Keeping Trend Micro but preventing it from phoning home?

[Cake]

So basically TrendMicro gets the urls you visit. They get your IP, they get where your going when your going. Maybe throw a couple warnings to you every once in a while to keep the user excited. Put the name with a shield on in on the retail box. Use a friendly term like "the cloud" which is really just a data center or some server in a shipping container. Reminds me of those antivirus ads and bundles that is always being peddled. I bet that top notch software that sends the domains you visit to see if you get the -all clear- is closed source. Its 2019 already.

 

[OzarkEdge]

So basically TrendMicro gets the urls you visit. They get your IP, they get where your going when your going. Maybe throw a couple warnings to you every once in a while to keep the user excited. Put the name with a shield on in on the retail box. Use a friendly term like "the cloud" which is really just a data center or some server in a shipping container. Reminds me of those antivirus ads and bundles that is always being peddled. I bet that top notch software that sends the domains you visit to see if you get the -all clear- is closed source. Its 2019 already.

What's your point? That you want us to stop buying ASUS boxes and start buying Qotom boxes? Thanks for the tip.

OE

 

[sbsnb]

You could always try blackholing their IP range in the router and see what happens. A little experimentation never hurts as long as you know what you're doing.

 

[dave14305]

They use Akamai CDN, so it might break other things.

I hadn’t made use of AIProtect much but had it turned on after my last Merlin flash. I was surprised to see the wred processes holding open plaintext http connections to the remote CDN. I ran tcpdump on the router and saw how it was sending and receiving encoded but plaintext urls to their service. I disabled AIProtect after that. I trust Diversion and Skynet to protect my network from most bad stuff.

 

[sbsnb]

The amount of protection needed depends on the users more than anything else. Until just a year ago or so I operated my LAN with an old WRT54GS with zero protection without issue. I haven't run anti-virus on my home PC ever in almost 30 years. Every time the topic comes up someone insists that I'm infected and don't know it, at which time we run an offline scan of the entire hard drive and there's nothing ... even looking for known rootkits. On the other hand, my brother in law will click on anything that asks him to click, and endlessly needs help "cleaning" his PC.

In other words, as long as you're not leaving any admin interfaces open to the WAN with weak passwords, you're unlikely to experience a problem unless there is a specific vulnerability in your firmware. Just keep that up to date and it's extremely unlikely to suffer any issue that could be prevented by AIProtect. On the other hand, other than the loss of privacy, it probably doesn't hurt anything if it makes people feel better.

 

[OzarkEdge]

The amount of protection needed depends on the users more than anything else. Until just a year ago or so I operated my LAN with an old WRT54GS with zero protection without issue. I haven't run anti-virus on my home PC ever in almost 30 years. Every time the topic comes up someone insists that I'm infected and don't know it, at which time we run an offline scan of the entire hard drive and there's nothing ... even looking for known rootkits. On the other hand, my brother in law will click on anything that asks him to click, and endlessly needs help "cleaning" his PC.

In other words, as long as you're not leaving any admin interfaces open to the WAN with weak passwords, you're unlikely to experience a problem unless there is a specific vulnerability in your firmware. Just keep that up to date and it's extremely unlikely to suffer any issue that could be prevented by AIProtect. On the other hand, other than the loss of privacy, it probably doesn't hurt anything if it makes people feel better.

Feelings aside, if it works/helps, it's useful, particularly for children and child-like adults... the Internet (including "reputable" sites like Facebook) prey on both. Unfortunately, only regulation can protect us from the "reputable" sites.

OE

 

[sbsnb]

Unfortunately, only regulation can protect us from the "reputable" sites.

Or just not using them and blocking them in some way or another. Numerous solutions block Twitter/Facebook tracking.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Or just not using them and blocking them in some way or another. Numerous solutions block Twitter/Facebook tracking.

Yes, maybe, but you are not considering the range of users and the range of their usage. Imagine your mother suffering from Alzheimer's... there is only so much that can be done until you shut her down completely. Big Data preys on incompetence of all kinds. Regulation is the only practical recourse, imo... not kludging together niche off-beat hardware and software to fight back.

OE

 

[Grisu]

All the features listed rely on Trend Micros DPI engine for packet marking, I'm not sure exactly what you're complaining about. You want to use their intellectual property without agreeing to their terms of use which they are enforced by government bodies to disclose.

The point is they never mentioned that it's part of TM when we bought their routers!
We thought it's a router feature, not running TM in background.

And it has ever been called AI-protection, not free bundled TM-protection or something else!

If I use Asus-DDNS then I know they track my IP all the time, thats ok for me and I can choose Asus or another service.
But it is not ok to use Asus-DDNS and then it is served by another company, they could outsource DDNS to TM too with next firmware - I bought it with DDNS by Asus for lifetime!

 

[Cake]

What's your point? That you want us to stop buying ASUS boxes and start buying Qotom boxes? Thanks for the tip.

OE

It was a pro tip.

 

[Adamm]

The point is they never mentioned that it's part of TM when we bought their routers!
We thought it's a router feature, not running TM in background.

That advertisement alone takes up 1/4 of the box, which has been present since models were updated/released with these features (.380 I believe). I think we have to be realistic with our expectations, they are definitely not trying to hide this information, its easy to get caught up in the excitement of buying new devices and skipping over details.

 

[sbsnb]

Regulation is the only practical recourse, imo... not kludging together niche off-beat hardware and software to fight back.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Oh please, your life would suck without government.

OE

 

[Grisu]

That advertisement alone takes up 1/4 of the box, which has been present since models were updated/released with these features (.380 I believe). I think we have to be realistic with our expectations, they are definitely not trying to hide this information, its easy to get caught up in the excitement of buying new devices and skipping over details.

my car is powered by Ferrari, but sends no data to them.

My router is 68U not the new 86U!

And furthermore it clearly says: Aiprotections is BUILT IN - and NOT OUTSOURCED
Where they get tables to make my router secure (from TM or somewhere else), I dont care, but REALLY, I thought it is a built in Asus feature when I first bought my router, not an outsourced service they get for free from TM while I have to provide all visited IPs online to TM.

 

[RMerlin]

Ok, this isn't going anywhere, plus this has already been debated to death in the past. Locking this thread.