Re: Help configuring Symantec NIS ad blocking - tech support is worthless
From: Scott Cerny (no@thanks.com)Date: 04/18/02
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From: "Scott Cerny" <no@thanks.com> Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 11:55:24 -0700
Fred,
I work for Symantec on NIS (not tech support), so I'm familiar with the way
the ad blocking strings work just from personal experience. I'm not sure
the answer tech support gave you was necessarily the opposite of mine. I
think there is just a bit of confusion on their part about wildcards. When
a string is added to the ad blocking list, the wildcards at the beginning
and end of the string is implied. It is not necessary to add a * to the end
of the entry, in fact you shouldn't add a *. For example, the entry
http://www.abc.com/top/banners would block any ad whose URL contains that
string, such as http://www.abc.com/top/banners/ad.gif. Another example
would be a simple entry like "banner" (without the quotes). This entry
would block any ad whose URL contained the string "banner", such as
http://www.abc.com/top/banner/ad.gif. I hope that makes some sense.
I do agree that it is not explained clearly in the product documentation. I
will do my best to fix that for future versions of NIS.
-Scott
"Fred Elbel" <frelbel@nospam.csn.net.deletethispart> wrote in message
news:b3jtbus2ooj21gfu0bj93ghao9gioannbe@4ax.com...
> 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.su
pport.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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