Thanks to a reader for advising me, it would appear that an automated service from Norton (Safe Web) has categorised my blog as Dangerous, stating the following.
Threat Report
This is a known dangerous webpage. It is highly recommended that you do NOT visit this page.
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| Screen Shot |
There is an appeal button on the site, which I used and I explained what the blog is about. I also suggested that the category be changed from Phishing to Gaming.
The reply came back very quickly and simply said;
“The website rating is not changed after evaluation”
Whilst I understand that automated systems working on keywords etc can produce these effects, I am really surprised that the rating was upheld after appeal, it rather feels like very heavy handed moderation and rather a unfair way for a company to manipulate internet content.
I’m not sure where this leaves the blog! I must admit it has rather taken the wind out of my sails.
I had exactly the same issue with my blog at pretty much the same time you did. I appealed and in the text box said it was a blog using Blogger and I had no idea why they thought it was phishing for reader's data as all I was doing was entering my posts on third party blogging software. I classified my blog as sports/recreation. My appeal was successful. So maybe try again using sports/recreation as a classification. TBH Norton is a pain in the whassaname!
ReplyDeleteThank you, I will have another go.
ReplyDeleteIn the past Norton was a right pain to use I switched to McAfee in the end.
ReplyDeleteWhen I used to use Windows machines, I found it too resource intensive, but thought the same of McAfee. I am guessing that modern processors cope more easily with the demands of anti-virus software.
DeleteIn this instance, I don’t know enough of the reasoning behind Norton’s decision to make head nor tail of this one.
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ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan, I would have thought that an appeal on my part would have found in my favour if that were the case. I have a second appeal as outlined above in hand - that might be interesting, because if it is a system thing, the they should decide the same, but if it is just a judgement thing, then a different pair of eyes might find differently.
ReplyDeleteI’m also not sure whether if found in my favour, I could then find myself in the same boat in the weeks or months ahead.
Norm, I wonder if this was not a false positive thrown up by someone's Norton browser extension? As Phil says, both Norton and McAfee are more trouble than they are worth. I could recount many horror stories of problems with McAfee consuming resources in corporate environments. I would not steer this ship onto the rocks just yet.
ReplyDeleteI run an IT company, and we are running a lot of very heavy-duty security software. Our software would aggressively block your site if there was an issue. I can view the site with no popups or warnings. I would guess most of the rest of your visitors can as well. The Norton warning is a false positive.
ReplyDeleteThanks Doug, that is very reassuring to know - what is a false positive? Is it not the case than anyone using Norton (tons of people) would get this warning?
ReplyDeleteA "false positive" is a detection when something isn't actually malicious. Yes, it's likely this would be impacting anyone using Norton.
DeleteThanks Doug - someone tried to leave a positive review on the Norton site and got a message that the status was under review, so fingers crossed.
DeleteAs an aside, when I comment on blogs, over the last couple of days, when I hit the ‘publish’ button, I get an error message. On the 4th attempt, it goes through ….. could that be associated with all of this?
ReplyDeleteIf only Morton could have been more helpful in their reply to the appeal.
Same happens to me when posting a comment on your blog and a couple of others.
DeleteThen that must be a ‘thing’. No doubt, it will be rectified at some point and we will then return to a new normal!
DeleteSomeone on a forum has kindly pointed out that the ‘Phishing’ status means it is not content related, so at least that is something.
ReplyDeleteWhere I used to work we had new 'security software' at one point that made it nigh on impossible to buy some items, such as scalpel blades (which we used all the time), or to search for Defence related stuff, which was blocked. After a day we changed the settings to allow us to function.
ReplyDeleteI use AVG antivirus and have had no problems with your site. Fingers crossed you get it sorted soon Norm.
Thanks Steve, I have used AVG and Kaspersky without issue. I am not overly confident at getting to the bottom of all of this …. The machines are taking over :-) I shall go and do something ‘real’ like painting, instead of looking at this screen :-).
