Re: Help configuring Symantec NIS ad blocking - tech support is worthless

From: Fred Elbel (frelbel@nospam.csn.net.deletethispart)
Date: 04/18/02 

From: Fred Elbel <frelbel@nospam.csn.net.deletethispart>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 13:43:19 GMT

On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, "Scott Cerny" wrote:

> Fred,
> Wildcards do not work when adding strings to the NIS ad blocking list.
> Yes/No answers for your examples are below.
<snip>

Hi, Scott:

After over 3 weeks of dialogue with Symantec on this issue, they
finally issued a specific response. Note that it is the opposite of
your response. I am not at all convinced that they really know the
answer, since they have been hedging on it for 3 weeks. But since it
is different from your response, can you tell me the details of how
you determined the correct syntax for ad blocking?

Thanks,

Fred

----------------------

On 4/17/02, Fred Elbel posted to the Symantec support forum at
http://servicenews.symantec.com/cgi-bin/displayArticle.cgi?group=symantec.support.winnt.nis2002.general&article=10227

>The issue at hand is legal syntax and parsing and pattern matching of
>the supplied string. Given that I would like to block the gif image
>in this example
>** h t t p : / / www.abc.com/top/banners/ad.gif

>** Specifically, which of the the following strings will block it and
>which will not?
>** h t t p : / / www.abc.com/top/banners/ad.gif
>** h t t p : / / www.abc.com/top/banners/*.*
>** h t t p : / / www.abc.com/top/banners/
>** h t t p : / / www.abc.com/top/banners
>** h t t p : / / www.abc.com/top/*.*
>** h t t p : / / www.abc.com/top/
>** h t t p : / / www.abc.com/top

On 4/17/02, Eddie Manso, Symantec, responded:
> They will all block the ad if the ad is being generated in a standard
> way. Some ads use dynamic scripts which simply cannot be blocked by Ad
> Blocking.

Fred responded:
Thanks, Eddie, for your definitive response. So you are saying that
wildcard (*.*) matching is incorporated into the pattern matching
algorithm. You are also saying that the algorithm, without wildcards
specified, will match for the length of the supplied rule string.

Eddie:
> Yes, you can generally block the Ad by making the 'search string' more generic.
> Here's how you can make the 'search string' more generic:...
> URL previous to 'generic' modification:
> http://st21.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/clink?thechipmerchant+nSWEjW+index.html
> URL after 'generic' modification:
> http://st21.yahoo.com/

Fred:
So one form of making an ad blocking rule more generic is to shorten
the string and trim off the trailing file name and subdirectories.
However, above, you also said that wildcard pattern matching is
allowed. So just to confirm, using your example, would the following
also be a 'generic' modification?

h t t p ://st21.yahoo.com/*.*
(spaces inserted to keep the forum software from making this a
hyperlink)

Eddie:
> Please Note: We have been noticing that there are more and more Ads
> that cannot be blocked, no matter how generic you make the URL string.
> There may be future versions of Norton Internet Security that can
> block these types of Ads but currently there are some advertisements
> that cannot be blocked.

Fred:
Please add the information you supplied in your response to hard copy
and electronic product documentation. Had the product been adequately
documented, this 3-week long discussion would not have been necessary.
Could you please confirm that this and other documentation and product
enhancement requests I have submitted on this thread have been logged
and have not been discarded? If these requests must be submitted
through another channel, please do let me know.

Please do keep up the development effort.

Thank you,

Fred Elbel

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