Norton Safety Minder - what's its use? Disabled

thetazman · ‎10-27-2009

What is the point of NSM? It's supposed to protect our kids, but it seems more like Symantec is using us parents to beta chk their s/ware as it is NOT complete it has too many flaws the main one being it DOES NOT work!

In 2010 Symantec is considering charging for this so-called "FREE" s/ware so presumably from now till then we're acting as their free beta testers - it'd be nice if they owned up to this!

My point, it is SO easy to disable NSM without admin rights, my sons managed to disable it on numerous occasions & even extend times WITHOUT permission. The flaw is related to being "offline" at the time this is done. So as NSM cannot verify the email & password entered it "allows" the user to extend their time or disable the s/ware

MAJOR flaw, this means any person can disable NSM without permission. Just by disabling their internet connection & then trying to extend or disable the s/ware once it's been done then re-enabling the internet. He's now managed to get hours more use than i'd allowed. Thank god for Microsoft (i would never have said that normally), i'm also now considering using other internet suite s/ware like Kapersky IS which has in-built parental controls features which are NOT as advanced as NSM but they DO seem to work (ie a child cannot disable the s/ware or logging if offline)

Symantec must sort this out & also let us know how much they will want to charge us for this s/ware we're testing for FREE for them! I do feel they should provide this s/ware FOC for all NIS users.

dgardner · ‎02-07-2009

While it is undoubtedly true that there are still some problems with the software and I wouldn't want to pay for it in its current state, I want to make two points in reply to the message from thetazman.

1. When I signed up for Online Family/Safety Minder it was very clear to me that the software was in a beta testing stage and I would be a beta tester in return for which I have had use of the software and the opportunity to influence its development.

2. Members of the software development team have been very active on this forum in responding to the questions and suggestions made by the beta testers. As a result, the software now includes some important improvements.

As thetazman has made the comparison with Microsoft I also want to add that I have suffered at the hands of some pretty major flaws in Microsoft software for which I have paid and their staff are much less eager to provide meaningful support.

David

thetazman · ‎10-27-2009

Dgardner i take your point, and i agree that we did agree to being "beta" testers for the s/ware. Its just that this s/ware does not work. My son yet again disabled the software so easily by doing as i've mentioned in original post.

"Members of the software development team have been very active on this forum in responding to the questions and suggestions made by the beta testers. As a result, the software now includes some important improvements."

Since i've posted it - you mention the symantec e'ees are very fastidious & efficient - no e'ee of symantec has come back to me or replied to this thread to help with my situation. I'd posted it a day or 2 ago & to be honest i did expect some feedback from them by now, but so-far nothing. I thought they'd insert their normal spiel about the user has your admin info or they have admin rights etc... but nothing. The s/ware includes major improvements ... but it doesn't work for me, its too easy to disable, or is that not a major problem?

i'm very disappointed as i did expect something by now, if there is no solution then can norton or symantec let me know. so i can move on as the s/ware itself is useless otherwise. if you can so easily disable it - even a 5 yr old could! - why was this not fixed sooner, or are all my pc's infected with viruses/spam that are disabling the NSM, if that's the case then i better get in touch with my A/virus/F/wall s/ware provider, oh wait that's norton/symantec also!

My comment re: microsoft was ONLY with respect to the parental controls in Vista. Overall i too have found M'soft to be very lacking on the customer service front.

Can someone pls let me know how i can sort this matter out, if it can't be done or i'm too dumb to figure it out then let me know!

dgardner · ‎02-07-2009

thetaxman, you are right. You have revealed a major flaw in the software and you should have had an immediate response. My previous impression was that interaction between the development team and the beta testers was good but it seems to have slacked off a bit now.

I have duplicated the disabling problem from a non-administrastor account with ease.

This needs fixing.

David

thetazman · ‎10-27-2009

Still no word from the symantec or norton team!!! Has my son found a serious flaw in this s/ware. I think so and that is why they haven't even bothered to reply to this thread!!!

If your s/ware does not work - which it quite obviously doesn't - tell us, be honest or is that not the norton way???

I remember how good dr solomons was I'm sure they wouldve fixed this problem by now

my only parental help has been the vista parental controls but even they are easy to crack!!! My sons been able to do that quite a while ago that is why I thought NSM was the key. But it's not it is a useless piece of s/ ware. Until the symantec or norton team own up to the fact it does not work and fix it immediately!

Here's hoping

dgardner pls don't call me the taxman, perish the thought that I'd work for the HMRC or as we say the inland revenue - like the IRS in the us!

Message Edited by thetazman on 10-29-2009 09:32 PM

thetazman · ‎10-27-2009

Here's hoping that someone at symantec has the decency to own up to this major flaw!!! my kids have been surfing online in the past with me thinking symantec is watching over them to make sure they're safe with nsm but they weren't the s/ware does not work

dgardner explained exactly how my sons managed to extend his time plus disable nsm. Did symantec not test the s/ware themselves?

