Charles770
join:2004-11-08
France
| Privacy in the new ZoneAlarm 5.5
In the last version of ZA free: 5.5.062.000,
there's a new link called 'Exceptions' in the tab: Overview | Preferences.
If you click on it, you can read:
Periodically sends anonymous configuration data to Zone Labs.
For more information, see Sharing your settings with Zone Labs.
Note: This option does not appear in trial versions of Zone Labs security software.
Now, it's written that 'this option does not APPEAR' that means that I don't have the ability to disable it, but does the software will send anyway informations to Zone Labs?? |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
| I think it is very self explanatory. The option isn't present within the trial version. I would think that you could set this during the install of the product. Since that is part of the installation process. The feature is present in my paid Suite version. I've not used the free version since a beta test a few years back. And I only played with it for a few days time.
--
Test Your Security Benefit for Children's Cancer Cable Diagnostics My Blog |
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xxx xxx
@telus.net
|  reply to Charles770
Charles770,
Good Eye  ...thanks for posting your new ZAF feature observation!
"Very self explanatory", sorry Iggy but I too am slightly confused here. 
Can someone enlighten me on the following?:
A) Is ZAF considered a trial version?
B) Is this new anonymous sending feature in ZAF 5.5.062.000?
C) If this feature is included do I have a choice in allowing or preventing ZAF from sending any anonymous secure community data to Zone Labs.
I've used, recommended & supported ZA for a long time and I certainly hope I'm misunderstanding something here.
Thanks in advance,
Marman  |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
| Answer to A should be no. A trial version would be a trial copy of a pay for product. Such as ZAP, ZA Suite or IM Secure Pro. B -Is this new anonymous sending feature in ZAF 5.5.062.000? As far as I know this has been an option for many builds now. Again during install you should see the question asked. And you should be able to enable or disable this.
C) If this feature is included do I have a choice in allowing or preventing ZAF from sending any anonymous secure community data to Zone Labs.
I think my answer to B covers this. As does my first reply above. I'm having a feeling this is going to get blown way out proportion. Nothing evil is going on here. I've included a screen capture of the screen you should see during install. I'm under the impression that all versions have this screen during install.
--
Test Your Security Benefit for Children's Cancer Cable Diagnostics My Blog |
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spooler
@cableone.net
| Re: iggy's prior post explains some of this
iggy said;
"you should be able to enable or disable this" (i.e., the feature where ZA communicates with ZoneLabs).
--------------------
But the first thing ZA does without asking is contact ZoneLabs for one or more of various reasons. . .
See the explanation at:
»Why Zone Labs software contacts Zone Labs
Is this a bad thing? - probably not.
Should it stop one from using ZoneAlarm free or pro? - probably not,
assuming it is the user's firewall of choice in the first place. |
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xxx xxx
@telus.net
| Iggy, thanks for your fast response to this ZAF privacy concern. As mentioned earlier, I’ve been a ZAF user for many years and my only goal here is just to be clear on this issue.
I never noticed this EXCEPTION link in ZAF prior to Charles770 mentioning it yesterday. I guess I just never zeroed in on it before. I did check with a colleague who’s running ZAF 5.1.033.000 and yes it’s there. 
Just to make sure I didn’t miss something yesterday, this morning I did an uninstall & a clean ZAF install. The SET DATA GATHERING PERMISSIONS screen doesn’t seem to be an option when installing ZAF on my system.
Here’s my questions to the ZA community:
A) When you installed ZAF (Free not Pro) did you see this screen as an option?
B) Is this anonymous sending feature in ZAF 5.5.062.000?
C) If yes, how does one disable it and prevent it from sending any anonymous data to Zone Labs?
I appologize if I’m being overly anal and hopefully I’m about to answer my own questions here. It does state in the Help section under “Sharing your settings with Zone Labs” …“Configuration data is not collected from ZoneAlarm or ZoneAlarm with Antivirus users.” Can we safely interpet this to mean that ZAF (Free) does not transmit anonymous configuration data or for that matter any type of anonymous data and that’s why we do not see the SET DATA GATHERING PERMISSIONS screen & check box option when installing?
Best regards,
Marsman |
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black knight
Premium
join:2004-06-22
Oxford, CT
clubs:
1 edit | reply to Charles770
Re: Privacy in the new ZoneAlarm 5.5
I Just installed ZAF 5.5.062.000, I Did not see the "Set data Gathering Permission" Screen When i Installed
BK |
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Charles770
join:2004-11-08
France
1 edit | reply to IGGY
Thanks everyone for reply.:)
Sorry Iggy, but I didn't had such a screen during install (Win98 SE), and never had it for a previous version.
As it's said: "This option *does not appear* in trial versions of Zone Labs security software.", which seems to be ZAF definitely.
From Help:
Even with the "Alert me before I make contact" preference selected in the Overview|Preferences tab, you will not be alerted before sending configuration data to Zone Labs.
... The frequency of data transmission depends upon the configuration of your computer. For most users, data will be sent once per day.
To be very clear, does ZoneAlarm free has became a Spyware?
Regards.;)
Charles. |
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SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
| reply to Charles770
I did not see an opt out screen either for ZAF.
Seems to me that ZAF may be behaving like spyware. Sending info out of your system without user permission nor the opportunity to opt out nor disable.
Noticed the following line added to my 98SE autoexec.bat file after current ZAF install:
Set tvdumpflags=10
Does this tvdumpflags have anything to do with TrueVector?
I've scanned my registry and Googled trying to figure this out but came up with nada.
