Author Topic: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?  (Read 9271 times)

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Offline Lisandro

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #15 on: November 05, 2011, 01:26:45 AM »
Tech, if you upload your setup.log on the FTP, somebody will take a look at it.
No problems. I'll do it right now.
[/quote]
Tech.Setup.Log.File.log
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Offline Lisandro

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #16 on: November 05, 2011, 12:01:27 PM »
Igor, any news?
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Offline igor

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #17 on: November 05, 2011, 01:54:49 PM »
No file has been submitted - it was just a "statistical" package related to the version of the installed PDF reader; that's where e.g. the data for the following talk come from:
http://www.virusbtn.com/conference/vb2011/abstracts/KubecSejtko.xml
(I gives us an overview of the used versions and makes it possible to give more priority to specific vulnerabilities to detect.)

As I was trying to explain, the submitting system has currently some limitations and needs a "file scan" event to submit something. The data here, however, have nothing to do with the particular Excel file, and its content wasn't sent - it's only the filename that you see during the submission process.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2011, 01:58:07 PM by igor »

Offline Lisandro

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #18 on: November 05, 2011, 02:03:57 PM »
Ok, much better.
But, improvements on that submission process will be welcome, like not showing the file name then :)
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Offline gautam7

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #19 on: November 05, 2011, 04:17:23 PM »
@ Tech

Can you please tell me how you found out about the excel file been uploaded? I have never seen avast upload anything and i have participate in community enabled so it must submit some file but i never found out what it submitted. 
Lenovo B40 laptop/ core i3 4010U CPU (1.7 GHz)/ 4.0 GB RAM/500 GB HDD,OS: windows 10 64 bit, Browser: Google Crome/ FF (adblock plus, lastpass,) Security: Avast pro 10, MBAM (free).

Offline Lisandro

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #20 on: November 05, 2011, 06:04:00 PM »
Gautam, add the file to Chest (right click Chest, add, choose a file).
Then right click it and send it to avast team for analysis. You need to choose if it is a clean file or a false positive.
Go to the Update tab and manually invoke the virus definitions update.
The file being uploaded will be shown there.
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FlyingRobot

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #21 on: November 05, 2011, 06:58:15 PM »
Igor,

Thanks for the discussion.  With respect to this reporting feature, it appears avast supports "deny all" and "allow all" options.  Is there some means of configuring things to be "selective", whereby users have the opportunity to review prepared submissions and approve/disapprove them?  Is there some means of configuring things so that submissions are created and logged (can be later reviewed) but not actually sent to avast?

Offline Lisandro

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #22 on: November 05, 2011, 07:03:38 PM »
Igor,

Thanks for the discussion.  With respect to this reporting feature, it appears avast supports "deny all" and "allow all" options.  Is there some means of configuring things to be "selective", whereby users have the opportunity to review prepared submissions and approve/disapprove them?  Is there some means of configuring things so that submissions are created and logged (can be later reviewed) but not actually sent to avast?
Although I agree with this, this should be an option on demand, i.e., chosen by the users who want to tweak avast installation and not by default. It breaks completely the idea of the Community and the improvement of avast by its 175+ million users.
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FlyingRobot

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #23 on: November 05, 2011, 08:50:17 PM »
Although I agree with this, this should be an option on demand, i.e., chosen by the users who want to tweak avast installation and not by default. It breaks completely the idea of the Community and the improvement of avast by its 175+ million users.

There are three basic approaches:

1) Have the participate option enabled by default such that those who don't want to participate would have to go into settings and disable it.  This would be called an opt-out approach.
2) Have the participate option disabled by default such that those who want to participate would have to go into settings and enable it.  This would be called an opt-in approach.
3) Require the user to choose whether to enable or disable it (during installation).  This would be called the ask approach.

Tech: Which do you advocate?  Edit: Or if something else, what is that approach?
« Last Edit: November 05, 2011, 08:55:57 PM by FlyingRobot »

Offline Lisandro

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #24 on: November 05, 2011, 09:23:30 PM »
Opt-out.
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FlyingRobot

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #25 on: November 05, 2011, 10:33:31 PM »
Thank you for answering.  The ask approach is sometimes overlooked (by some) during such discussions and I just wanted to make sure that would not happen (was not happening) here.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2011, 10:40:40 PM by FlyingRobot »

Offline Lisandro

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #26 on: November 06, 2011, 02:17:15 AM »
By the way, I fully trust on avast or I won't be using it since almost ten years. More than an user, a fell a coworker :)
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Nesivos

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #27 on: November 06, 2011, 03:01:52 AM »
Opt-out.

I agree with the opt-out concept in general.  Unfortunately with avsast! every time you use the installer file it resets all your settings to default.  So until that problem is fixed I vote for the ask approach the first time with the ability to change it to opt-in or opt-out options.

Dch48

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Re: Why did avast upload an Excel file of mine?
« Reply #28 on: November 06, 2011, 06:41:50 AM »
Although I agree with this, this should be an option on demand, i.e., chosen by the users who want to tweak avast installation and not by default. It breaks completely the idea of the Community and the improvement of avast by its 175+ million users.

There are three basic approaches:

1) Have the participate option enabled by default such that those who don't want to participate would have to go into settings and disable it.  This would be called an opt-out approach.
2) Have the participate option disabled by default such that those who want to participate would have to go into settings and enable it.  This would be called an opt-in approach.
3) Require the user to choose whether to enable or disable it (during installation).  This would be called the ask approach.

Tech: Which do you advocate?  Edit: Or if something else, what is that approach?

I would favor the ask approach with a clear explanation of why it would be advantageous to accept it.