Turning Off Community Watch?

Will my system be any less secure if I turn off Community Watch?  I have NIS12.

Hi car825,

The short answer is no.  Community Watch sends any suspicious files or web sites to Symantec to help with new and emerging threats,  but turning it off should not compromise your security.

Cheers,  Dave.


car825 wrote:

Will my system be any less secure if I turn off Community Watch?  I have NIS12.


By participating in the Norton Community Watch feature, you help Symantec to improve their measures against any security risks or threats.  No personally identifiable information is sent to Symantec.
Care to share why you're considering turning off Community Watch ?

Thanks


bjm_ wrote:

car825 wrote:

Will my system be any less secure if I turn off Community Watch?  I have NIS12.


By participating in the Norton Community Watch feature, you help Symantec to improve their measures against any security risks or threats.  No personally identifiable information is sent to Symantec.
Care to share why you're considering turning off Community Watch ?

Thanks


Some of the Community Watch log entries have the same effect on me as a false positive. For example, there is a log entry that says Statistical Submission: WS.Trojan.H Exonerated. Just seeing the word Trojan in the log creates unnecessary concern.  I tried to find out what these log entries mean, but nobody here seems to have a definitive answer. The easiest thing to do is to just turn it off, assuming it doesn't compromise security in any way.  See this thread for my unanswered questions:

 

http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/Exonerated-by-Community-Watch/td-p/608982

Hi Car825:

 

Turning off NCW is strictly voluntary and will not reduce your protection in any way.

Simple as that. It's a user preference.

 

Cheers!

 

Atomic_Blast :)

 

 

 


Atomic_Blast wrote:

Turning off NCW will not reduce your protection in any way.


I respectfully disagree. 

Community Watch leverages anonymous data from millions of Norton users to strengthen the security for all Norton users. 
By participating in the Norton Community Watch feature, you help Symantec to improve their measures against any security risks or threats.

Suppose no one participated in Community Watch ?

Respectfully

my 2 cents


car825 wrote:
Some of the Community Watch log entries have the same effect on me as a false positive. For example, there is a log entry that says Statistical Submission: WS.Trojan.H Exonerated. Just seeing the word Trojan in the log creates unnecessary concern.  I tried to find out what these log entries mean, but nobody here seems to have a definitive answer. The easiest thing to do is to just turn it off, assuming it doesn't compromise security in any way.  See this thread for my unanswered question. http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-Internet-Security-Norton/Exonerated-by-Community-Watch/td-p/608982

Sorry, your Topic went unanswered.   IMHO users having a definitive and fluent understanding for all Symantec terminology would not serve to enhance users security.  Users security is served and enhanced by Community Watch.  Norton Community Watch collects the information about new potential security risks from your computer and submits the information to Symantec for analysis. Symantec assesses the data to identify new security threats and their sources. By participating in the Norton Community Watch feature, you help Symantec to improve their measures against any security risks or threats.
Do you want to help Symantec improve their measures against security risks & threats for all Norton users or not.  

It's your choice as you know.

Respectfully submitted

my 2 cents

Hi bjm_:

 

NCW is turned on by default.

 

If a few users raise the question like car825 did, it is really of no concern. However, If we are talking about hundreds of thousands of users, I think that the effectiveness of Insight and other NIS could based services would be impacted a bit.

 

Actually, NCW should be reconfigured to have users set certain parameters that are not critical to the functioning of the cloud services, while mandating others which are, IMO.

 

Hope this clarifies things a bit. :smileyhappy:

 

Atomic_Blast :)

Can I safely ignore all the entries in the Community Watch log (even the alarming ones) and assume that my system is safe if the Norton System Status says Safe and is green?

Hi Car825:

 

I feel very comfortable saying yes, in this particular case.

 

Regards,

 

Atomic_Blast :)


car825 wrote:

Can I safely ignore all the entries in the Community Watch log (even the alarming ones) and assume that my system is safe if the Norton System Status says Safe and is green?


Hi car825,

 

Yes you can. Turning off Community Watch does not prevent anything except the submission of certain data to Symantec and the logging of events in the log. The underlying reason for why Community watch data would be sent does not change even when you have it off.

 

Best wishes.

Allen

i don't know much about Idle time definition for NCW.does it include traffic usage ratio or not?

assume that system is in Idle mode for a few hours but download manager is running.