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.
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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.
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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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Snakebytes
| reply to spooler
Re: what's missing here?
Thanks Spooler,
I will be re-thinking if I should renew my subscription to ZoneAlarm Pro. It is due soon.
I dont like these kind of backdoor surprises. Certainly dont want to be paying money for them. |
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VirtualLarry
Premium
join:2003-08-01
| reply to IGGY
Re: iggy's prior post explains some of this
said by IGGY  :"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. Just a minor note here. I have no idea how it behaves in the 5.x Free versions, but in the prior 3.x versions, attempting to "block" ZA from phoning-home, using the firewall's own controls, was ineffective. It had an internal "allow" rule to bypass any user rules. If ZA Free 5.x is phoning home again, then I also have no doubt that they would also use a similar inbuilt "allow" bypass rule.
I don't know if I have it saved, but I had a really good discussion about this whole issue when it first broke out with one of ZL's official free-support people on GRC's newsgroups. They confirmed the behavior, and that it was intentional, for marketing reasons. Think about it, it tells them how many people, worldwide, happen to be use the "free" version of their software, and allows them a marketing opportunity to "upsell" them to the paid version. There was also some comment about auto-upgrade patches being detected, in case there is a flaw in the software, but that doesn't explain why the software generated a unique user-id, nor why it didn't give the users of the free version the opportunity to opt-out of it.
said by IGGY :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. Well, knowing that they've done it before, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to see them trying it again.
It really calls into the question of whether or not you can trust the vendor of your security software, when their software intentionally undermines the ability of the user to specify security policy. I am, in fact, no longer a ZoneAlarm user directly because of that, and because of recurring technical flaws in their software. |
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Infoman1
join:2001-03-21
Hubbard, OH
| To be clear and factual. While these options are present in fully licensed purchased copies of ZA Pro of which I have disabled. Bottom line is free version or purchased; the product phones home and there is no way to prevent it within it's own software! |
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