DeepSight Analyzer Questions

I am running Norton Internet Security including Anti-Virus and Personal Firewall. I went to the Symantec web site, and it said that I could download the installer to run the DeepSight analyzer. I have three questions. First, is it safe? That is, is it free of risks to me? Second, will it be useful to me? Third, will running it be useful to Symantec or the computer security industry without posing risks to me?

My first question really has to do with the fact that it has the potential for behaving as spyware. Does anyone have any specific reason to think that it is spyware? Does anyone have any specific reason to be sure that it is not spyware, that is, that it doesn't report anything other than metrics on threats? Also, can I de-install it if I decide that I don't want it after all?

Second, will the report that Symantec provides me from DeepSight be useful to me in some way?

Thank you for any answers.

- - Bob McClenon

Robert McClenon is alleged to have said in comp.security.firewalls:

I suspect it will be of little use given your questions. It's primarily for security administrators who want to consolidate their reporting without having to build their own reporting infrastructure. As far as whether you running DSA will be useful to Symantec or the industry in general, probably not.

But whatever your decision, it's definiately not spyware. I run it on my unix-based IDS systems and also parse my checkpoint firewall logs with it. The reports it generates are viewable with any text editor, and via the web once uploaded. I find it quite handy.