More My Community Questions

[CNeeper]

More questions on My Community.

 

How would I build a community from multiple computers that are under my control and have them show up in My Community and increase my Protection Factor? I support numerous public-use computers in numerous public libraries. I would like to install ClamAV for Windows v2.x on these computers, but I can't exactly invite myself to join my own community (already tried that!). Also logging into both computers as myself doesn't seem to affect my Protection Factor or register that I'm using two different computers.

 

Secondly, I'm still a little bit fuzzy on the whole concept. From a marketing perspective, I understand that the "peer pressure" helps to increase the threat protection for a subset of individuals with common threat exposures...as explained in the docs and in another thread on this forum. However, from a purely technical perspective, is there any difference at all between ten friends in the same town that have formed a single community and those same exact ten friends if they do NOT form a community? They are all still exposed to the same threats and are sending them up to Immunet's cloud regardless of their decision to form a community. Does forming a community give any technical advantage to these ten friends in this case?

 

Thanks,

Chad

[Guest orlando]

More questions on My Community.

 

How would I build a community from multiple computers that are under my control and have them show up in My Community and increase my Protection Factor? I support numerous public-use computers in numerous public libraries. I would like to install ClamAV for Windows v2.x on these computers, but I can't exactly invite myself to join my own community (already tried that!). Also logging into both computers as myself doesn't seem to affect my Protection Factor or register that I'm using two different computers.

 

Secondly, I'm still a little bit fuzzy on the whole concept. From a marketing perspective, I understand that the "peer pressure" helps to increase the threat protection for a subset of individuals with common threat exposures...as explained in the docs and in another thread on this forum. However, from a purely technical perspective, is there any difference at all between ten friends in the same town that have formed a single community and those same exact ten friends if they do NOT form a community? They are all still exposed to the same threats and are sending them up to Immunet's cloud regardless of their decision to form a community. Does forming a community give any technical advantage to these ten friends in this case?

 

Thanks,

Chad

 

In response to how to increase the protection factor. The protection factor increases when you have multiple computers in the community (an increase) and blocks malware. It is therefore a balance on these factors, if the malware blocks are not present then the protection factor is difficult to raise, what will happen if the same people in the community are few, but the malware detected increase the protection factor.

 

Regarding the question of the community can give you a personal evaluation. If an antivirus product (not Immunet) flanked Immunet to detect a virus, Immunet sends it to the cloud, but the first is inserted in your community, all a bit vague though. Then more new threats is a community the more it strengthens the cloud first and then with the passage of time unknown threats are included in the "big cloud" and all users of Immunet will be protected equally. It's a process always in motion.

 

Regards,

Orlando

[alfred]

More questions on My Community.

 

How would I build a community from multiple computers that are under my control and have them show up in My Community and increase my Protection Factor? I support numerous public-use computers in numerous public libraries. I would like to install ClamAV for Windows v2.x on these computers, but I can't exactly invite myself to join my own community (already tried that!). Also logging into both computers as myself doesn't seem to affect my Protection Factor or register that I'm using two different computers.

 

Secondly, I'm still a little bit fuzzy on the whole concept. From a marketing perspective, I understand that the "peer pressure" helps to increase the threat protection for a subset of individuals with common threat exposures...as explained in the docs and in another thread on this forum. However, from a purely technical perspective, is there any difference at all between ten friends in the same town that have formed a single community and those same exact ten friends if they do NOT form a community? They are all still exposed to the same threats and are sending them up to Immunet's cloud regardless of their decision to form a community. Does forming a community give any technical advantage to these ten friends in this case?

 

Thanks,

Chad

 

 

Chad,

 

Orlando had an excellent description. I will add to it by ripping something out of our manual:

 

"My Community

 

The My Community feature allows users to build their own protection network. The goal of this feature is to allow people to draw in those close to them and allow them help create a small network which they use to help protect each other. This is done under the premise that people with similar languages, preferences and surfing habits will encounter similar threats and can therefore band together to form their own early warning network of sorts. Because each person in the network can submit threats to Immunet which they encounter you can quickly build up a powerful protection network. It's like having your own anti-virus company and focusing it just on your friends. Here is an example to illustrate how this work:

 

A Norwegian Network Example

 

If you live in Norway and have (for example) 50 people in Norway connected to you, with the Community Feature, then your community will likely encounter and send up threats predominant in Norway. People in your network will see threats that are hosted on Norwegian web sites, sent out in Norwegian language spam and phishing attacks etc. So the more people you surround yourself with who have similar language preferences, geographic locations, hobbies etc. the better. However even without people in your network you get the full protection of the Immunet Cloud.

 

The My Community feature can be launched by clicking on the My Community icon, which is the first button in the left-hand column of the main pane (shown below). The My Community feature is designed to allow users to build and manage their Protection Network, which is a group of individuals that the user has invited to join Immunet.

 

Once individuals who have been invited join the Protection Network have accepted, their computers will start to submit suspicious data to Immunet. Immunet will then use this information to secure the computers of the user community against detected threats. This protection will be enacted almost as soon as the suspect files are submitted to Immunet. It will also extend to the communities of other Immunet users.

 

The more people in a user's network, the more the user will be protected against threats that are detected circulating on the Internet. Further, the bigger a user's network, the more it will contribute to the enhanced security of the entire Immunet community."

 

As for installation - be sure to log into your account when installing each install, this will tie each machine to you. Each time one picks up a threat, it will help get into your Protection Factor.

 

Al

[CNeeper]

As for installation - be sure to log into your account when installing each install, this will tie each machine to you. Each time one picks up a threat, it will help get into your Protection Factor.

Thank you both for your additional descriptions of the My Community feature. Alfred, I had read your excerpts in a previous thread and also noted it in the documentation. However the above quote is a nugget of new information. It seems that I may have some advantage in linking the numerous computers under my control into a single community. However, since I'm not actually e-mailing other individuals to invite them into my community, I will simply log each instance of IP in under my single e-mail address. When I look at My Community within IP, I'll see a community of...one (plus the two default names). There will be no indication that I actually have 20, 30, 40...computers associated with me. Have I described this correctly?

 

If so, then I might suggest a feature enhancement. It might be beneficial to know how many distinct computers are associated with each member of a community. I'm sure there are many users out there that have more than one computer with IP installed on it and logged in under their account. For example, a parent installs IP on the parent's laptop used exclusively by the parent and also on the "family computer" used by the kids. Both are logged in using the parent's account, but would essentially be the equivalent of two distinct people with similar risk exposure and essentially two distinct community members.

 

Just a thought.

 

Chad

[alfred]

There will be no indication that I actually have 20, 30, 40...computers associated with me. Have I described this correctly?

 

That is correct. However, if you use Gmail you can actually game this registering using the + symbol in your mail. For example you can register each system as:

 

alfred+computer1@gmail.com

alfred+computer2@gmail.com

 

etc.

 

Gmail honors the + field (it's RFC compliant) so you can register them all to you, have them show up distinctly in your interface etc. However, if you do not, as you note, they will all be aggregated to you.

 

If so, then I might suggest a feature enhancement. It might be beneficial to know how many distinct computers are associated with each member of a community. I'm sure there are many users out there that have more than one computer with IP installed on it and logged in under their account. For example, a parent installs IP on the parent's laptop used exclusively by the parent and also on the "family computer" used by the kids. Both are logged in using the parent's account, but would essentially be the equivalent of two distinct people with similar risk exposure and essentially two distinct community members.

 

Just a thought.

 

Chad

 

 

I agree, that's a good feature. I will throw that on the list.

 

al