A-A AE (both Free and Plus, across six different machines) just started reporting AboutTime (a 10-year-old freeware time synchronizer program) as "Win32.Monitor.PowerSpy", and deleting it at every possible opportunity. I've added the process to the "Ignore List", but merely opening its window starts an A-A scan which kills the process immediately, and then ends claiming no problems were found. I've been forced to disable the Process portion of A-A Live! to keep this program running; when enabled, it also deletes the AboutTime process immediately.

"General Support" requested that I post the details here. The AboutTime program (which has been running on all six systems here without problem since before A-A AE was installed) can be downloaded from "http://www.arachnoid.com/abouttime/", at "http://www.arachnoid.com/abouttime/abouttime_nomsie.exe". The program as installed on my machines (binary unchanged from that available for download) is also attached.

Thanks for any assistance you may provide in solving this problem. -JW

Hello

Thank you for possting this issue. We will re-investigate the file in question and if it is found tp be a false positive it will be removed from detection.


Regards
LS Anders

Thanks for the quick reply! -JW

I just had the same thing happen today. Running XP SP3 + all updates.

-jj

Hi jjinatx,

Please attach the files like JWeaverJr did so we can investigate.

Thanks
Atri

Atri,

Sorry, but I don't have the zip file from AboutTime, but it is version 4.8. Here is the scan file.

-jj

Thanks, this should be fixed in the next definition release later today

Hi!

Our development department currently looking into this issue. Please put the object on ignore both in Ad-Watch and Ad-Aware until the issue has been resolved.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Thanks

Albin

Lavasoft Malware Labs

As noted in another topic (and reported), I already have this listed as "Do Nothing", and Smart Scan still zaps it every time.

...so, I just have a watchdog task scheduled for every ten minutes that restarts it when A-A kills it. I'm still rather annoyed by it, though, and would much rather that the Ignore List actually worked. -JW

OPEN EMAIL

Paul Lutus ...

Still no change despite ...
http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?s...rt=#entry110154

I re-downloaded 'abouttime_msie.exe' from http://www.arachnoid.com/abouttime/ and ran it, and almost instantly 'Ad-Aware' started a background scan and reported per Attachment 1. - whereupon I choose to add it to the ignore list rather than the recommended 'quarantine'!

Moreover, again upon running 'About Time', now my 'Windows Firewall' immediately, even before 'Ad-Aware' gets a chance, throws up a dialogue box recommending the blocking of some aspects of the program (i.e. 'About Time') for security reasons [see Attachment 2.] - whereupon I chose to add it to allowed exceptions.

Now my adding 'About Time' to the respective 'ignore list' and 'allowed exceptions' resulted in 'About Time' NOT being ignored (i.e. the 'Ad-Aware' auto-scan continues immediately upon opening/starting 'About Time', and finds nothing!) in the former yet successfully allowed in the latter.

I feel 'About Time' is becoming more of a problem than it is worth, and it is for that reason I have decided to uninstall the program till these issues are fully resolved.

Martin Eden

Attachments:
1.

2.

PAUL LUTUS' RESPONSE ...

On 09/20/2009 08:03 PM, Martin Eden wrote:

/ ...

> I feel 'About Time' is becoming more of a problem than it is worth, and
> it is for that reason I have decided to uninstall the program till these
> issues are fully resolved.

Given the circumstances, your reaction is perfectly understandable. I
wonder how many other clean, harmless programs will be exterminated by
the LavaSoft dragnet? They could have solved this problem in 24 hours if
they were properly motivated.

AboutTime has been available in the same version for almost ten years,
and the installation package produces the same checksum that it did when
I first offered it. It is not any kind of threat to anyone's system.
Over the years I have heard from many police, fire and public safety
departments that use AboutTime to synchronize their municipal networks.

LavaSoft needs to understand their responsibilities and the legal risk
they are taking in not correcting their defective software in a timely
manner.

[ ME: can you post this on the LavaSoft Discussion board? I can't. ]

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

Hello meden

Try downloading the latest software updates and definitions. There was an update that should solve this bug. If you are still having problems after that please post those here.


Regards
LS Anders

As of today's update (to 149.0055), "abouttime.exe" is no longer deleted by Ad-Aware.

To "meden": the Windows Firewall dialog appears because About Time needs to access the Internet (to find/read a time server), and needs your permission for that access. There is nothing to worry about in that regard. -JW