Norton Internet Security / Norton AntiVirus

[Tony_Weiss Administrator]

Hi Tony, I apologize for not answering your initial question:

...I wonder why it is that when each of these two computers download the same software from the same internet location,  a False Postive for WS.Reputation occurs on one computer - resulting with its immediate removal,  while nothing at all occurs on the second computer - allowing full installation of the software without incident.

The answer is that we don't know. We don't have enough information about your situation, the computers involved, or the file being downloaded.  Without that information, it's very difficult to determine why the ws.reputation.1 detection would occur on one system and not the other. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was questioning your integrity - that is not the case. Rather, there was a gap in the information, and I wanted to fill that gap so our product development team could review the information.

I can only speculate that there may be some differences between the systems, the software installed, the version of your Norton product, the downloaded file, and the status of that file's reputation at the particular times it was downloaded. However, without solid information from you about those issues, they're merely speculations. Hopefully you can provide us with the answers, which will help us determine the reason for this discrepancy.

As to your reply about "diversion techniques", I'm sorry that it seemed as if I was obfuscating anything. As most people on these forums know, we're rather transparent on issues and prefer to be honest with customers. I assumed that my asking follow-up questions would lead you to infer that we didn't know the cause, and needed more information to figure it out. I apologize for not being clearer.

Hopefully you can provide us with the answers in my previous posts, and we can address your issue. Thanks!

[AnthonyD]

Hello Tony,

Requesting more information from readers about their computers, their files, their operating system, their etc, etc., is clearly an attempt to employ readers to work for Free for Norton to participate in troubleshooting Norton Insight's problems.   Free troubleshooting is the absolute perfect financial position for Norton.  And the worst possible position for consumers.  

This request for a free upward push from consumers to Norton puts the consumer in the awkward position of having to spend their free time trying to prove to Norton that the Norton Insight problem is a real problem and is not simply due to  malfunctioning computers.  Otherwise, Norton states with confidence that without consumer troubleshooting, no problem exists with Norton Insight..  Norton Quote: "..we don't have enough information about your situation..."  Norton appears to state they do not have the resources nor technology to troubleshoot and repair Norton Insight..

Meanwhile, the honest developers like myself, will continue to lose customers and have their hard earned reputations damaged beyond repair overnight by Norton Insight's false and damaging warnings..   

A significant number of loyal Norton users regard Noton Insight as the Ultimate Authority and will continue to decide in favor of Norton Insight false warnings without ever thinking about it.  As a result, perfectly safe software will never be installed by the consumer, and potential customers (and their friends, family, associates, etc.) will never visit or return to what they now believe to be a dishonest, virus infected web site - thanks to Norton's faulty Insight.

[mattsegers]

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AnthonyD wrote:

Hello Tony,

Requesting more information from readers about their computers, their files, their operating system, their etc, etc., is clearly an attempt to employ readers to work for Free for Norton to participate in troubleshooting Norton Insight's problems.   Free troubleshooting is the absolute perfect financial position for Norton.  And the worst possible position for consumers.

This request for a free upward push from consumers to Norton puts the consumer in the awkward position of having to spend their free time trying to prove to Norton that the Norton Insight problem is a real problem and is not simply due to  malfunctioning computers.  Otherwise, Norton states with confidence that without consumer troubleshooting, no problem exists with Norton Insight..  Norton Quote: "..we don't have enough information about your situation..."  Norton appears to state they do not have the resources nor technology to troubleshoot and repair Norton Insight..

Meanwhile, the honest developers like myself, will continue to lose customers and have their hard earned reputations damaged beyond repair overnight by Norton Insight's false and damaging warnings..   

A significant number of loyal Norton users regard Noton Insight as the Ultimate Authority and will continue to decide in favor of Norton Insight false warnings without ever thinking about it.  As a result, perfectly safe software will never be installed by the consumer, and potential customers (and their friends, family, associates, etc.) will never visit or return to what they now believe to be a dishonest, virus infected web site - thanks to Norton's faulty Insight.

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Sir, we are simply trying to help you determine the cause of your problem. As you said, you are a software developer, if there were a problem with your code, would you not need information from your customer in order to determine what the cause of the problem was? I must admit that reading through this thread, I am at a total loss as to why you are angered by the fact that a Symantec employee is trying to help you. I do not understand how Symantec should be expected to release software that is absolutely perfect without valuable feedback (which you could be providing). You must understand that there are millions of pc's in the world? You cannot expect Symantec to cover every single possibility in-house. that's impossible!

I would like to know what you suggest Symantec do? How would you like them to address this issue?

We would really like to sort out your problem, but without your co-operation it will be next to impossible. It's like phoning a doctor to tell him your best friend is ill, then refusing to give him any information about the illness other than that it's only affecting your best friend and not you, and then blaming him for not knowing which one of the potential million illness your friend might have.

So please, bare with us here and help out?

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I apologies if any of it, at all, in anyway, has offended you.

Best Regards,

Matthew

[Tony_Weiss Administrator]

Hi Tony,

I understand that you are upset by this situation, and I can sympathize. My goal is to help resolve it, which starts by determining the cause of the problem. Although we have not received any other reports like yours, we still want to find the cause, so other customers may avoid this issue in the future.

You are not obligated to provide answers to the questions, nor are you obligated to post a reply. However, as we are both interested in getting this problem fixed and our time is valuable, we would both want to spend our time working on this issue. Let's move forward and find out the cause of this problem.

Here is the information you've provided:

1) 2 identical systems with same version of Norton AntiVirus installed (unknown version and OS)

2) A file was downloaded on both systems from internet (unknown browser and version, unknown file)

3) File was not detected as malicious by Norton AntiVirus (unknown version) on one machine

4) File was detected as WS.Reputation.1 on other machine

I have tried to reproduce this issue, and did not yield the same results as you did. I suspect it is because the questions I asked earlier included critical information to reproducing this issue in our labs. Without this information, we are limited on what can be done. I hope you take a few minutes to answer the questions. Thanks!