there is no surer way of guaranteeing an OSX 'nuke&pave' situation than running Nortons and getting it to fix something. It's kind of like a medecine that kills
Drop Norton, grab NOD32. Flowers and Bunnies. (Score:2)
I switched over to NOD32 which is tiny, fast, almost no system impact, and never takes down the entire machine. It's never even crashed as far as I can tell. It's supposed to detect better than Norton too, though I h
Does this happen to anyone else? (Score:2)
So... (Score:2)
crackmenot (Score:5, Funny)
P.s., Avast [avast.com] FTW!
Talk about a blessed relief... (Score:2)
Every cloud has a silver lining, etc.
fire me! fire meeeeeeee!!!!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
So listen very closely:
Norton is shit. Shitty software shittily implemented on a shitty operating system. It used to be kind of kewl, but now it's a shit interface, with shit performance, and shit virus definitions that cost a shitload of money to update. Implemented on a shitbag platform because its missing some basic shit in the process controls. So we piled more shit on top of the shit that was already there, so now the shit attack surface still smells like shit, only it's bigger. The underlying pile of shit keeps getting bigger because Microsoft is apparently drilling and pumping to recycle old shit, so we have to keep making our pile of shit bigger to cover it, only some of the old shit keeps poking through. And our shit is updated only when the shit hits the fan. No one even knows their way around the pile of shit anymore because it's become an immense mountain of shit with rolling hills of shit versions, rivers of shit updates, shit swamps of shitty support and peaks of horseshit management tools that allow people to pretend that they understand all this shit.
Buy a Mac. Patch the OS. And don't install shitty antivirus software.
Re:fire me! fire meeeeeeee!!!!!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
AV Not Essential? Come to College... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:AV Not Essential? Come to College... (Score:2)
Don't write the sermon, vic! (Score:3, Funny)
First Vicar: As I scan my computer for sinful programs...
(Cut to bishop and vicars at doorway.)
Bishop: The anti-virus, vic! Don't run the anti-virus!
(Cut back to vicar.)
First Vicar: (Scanning in process)
(The computer explodes. Vicar's sermons disappear in smoke. Cut to close-up of the bishop.)
Bishop: We was too late. The Reverend Norton's writings bit the ceiling.
Veritas... (Score:2)
It's not for the freakin' sermons! (Score:2, Informative)
regular crashes (Score:2, Insightful)
I've tried explaining to my pointy haired boss that Norton crashes our pc's because of a conflict with our inventory SW and nortons update mechanism but he's got as much of a clue as dilberts cartoon boss
He's supposed to be our IT guy, but usually makes it worse when he tries to 'fix'
80% miss rate anyway (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure the false positives could do anything but further amplify that anti-virus is more of a false sense of security than real threat protection.
80% miss rate [zdnet.com.au]
Of course if you're still surfing with Windows you're at risk anyway.
More info on this virus (Score:5, Funny)
Also known as: Jehovah, Allah, Yahweh, YHWH
Spyware: Yes, omnicient.
Damage potential: Armageddon
Prevalence: Ubiquitous
Stealth: Yes (even it's existence is debated)
Threat level: Critical
Notes: This omnipotent entity creates a world by force of will, and then waits until the end times to trigger the armageddon payload.
symantec norton antivirus = adware (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Of course it's not just Norton (Score:3)
The only crack here... (Score:3, Insightful)
-- You probably weren't even born yet --
Before there was Spyware, before there were viruses, before the Mac-centric (at the time) Symantec bought out and pussified it, there was:
{brief fanfare}
"The Norton Utilities"
The finest and mightiest system utils evar. They had a nice collection of about 15 programs, all tiny