A Halloween Horror Story... (having nothing to do with Symantec's earnings)

Customer's XP computer with some obvious "suspect" stuff running in the Task Manager : lsass .exe, services .exe, and spoolsrv .exe (note the space after the normal name). I decided to let my normal cleanup routine take care of whatever it was. After normal cleanup installed NIS 2010 trial version, updated and did a full scan. To my absolute horror the "evil" files were still present -- that's when I used Process Explorer to suspend them and began actual investigation of the files. They were all in a sub-folder of System32 named Event Viewer. They even had an icon -- McGruff the crime dog. Turns out the files are part of child monitoring software installed by the customer -- joy!

/...Duane

I apologize. My message does have nothing to do with Norton's earnings. I could put it into a thread of its own but I think it likely there will not be sufficient messages generated in this thread to make a little thread drift a problem.

To get back to the orginal subject I would say that Norton's success is directly related to the realization their product had become a bloated nightmare and actually doing something about it. As I've said before and continue to say, kudos to them for doing the right thing -- eventually.

The fact Norton did find one significant personal information stealing trojan active on the system but didn't find one that seemed at first blush so obvious a "bad" thing was of great concern. I was preparing to grab a copy of the files and submit them when I found the offending files had all been assigned a McGruff the crime dog icon and that there is a McGruff free computer program that monitors children's use of a computer (and verified with the customer that she had installed the program). Morally speaking I despise this kind of program and see no reason for it to be disguised in the matter that it is, but in this case (and all such cases) it is not my computer and not my child and therefore not my decision to make.

Added by Edit: I mentioned I provided the customer the 120 day free trial of Norton (from the link you provided many moons ago). I did help her setup the Norton Identity account but she has since called me complaining of the continual identity card popup. Oy vey. I just told her Duane's rule of computer whatevers that continually ask you to do something: to wit, do it -- if it continues to ask you, then we have a problem.

/...Duane

>> I don't recollect ever having a link to a 120 day trial of a Norton product.

Au contrair, mon ami. See message #13 in this thread in this forum posted by -you-:

http://community.netscape.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ws-viruscentral&tid=156504

The link in the message is still good and could be used (or the following link can be used) to download the 120-day trial:

"Very long link"

Perhaps it will jog your memory if I mention back then I questioned why this link is 111 MB in size whereas the 30-day upgrade download (which becomes a 15-day trial when installed on a computer without NIS on it) is something like 80 some MBs in size. I guessed it be the inclusion of updated defs but only the shadow knows for sure.

Added by edit: Surely you know of the problem of the incessant nagging of the program to create an identity card. It opens on too many sites and needs be dismissed by checking the go away and don't come back box and then the close "x" but alas it pays no attention to that and keeps coming back. In fact I seem to recall reading in the blog entry about the now retracted "updated" release of the 2010 version that one of the things it did is make that damned "nag" behave better (whatever that means). The solution is as I said -- create an identity card, even if you only just put your name on it.

/...Duane

Hugh,

Having myself discovered how handy the Identity Safe is (for remembering Internet passwords), I always take the time to setup a would be Norton user with an Identity Safe password (and as you mention if you don't do that or turn off Identify Safe, then you get nagged about setting that up). The box that is annoying this user is one that comes up even with an Identity Safe password setup that is titled "Norton Create an Identity Card". There is a place on the box to check don't ask me again and then you need to dismiss the request but it seems to come back frequently.

There is apparently some code in the NIS product that needs some work in the Identity Safe area. I say that because on my own Win7 install when I had one user only, then the product would prompt me to login to the Identity Safe on first visiting a website with a login dialog on the first visit to that site after a system reboot. After logging in, then sooner or later I would get the "Norton Create an Identity Card" prompt. I didn't change anything with regard Norton's settings nor did I create an Identity card. I did, however, after a few days create a second Win7 user with the surprising result that I no longer ever get a prompt to login to the Identity Safe on the first user (nor do I get nagged to create an Identity Card which I have not created). However, when I logon as the second user, then when I visit a web site requiring logon, I get the prompt for Identity Safe password and sooner or later the request to create an Identity Card. I recall that the same thing used to happen with my Vista install when I created a second login (it doesn't happen anymore there as I switched from using NIS 2010 to using Kaspersky after installing Win7). I can say with absolute certainty that when I do boot back into Vista, then I really do miss the Norton Identity Safe auto-logon feature. I've even considered buying RoboForm but I haven't because I won't be spending that much time in Vista anymore. So, I do think there is something in the Identity Safe code that needs work but who knows if Symantec will ever get round to it.

/...Duane