💾 Archived View for hyperborea.org › log › 2006-02-13-symantec-issues.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 03:15:46. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Last week I received a message offering a 30% discount on Norton Internet Security 2006. It claimed to be from Symantec, but the email address was at digitalriver.com, and all the links—including the ones that claimed to be at symantec.com—went to bluehornet.com.
Now 5 minutes of research turns up the facts that Symantec does work with Digital River and Digital River owns Blue Hornet. And it did go to the address I used to register Norton Antivirus last year. So it's *probably* a legit offer.
Symantec partners with Digital River for online stores
Digital River purchases Blue Hornet
But let's think about this for a minute.
Assuming it's legit, Symantec—a company that deals in internet security—is deliberately sending out offers via third-party domains, email and web servers. Depending on how security-conscious you are, they are either making their messages look suspicious or training users to ignore warning signs.
Pick *one* domain for email and stick with it!
Or have you never seen spam offering enormous discounts on Norton products? Which generally turn out to be pirated. And I seem to recall—though I can't find an article to back it up—that the bootleg copies are often infected themselves, or crippled in some way.
Given how many shady operators are out there, taking advantage of the big guys' name recognition, you'd think the big guys would at least make some effort to make their own offerings look less, well, shady.
—Kelson Vibber, 2006-02-13
Previous: Email advice: Pick a domain and stick with it!