Talk:Norton AntiVirus

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Merge PIFTS.exe

Seems to like there's no need for a separate article on PIFTS.exe. The contents of PIFTS.exe and Norton AntiVirus#PIFTS.exe are almost identical. Astronaut (talk) 19:12, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge it or link it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.128.54.167 (talk) 19:30, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. There are (somewhat believable) accusations that the coverup extends beyond Norton (including digg and Google). If that is true, then the total controversy (properly researched and sourced) is only tangentially related to Norton AntiVirus, and rightfully belongs in a separate article. If no outside controversy is actually substantiated, then the articles should be merged. This is still a very active topic at the moment; I'd say this merge discussion is about a week premature. – 74  20:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC) Please do not edit my posts; if I'd wanted to emphasize "I disagree" then I would have done so. Thanks. – 74  21:14, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree. Lets see where this goes first. Thedarxide (talk) 21:07, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Wait and See Lets wait and see if this is notable or if it blows over in a few days before we do anything. --Arnos78 (talk) 22:19, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Expand article, then merge. The article needs to be expanded. Also needs clarification. First reading it, it sounded like NAV blocked pifts ... however NAV does not have a firewall. The person who created the article also was confused, looking at the revision history. TechOutsider (talk) 20:47, 10 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider

PIFTS is part of NAV, it was only because 3rd party firewalls blocked it that people noticed. Thedarxide (talk) 21:07, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge (or delete): This needs much, much better sourcing than it currently has (mostly blogs and sites that don't appear to be reliable) and it already smacks of news reporting. DP76764 (Talk) 21:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There is now word from Symantec, as well as Sophos. The Washington Post is reliable, and I would argue that the ISC is as well. Given the volume of reporting, I'd say this is a notable incident, but if it dies off from today then merge the lot Thedarxide (talk) 21:24, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge (or delete): I think there's some value in the article but it needs to be pointed more at the way Norton handled it. ie. how they censored any discussion on their forums making people think it was a cover up of malware then left it so long that it was reported in the media before finally issuing a statement. Although I suspect in a week's time it won't be of any interest to anyone. Dullus (talk) 22:01, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

This edit has removed mention of PIFTS.exe from this article, leaving the separate article effectively orphaned. I've reverted that edit for the time being (until consensus is reached). Astronaut (talk) 13:17, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to merge it. But would the only problem is that the PIFTS file was pushed to people running NAV and NIS as far as I know so perhaps both articles would have a mention of it, imo it doesn't warrant an article of it's own. Jamshud (talk) 17:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

The excitement seems to have died with no further allegations being substantiated. I believe a Merge and Redirect are now appropriate. – 74  00:37, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree It's seems to have blown over now --Arnos78 (talk) 15:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Anyone? It's been merged, for a couple days now by a user. Any last comments? Any Oppose votes? Agree/Merge voters? If not, then I will be closing this discussion. TechOutsider (talk) 20:17, 27 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Recent Edits Made by Jacob Poon

See this edit and this edit by User:Jacob Poon. When I first starting editing Norton AntiVirus, there was no information about versions prior to 2006, probably due to a lack of reliable sources; I can't seem to find any. If the information is to be added, I think there should just be one section titled '2006 and Previous' or divided up into at most two subsections due to a lack of actual information. TechOutsider (talk) 20:23, 27 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider

Aggressive Subscription Marketing

This edit seems to be nonconstructive. The user/IP address never provided one reference. I gave him a week to cough up the reference. However, he/she never did and claims references were provided. Again, the section is unreferenced and will be removed one week from the date of this message. TechOutsider (talk) 01:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)TechOutsider

Apparent Norton Antivirus war

I am massively less familiar than you with the workings of editing wikipedia. I would like to bring this issue to some sort of dispute resolution process, but am uncertain how to go about it. I did try, by following the "talk" link.