Also don't rely on vistas parental controls they work better than nsm I admit but changing the clock is the easiest way to avoid it!

pwscott61 · ‎04-28-2009

I posted ove in the (2nd) thread about "NSM disabled messages" that I verified this major flaw in the software, but I will repost here for emphasis and to document this. I recognize that us parents posting this is potentially counterproductive since it will be only hours until Google and Yahoo searches turn this up dfor children to read how to disable this, but I'm posting it anyway since it's not like we found some complex windows registry hack to disable the software.....it's a cake walk to do and I submit that kids have been doing it a long time and generating messages to us that we've been ignoring. My otehr post pasted below:

----

OK, that didn't take long. I switched user on a Windows Vista laptop to my stepson's account which is a Standard User and not an Administrator.

I couldn't get the wireless switch on this Dell laptop to shut off the 802.11 wireless so i just clicked on the network icon and chose 'Dicsonnect from Network XXXXXXX'.

When I could see I was disconnected I clicked on NSM in the System Tray and chose 'Disable Norton Safety Minder'. I was prompted for a parent email and password and I typed in random characters.

I wasn't sure that took since it told me that wasn't correct so I did it again and I got prompted with "NSM is not sure about your credentials, do you want to continue and an email will be sent to your parent"?

I chose OK and BOOM...NSM was disabled- greyed out icon in Systra!

I immediately opened Firefox and proceeded to the playboy.com website which should have been blocked.

A minute later my Blackberry buzzed with one of so many NSM has been disabled warnings that I might easily have disregarded due to the original topic of this thread.

This is unfortunate and unacceptable. I guess we should start a separate thread for this that is properly titled.

thetazman · ‎10-27-2009

pwscott61 wrote:

This is unfortunate and unacceptable. I guess we should start a separate thread for this that is properly titled.

I did not want to post a thread title marked "how to d!sab!e nort0n safety minder!" as if I had the number of google searches by kids would be unbelievable. But would that have been a better idea than doing this??? To-date symantec has done NOTHING do should we be helping them to beta test s/ware when they ignore us?

Also I did not list a step by step guide as to how to d!sab!e nsm, I wrote down the idea, so enough for people to confirm I was right and for something to be done but I didn't want an idiots guide on disab!!ng nsm

but another member has now posted the method I'd noted down in my 1st post as a step by step guide. That was what my kid had done and now a number of users have confirmed it works making nsm useless. That is what my point is ... What is the purpose if nsm as it is not a parental control system - it doesn't work!

But thinking about it and the huge number of pm's I have rec'd from the nsm team - sorry I was lying there - was it a good idea not to highlight this issue more by titling this thread properly???

thetazman · ‎10-27-2009

To hell with it, here's the idiots guide on "how to easily disable norton safety minder that even a 5 yr old could do" thanks go to dgardner for listing down the steps described in my 1st post above

this is a true step by step guide on how useful this software really is ... Let's see how many kids google this to disable nsm for themselves!!! Hopefully before then the symantec team will realise how imp't this major flaw is and sort it out or at the very least respond to our threads!!

dgardner wrote:
As I mentioned in my post a few messages before, I get the message and then monitoring continues.
But since reading @thetaxman's message I have followed his method on a non-administrator account and completely disabled NSM.
AND as @thetaxman said, it is blindingly simple, his 5 year old did it. I am sure it took me a little longer but I also managed it. I can't believe none of us ever thought of this before.

Here's how:
1. While in a monitored account, disconnect from the internet (I did it by flicking the switch on the laptop that shuts off the wireless signal and I also did it through the "connect to" menu item).
2. Click NSM (dog's paw).
3. Click disable NSM
4. When asked for the "parent email" and "parent password" type anything (but you must put something in both fields)
5. Click OK
6. You will get a message
7. Ignore it and click OK
8. NSM is now disabled. reconnect to the internet and there will be no monitoring of activity.

This method also works for extending time.

I was astonished that such a simple loophole has not been discovered before. I can't help wondering whether any of the seemingly harmless times I have seen the disabled message were really times in which my kids were wandering the internet unmonitored.

David

thetazman · ‎10-27-2009

Just been onto google and typed in " how to disable nsm " this thread was 5th in the listings the other on disabled msg's is coming in at 6th!!!
" how to disable norton safety minder " this thread was 3rd in the listings
" how to disable safety minder " this thread was 2nd in the listings

It won't be long now before all kids with 1/2 a brain will visit these pages to find out how to crack nsm or norton safety minder!!!

I just hope this will wake up those sleeping symantec e'ees and get them to do something! Otherwise they have got a useless piece of s/ware!!!