ReplyDeleteNorm I shouldn’t worry somebody said mine had been listed but I believe it was probably at their end rather than anything I have done after all I have no real control over the technical aspects of the blog all of which is held by Google ?
ReplyDeleteHi Matt, I am still waiting for a response to my 2nd appeal (worded differently), but I am already sliding into your camp of accepting that I am not really going to have any control over this.
DeleteMatt, I have just checked your status and is listed like mine, just like several others that I have browsed, this must be quite widespread.
DeleteI use Norten and it just a flag popped up as well when I went to look at your blog. It's been doing that with about half the pages I look at on BlogSpot these days.
ReplyDeleteHi, thanks, wow, 50% of blogs as a ball park figure is surprising … now I feel less special :-)
DeleteI wonder what the real trigger is if it is not content related?
My McAffee says your 'Not secure' - it says that about my own blog as well !
ReplyDeleteHi Tony, Norton & now McAffee too, there must be a common trigger. I am using Safari on the iPad and not seeing any of the issues. I will dig out my Chromebook (uses Google backed Chrome and advertised as not needing AV) and see if that is picking any of this up.
ReplyDeleteNorm I have Norton security and it works well, last year the system told me that lots of gaming blogs I visited were dangerous yours and this one to name a few. All I did was go into my norton system and appealed against their system incorrect classification and it was auto corrected.
ReplyDeleteThe problem was my end not yours.
Willz.
Thanks Bill, that is a great behind the scenes service to provide. The blogging / reader community is quite tight, so hopefully the process you describe is common and that in any case, most readers will know that it is OK to visit. It wold be a shame to miss the next chapter of Piggy Longton :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm told we humans need a little risk in our lives, Norm. If visiting the tavern at Piggy Longton and having a smoggy ale is "living dangerously" for me then so be it!
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, perhaps it is exactly that …. Piggy Longton is certainly not the place to book a vacation, but the odd peek now and then is surely good for the soul :-)
DeleteCarry on regardless Norm. Screw em. I had a notification last week (ostensibly from Google) that there was a video related problem on my blog. I ignored it and nothing hap….
ReplyDeleteHi JB, I’m glad nothing hap…. :-). I think from time to time, these things do odd things and then correct themselves as the various apps and things get tweaked and adjusted and debugged.
ReplyDeleteI would still like to know exactly what it is that Norton is seeing that they don’t like, but that is likely to remain one of life’s mysteries I suspect.
Hi Norm, interesting as I have Norton running on my PC and it has no problems with your blog, or any others so far. Agree it would really help if they could give some reason why this happening!
ReplyDeleteHi David, now that is interesting. They have a feature called safe web, I’m not sure whether that is part of the standard service or whether it is an ‘additional’ - it seems to be that picks it up. I am still waiting for Norton to get back to me …. Maybe they won’t a second time!
DeleteCould it be an issue with the fact that your blog has been around a while and it's address is http://battle etc, rather than https://etc, with the "S" being for "Secure" ? I suspect that might be causing the issue.
ReplyDeleteIf you're using Blogger/Blogspot, under your Settings, you can fix that by turning on "HTTPS redirect"...
I don't think that will cause any side effects (!). I've just tried it with an old one of mine and it seems OK.
Hi Tom, thanks for dropping in …. You will be pleased to know :-) that my blog treated you as spam and I had to rescue your comment from my reader list - it was doing that to a regular poster recently and then stopped!
DeleteYour suggestion is interesting as my other bit of web space is HTTPS and is not affected - I will go and have a look at that. I imagine that I would need to make another appeal after switching!
Tom, I have done that, I have also sent a further message to Norton to explain the change and to also ask them if they can tell me what the issue is, so that I can fix it. Cheers.
DeleteAnother thing you could try because it might be making your own blog look "dangerous".
DeleteYou link to various other blogs which are http, not https. I'd suggest editing the links there and adding the S:
http://bobthepainter.blogspot.com/
http://bandofwargamebrothers.blogspot.com/
http://this28mmlife.blogspot.com/
http://wargaminggirl.blogspot.com/
The links will still work.