However it isn't a promising start for any resolution, that you respond by assuming I'm someone who changes my IP address in some sinister fashion. I have never even heard the term "IP hopper" before this minute. I am in fact just an ordinary UK citizen who has recently (and only once, ever) changed internet provider. I previously had a username HotelNewHampshire, which may still have my personal details, but have found problems logging in.

It is an extraordinarily aggressive and inappropriate step in response to an attempted negotiation to seek to block my address. It is as if, in real life you responded to a civilised approach by seeking to have me arrested. This is my permanent address - with, if it helps, O2. I don't believe you would act that way in person, but people feel able to behave differently online.

The disputed entry in the article, is something I feel fairly strongly about, because I feel Symantec are a company who should not have to resort to such aggressive sales measures. The truth of the entry is manifestly verifiable. I don't know what wikipedia's rules are on this, but I would very much like some direct feedback from them on this specific matter, so that it is clear just what sort of reference they do require in such a case.

It was interesting to discover, initially, that every time I entered the reference to the matter on Symantec's own page, I then discovered the page had been moved. The continual deletion of this entry feels rather like the same thing.

I say again, I would like to resolve this issue one way or the other, and without a war. Given that Wikipedia aims to provide completeness and accuracy in its articles, I hope it can find a way to make that possible in this case. Perhaps the ideal way, however, would be for Symantec would be to withdraw the offending screen altogether.

I also feel strongly about this, because the behaviour is well known enough to be verifiable, but the source really is required in order to prove criticism. There are plenty of references to users complaining, but it really needs to be on a good quality IT news site. I do, however, want to see the information included Thedarxide (talk) 13:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I have found one possible source detailing the behavior. The link is provided here. I have gone through the Google news archives since Y2K and only found this source. TechOutsider ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:14, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Eh, don't get upset cuz he called you an "IP". For reasons that are less than clear to me, many users deem an IP edit to be "anonymous" and an account edit to not be, despite the former being far more transparent. Accordingly, they commonly point out the fact that the edit was from an "anonymous" user- seemingly to disparge the credibility of the edit. It doesn't seems to matter if the person had been editing with that IP on wikipedia for a year, they're still considered suspect while the guy who made a new account today isn't. Don't think he was making an allegation against you, its common, if strange, behavior. Anyways, it seems your probably wrong. Its not that you can't add that information, its that you can't maintain it in the fact of objection without a citation (and really shouldn't add it at all without something supporting it substantially). That's just how the rules work, and it makes sense. --Δζ (talk) 17:43, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

PIFTs rumors

User:Menwith was right. The refs don't help. The first sentence about Africa is supported only by one guy's speculation, a guy whose blurb says "he is fascinated by the technical aspects of computers", not that he knows a damn thing about them. And all he says is that it's "at least one theory ". The second is from a journalist. Give me a break. And even she says "wildly speculated" where this article has "speculated", as if speculation by unnamed idiots was news either way. Let's have some facts, please. --Milkbreath (talk) 18:38, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree, the reference provided was simply a blog post. However, please keep a clam head when discussing matters. TechOutsider ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

My head is always clam (insert smiley of your choice). I wasn't denigrating anyone but journalists and would-be journalists, though. Everyone is trying their best to make Wikipedia admirable, and the evolution of this article is progressing the way it's supposed to. --Milkbreath (talk) 15:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

=) In the post, the author stated several theories of what PIFTS was or stood for. The theories are not attributed to anyone. Bold claims require big sources. TechOutsider ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of editing and adding image

Purpose of my edits in the page"Norton Antivirus"

• To update the contents

RE: magic lantern and claim that symantec and other major antivirus vendors have whitelisted the keylogger

Presently the article claims symantec and other major antivirus vendors have whitelisted the magic lantern keylogger (of concern to various people for reason listed in the article). The only citation supporting the claim that symantec isn't alone in whitelisting matgic lantern is the kapersky article which names mcafee. Mcaffee, however; has denied cooperation and whitelisting and there seems no solid evidence to the contrary. " See: http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/11/48648 This being the case, the only company whitelisting/cooperating with the magic lantern program, so far as the citations show, is Symantec. If anyone has information which can support the present language, feel free to provide it. Is their any objection to modifying the language in the article to remove the reference to other major antivirus vendors? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Δζ (talk • contribs) 17:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I brought up the same issue when Norton Internet Security was a featured article candidate --HamburgerRadio (talk) 18:19, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

