Evil Pundit Tech Support

The Evil Pundit, baiter of left-wing bloggers everywhere, writes

This applies to people using Norton Internet Security, Norton
Personal Firewall
, or similar software firewall products.

For people who use this, the default privacy settings on the firewall
will prevent posting comments on this site. I just found out how to fix
this today.

If you have Norton Internet Security, try disabling the “Privacy
Control” section temporarily, and see if this cures your problem. Don’t
disable the other sections as this may leave your computer vulnerable to
attack.

If it works, then you can change the settings to fix it permanently for
this site, without affecting your firewall in any other way. To do this,
go to Privacy Control, click on “Configure” and then click on “Advanced”.

Add a new web site in the column at the left, called
“ubersportingpundit.com”. Then in the “Global Settings” tab for that
address, set “Information about visited sites” to “Permit”. Click “OK”.
Posting should now work.

Try it out, and let me know how you go.

UPDATE- I take it that is a no?

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Scott Wickstein
2025 years ago

Test?

Mark Bahnisch
Mark Bahnisch
2025 years ago

And to think all this started because EP wanted to comment on left-wing posts he doesn’t read:

http://troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/008162.html

ntp
ntp
2025 years ago

Test. It’s definitely Norton Privacy Control, ’cause when I turn it off, comments work. However, when I’ve done as suggested above, I was still not able to comment.

ntp
ntp
2025 years ago

And here I was thinking that I offended you guys somehow. Damn!

I’m happy just to toggle privacy control on and off for the moment. No more time to fiddle with it today.

Evil Pundit
2025 years ago

I think it’s a partial “no”, since it seems that Norton Privacy Control is involved. We just need to work on the details a bit more.

Robert
2025 years ago

FWIW, Carita was having the same trouble — her WordPress blog wouldn’t let her delete some test comments. When NIS Privacy Control was toggled off, everything was fine.

Martin Pike
Martin Pike
2025 years ago

Aha- I’ve GOT IT!

For those whocan’t affect their firewalls, like me, the answer as suggested by someone on an earlier post is:

Click on the date-permalink!

And I thought i was banned. I’ll go add a link to you right now…

Robert
2025 years ago

Oh, and I should point out that the error Carita was given asked her to “enable sending referers” — perhaps this is the same thing? If so, there are instructions for resolving the problem for a wide range of systems on the WP Codex.

Evil Pundit
2025 years ago

I think you might have the cure there, Robert.

ntp
ntp
2025 years ago

Sorry Evil, that’s not it either. I went off and did what they suggested over at the wordpress site (and it did look promising), but no joy.

For info, I’m using IE6, XP Pro and Norton Internet Security. I’ve also been accessing the comments (to read comments) via the date stamp for about the last month. Something happened overnight to cause the problem around that time. I haven’t actually been able to post a comment or enter via the comments link since then. (There’s been no change in my settings for about six months). Apart from some recent problems with registering at Tim Blair’s new site, this is the only site where I’ve had a problem. I wasn’t a frequent enough commentator to bother mentioning it (sorry).

Hope that helps. Since it’s only your site causing me any bother, I’m happy with my work around (toggling privacy control on and off), but that may not suit you guys.

Warbo
Warbo
2025 years ago

Here at work (Internet Explorer behind some sort of firewall, I suppose), I can’t access comments if I double-left-click on ‘comments’, but can if I right-click and open in new window.

That’s probably no use to anyone.

TimT
2025 years ago

“And to think all this started because EP wanted to comment on left-wing posts he doesn’t read…”

And most of these left-wing posts, er, AREN’T posted by Mark Bahnisch! I remember a couple of days ago he said he was going to take a hiatus from blogging because of thesis work, and I’ve since noted that he’s written the last ten posts on this blog…

Nababov
Nababov
2025 years ago

Well I’m not running Mr Pink Shirt and Glasses’ security software (I’m on Mac, which as Bruce Sterking pointed out is like having a Swiss passport online) and I get the same problem anyway.

Which also seems to infest other ubersports-based blogs, like Boynton, and which is easily hacked by clicking on the datestamp to comment.

Scott, I suspect you may have pull another allnighter, re-reading the code line by line.

Which is as good a time as any to acknowledge and thank you for yer hard work behind the scenes in making so many good online pubs happen.

Geoff  Honnor
Geoff Honnor
2025 years ago

The Norton privacy control thingo is working for me.
It’s totally exciting! Which might be a sad commentary on my life…………..

David Tiley
2025 years ago

For me – Mac and Safari – if I get a piss off notice, I just repeat the action. This brilliant ratlike response works fine.

Dan
Dan
2025 years ago

FWIW, I don’t have the configuration you mentioned on a site-by-site basis (maybe I’m using an earlier version of NIS), but I did try setting a custom level of privacy control and unchecking the box that says “Enable Browser Privacy”, which did the trick. I’m not sure whether, in practical terms, that’s any different to turning off privacy control altogether considering that I’m not blocking any cookies or anything, but whatever.

Dan
Dan
2025 years ago

Ah … did a bit more sniffing around, and I am able to do what I thought I couldn’t. In NIS2003, it’s under Options>Internet Security>Web Content. Click “Add Site”, type ubersportingpundit.com, then opt to permit “Information about your browser” and “Information about visited sites”. Worked for me.

Mark Bahnisch
Mark Bahnisch
2025 years ago

TimT, I went off with a friend tonight after a hard day’s blogging and listened to a really good jazz band and had a whisky sour or two. Yeah, I know, thesis, thesis… evil beast that it is.

Evil Pundit
2025 years ago

Mark isn’t blogging, and I’m not commenting on the posts he isn’t making.

ntp
ntp
2025 years ago

Test

ntp
ntp
2025 years ago

Good news.

I got comments to work by following EvilPundit’s instructions (more or less) but in addition to ubersportingpundit.com, I also added troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com as a trusted site. I still can’t access comments via the comments link (I still have to use the date stamp), but at least it’s working with the remainder of privacy control still on.

Incidentally, when I first posted my test comment, NIS produced a little pop up asking whether I wished to make this a trusted site (or something like that). I forget the wording exactly, but the pop up mentioned both “troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com”

ntp
ntp
2025 years ago

Okay. That pop up happened again with my last post. I paid attention this time and here is what it said:

Security warning: the current web page is trying to open a site in your trusted sites list. Do you want to allow this?

Current site: http://www.ubersportingpundit.com
Trusted site: troppoarmadillo.ubersportingpundit.com

Hope that helps.

Niall
2025 years ago

Nortan’s ??? No wonder you’re having problems. There’s better products available if you care to look.

Evil Pundit
2025 years ago

Naming them might be helpful.

Mark Bahnisch
Mark Bahnisch
2025 years ago

“Mark isn’t blogging, and I’m not commenting on the posts he isn’t making.”

This is not a comment, it’s a pipe.