Like reading your blog, find it very interesting, btw. Sorry I've just "lurked" for so long ;-) !
Hi Tom, thanks for the thumbs up. I will have a go at changing links ….. last count there were 72 of them!
DeleteMany of them are already https and it's just a straight forward adding an S to the offending addresses, fortunately ;-) !
DeleteBut I'd not spotted the "show all" link...
That could be the problem, though. A search engine or antivirus might be thinking, hey up! here's a whole (battle!) field of bad links!
When I go into editing the blog links in layout, every blog is listed as an HTTP without the ‘s’, another quirk of blogger perhaps. Job being started slowly :-)
DeleteI have still not heard back from Norton, so considering the first reply was within 2 hours, then I am guessing that repeat appeals get filtered out, so looks like I am stuck wit this rating whatever I now do!
Hm... My guess is that at least some you added when they were still http.
DeleteI had a blog of my own which Chrome totally blocked even me from seeing until I fixed the problem -- the solution being adding that S to the links in the link list.
I'd still recommend trying that. If you have 40-50 http (not https) links, it wouldn't surprise me if that trips an alert.
If you actually go to each of those http blogs, you'll probably get some kind of "not secure" alert in your browser.
Thanks Tom, this may at least stop other AV listing me - I’m not sure that Norton will reverse any decision, they have still not dealt with my appeal - which may be a good sign as it might suggest I am in the queue for a human investigation.
DeleteI used my laptop to view your blog this morning, which has Norton on it, and had no issues at all. No warning, no pop ups, ziltch. For whatever that is worth. 😁
ReplyDeleteHi Stew, that might be because you have confused the hell out of Norton by all your talk of Romulans :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know, it does seem hit and miss, which of itself is strange. A friend told me that for a while, he gets a ‘not secure’ notice when visiting my site, so perhaps this has being going on for some time.
This is all very interesting. I recently had three of the blogs I visit declared dangerous (not yours) and spent some time trying to query it with Norton but their system just sent me round and round. Now they are all clear - unless I link from them to another blog and when I return it is dangerous. I think the bloggers concerned are tring to avoid my comments.:-) The world is most confusing at times.
ReplyDeleteHi Jim, I have been feeding various blogs into the Norton filter and most are coming back as a threat and relate to Phishing, so I am guessing this has been going on a while and some of us have just not realised and whilst I initially thought this was a mini disaster for my blog, in truth things are likely no different than they were last week or even a month ago.
DeleteI used to like all the tech about tecky stuff, but now I just want things to work - so I am just a small confused cog inside a world of equally confused cogs :-)
I have still not heard back from Norton, so considering the first reply was within 2 hours, then I am guessing that repeat appeals get filtered out, so looks like I am stuck with this rating whatever I now do!
ReplyDeleteI have been running the various blogs that I visit through the Norton filter and so far Jonathan’s Palouse blog is the only one that gets a SAFE status. Interestingly, his blog, content wise is similar to others and also his seems to be the only one that has the opening thumb photo set to appearing as a square and actually getting pulled through by blogger.
ReplyDeleteNorm, I live a clean and honest life.
DeleteI think there must be a fellow cyclist enthusiast on the Norton vetting team :-)
DeleteSeems bloody stupid to me Norm, mind you, I don't have Norton or any other protection, so have not come across any issues.
ReplyDeleteKeith, I was likewise blind to it and when first told, I was personally concerned that this was just my blog, now I understand it as a more universal problem for bloggers in general.
ReplyDeleteThis has happened to my blog today after I added Norton to my phone. I protested to Norton and got a very quick response saying that the Phishing classification was staying. I've uninstall it from my phone and will not be renewing my subscription with them. I also reckon its due to the HTTP / HTTPS issue.
ReplyDeleteHi, thanks for visiting. When I first came across this, I thought it was just me, which is mostly why I posted, but I have since found that a significant number of bloggers are likewise tagged, though not all! I think you are probably right about the cause, since the appeal process supports the block, so there must be a baseline reason for it.
ReplyDelete