You bring up good points. It does seem to me at first glance that there's enough information to warrant mention of Symantec regarding magic lantern, though the percise langauge should be carefully crafted to avoid overstating the claims of the sources. At the minimum, there's reports of Symantec representatives stating that if a magic lantern program existed that they would proactively seek to whitelist it, while claiming they could distinguish between government and non-government users, the later point seeming suspect and something I recall reading criticism of in another news story. See: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/11/27/av_vendors_split_over_fbi/. Should Mcafee be mentioned at all in the face of their denial and the hazy nature of the claims (that I know of) regarding them? It certainly seems Symantec is the most clearly-positioned in publicly confirming they would take positive action to whitelist a magic-lantern type program.--Δζ (talk) 21:48, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, as far as I know, there's still no public knowledge on which antivirus products really detect Magic Lantern. So essentially it's evaluating products based on who talks tough in front of the media. PR departments might not know information techies know. Techies might think they know what would happen, but get overruled by management. Consider that any actual information exchange or agreement would almost certainly be under a non-disclosure agreement; those most likely to say something are those least likely to be in the loop. It's even possible it's a ploy; get the software under the premise of whitelisting, then actually blacklist it. (All of the above could be applicable to Symantec, or Mcafee or any other antivirus company). The most we can accurately say is that there was a debate, but no public knowledge of what actually happened, if anything. --HamburgerRadio (talk) 22:57, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Given the sources that are currently listed in the article, I don't think we should be talking about Magic Lantern or similar systems in the present tens - all but one of the references date to 2001/2002, the exception being a cnet article from 2007, which says "A CNET News.com survey of 13 leading antispyware vendors found that not one company acknowledged cooperating unofficially with government agencies. Some, however, indicated that they would not alert customers to the presence of fedware if they were ordered by a court to remain quiet." On the basis of these sources, I don't we can claim that Symantec (or anyone else) is whitelisting Magic Lantern-esque software. -- AJR | Talk 11:14, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with both of you, and I was intending to add more relevant sources. We should both use the past tense and report the debate, the concerns, and the actual statements of Symantec employees and why these caused concern, provided appropriate sources are found. I agree it would be unsupportable to claim Norton is whitelisting magic lantern as their is no good source for that claim (and I have no idea). I would simply report the claims of the sources, mention that Symantec employees claim a willingness to whitelist similar programs, and mention any concerns/debates/effects evidenced in notable sources. I think the best thing to do is simply report the evidence and the controversy, and I would favor excluding mcafee untill a better source comes along, or mentioning them and their denial.--Δζ (talk) 13:11, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

May 2010: broken updates for NAV 2002/2003

In May 2010, reports started to appear on the Symantec user forum that the virus definition updates after May 10th were incompatible with Norton AntiVirus 2002 and 2003. The updates are installed when LiveUpdate is run, but after that, AutoProtect is switched off, and trying to run a scan results in an error message. It is unclear whether this signifies the end of virus definition update support for NAV 2002/2003, or whether it is a bug that will be fixed in later updates. This generic message, posted by a Symantec employee, seems to suggest the former: http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/Older-Versions-of-NAV-NIS-Suddenly-Inoperable/td-p/232965 Many users on the forum have complained that if updates no longer work with a certain version of NAV, then the update should not be installed automatically on those versions, and users should be warned about this. As it is, many users may be no longer protected against viruses without being aware of this. I have not found any reference to this on "reputable news or tech sites", but I thought I'd post this on the talk page, so the regular contributors can keep an eye on this, and maybe add information about it to the article once it becomes available. --84.198.246.199 (talk) 17:15, 21 May 2010 (UTC)