Anyone else see it or know what it's about? |
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spooler
@cableone.net | Re: tvdumpflags=10
SUMware:
What happens when you edit your autoexec.bat file to delete that line? |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
2 edits | reply to spooler
Re: iggy's prior post explains some of this
"But the first thing ZA does without asking is contact ZoneLabs for one or more of various reasons"
This action would of course be blocked when set to be blocked. I have no such contact with the company when using their product.
Now if users aren't seeing the option screen I captured during the install. That leads me to have to send an email and start asking some questions. Which I'll do when I get time later tonight. I'm not ready to call out the wolves just yet.
From the link that was provided ( this is also in my ZoneLabs published bookmarks ).
"Of course, this communication is done on an "opt in" basis; it is your choice to decide to take advance of these features and services."
"Here's the link that said it would happen"
What was posted above was taken from your link to my post in the vendors forum.
--
Test Your Security
Benefit for Children's Cancer
Cable Diagnostics
My Blog |
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spooler
@cableone.net
| Re: what's missing here?
Iggy said:
"But the first thing ZA does without asking is contact ZoneLabs for one or more of various reasons"
This action would of course be blocked when set to be blocked.
-------------------
But here's what happens on my system at every startup.
First thing out of the box, ZA contacts zone labs at one or more of the sites mentioned in your earlier post explaining that is what happens. [See capture of router log traffic]
Here's the link that said it would happen:
»Why Zone Labs software contacts Zone Labs
Interesting thing is that no alert pops up and no entry appears in the ZoneAlarm logs. [See capture of blank ZA log page]
More interesting is the program settings where the ZAClient is blocked all accross the board. [See capture of it in next post]
Also interesting is the fact that the first ZA status page is set for ZA not to contact ZoneLabs without first alerting the user and asking for permission. [See capture in next post]
There may be an explanation . . .
Does it stop me from using ZA? - no.
Does it make me wonder why ZA works this way? - yes. |
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spooler
@cableone.net
| reply to IGGY
Re: second two captures from above post
Here are the last two captures mentioned in first post. |
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WFO
Premium
join:2001-08-27
San Ramon, CA | reply to Charles770
Re: Privacy in the new ZoneAlarm 5.5
The "set data gathering permissions" scteen is shown during every installation in my experience. I always click no. It is an option available even after installation. I use ZAP. |
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Charles770
join:2004-11-08
France
1 edit | reply to SUMware
Hi,
SUMware, I can confirm that the new line in AUTOEXEC.BAT
(I'm also with Win98SE ) is from ZA:
Set tvdumpflags=10  .
Doing a search of all the files containing 'tvdumpflags' in my system,
I found only the 2 dll's: vsinit.dll and vsruledb.dll [TrueVector Service].
Iggy, would you be kind to ask an explanation also for that new line?
I didn't found anything interesting with Google?
Thanks a lot in advance. |
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SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
| reply to spooler
Re: tvdumpflags=10
Hi Spooler & Charles. Good information. Thank you.
I did disable 'Set tvdumpflags=10' and have noticed no operating differences. But that doesn't mean that there really aren't any.
Again, can find no obvious 'link' from this entry to the registry.
ZA can certainly provide simple answers to these questions if they choose to. |
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dzs
@ntl.com
|  Hello,
I also found this entry in autoexec.bat ( win98se ) and went looking.
Found this thread useful.
Looked in Zone Alarm, on the preferences tab there is an "exceptions" link, to help. Which says
'
Alert me with a pop-up before I make contact
Displays a warning before contacting Zone Labs to deliver registration information, get product updates, research an alert, or access DNS to look up IP addresses.
Note: There are certain situations in which you will not be notified before contact is made. Those include sending Zone Labs Secure Community data to Zone Labs, contacting Zone Lab for program advice, when an antivirus update is performed, or when monitoring your antivirus status. The "Share setting anonymously..." setting below, turns off the Secure Community transfer. All other settings can be disabled from the main tab of their respective panels.
'
Which is the first time I was aware that I could not turn off all the information being sent from my pc.
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Charles770
join:2004-11-08
France
| reply to SUMware
Re: Privacy in the new ZoneAlarm 5.5
said by SUMware  :Noticed the following line added to my 98SE autoexec.bat file after current ZAF install: Set tvdumpflags=10 Anyone else see it or know what it's about?
Here is an answer from the Zone Labs User Forum ( »forum.zonelabs.org/zonelabs/boar···id=25044 ),
about the new line:
This is a parameter for ZA to write out logs if a problem occurs.
Its something that support sometimes requests for issues.
Its a value you should NOT modify or remove.
But it seems that this line is added only with the free version of ZA.
So, why?
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SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
1 edit | Good find Charles.
This confirms that ZAF is compiling performance data log submissions for support. This is not in itself suspicious... But why not inform the user?
Questions: When and how (and with user approval?) does support receive this data and what exactly does it contain? And why can't we disable the reg entry if we choose to? Whould this compromise ZAF performance? If we've supposedly been provided the option to opt out of this reporting why then is this active entry in the registry?
We'd like additional info from ZA, please. |
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SUMware
Premium
join:2002-05-21
2 edits | reply to Charles770
Google search on "tvdumpflags" is now revealing a number of other people with similar observations.
Here's a possibly interesting one from Anandtech
Q: Set tvdumpflags = 10 > Does anybody know what this does?
A: It has to with JAVA execution code (TV= Time Value).
Some people have determined that it's a ZA issue, while others believe it's related to TV tuner cards (not in this case ).
Can anyone with XP verify the following info from ZA forum:
"This environment variable is also set on Windows XP. Since XP does not have autoexec.bat anymore, it is set through My-Computer, Properties, Advanced, Environment Variables.
I'm unsure of the function though. From the name, it presumably affects the type of log file created if Truevector crashes." |
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