On Mar 2, 2012, at 9:52 AM, Rob Weir wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Dave Fisher <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> On Mar 2, 2012, at 7:00 AM, Rob Weir wrote:
>> 
>>> Several testers have mentioned this anti-virus error when installing
>>> the AOO 3.4 dev snapshot build.   This is not a virus.
>>> "WS.Reputation" errors come from Symantec Antivirus based on their
>>> "reputation-based" threat assessments.  Essentially, they evaluate
>>> software that you are about to install according to a range of
>>> factors, including how new the file is, how many other people have
>>> installed it, whether the installer is digitally signed, etc.  It is
>>> not just one factor, but a proprietary mix of weighted factors.
>>> 
>>> We're probably getting penalized based on several of these factors.
>>> Note that with the final AOO 3.4 release we'll be in the same
>>> position, since that installer will also be new,etc.
>>> 
>>> A few things we should consider doing:
>>> 
>>> 1) Make sure the readme file and install instructions cover this case
>>> and explain what the user should do, e.g. "Run anyways"
>>> 
>>> 2) We can make a request to Symantec to "whitelist" our installer.
>>> This takes a couple of weeks for them to process.  And we can';t start
>>> this work in advance since they need the SHA-256 hash of our
>>> installer:
>>> 
>>> https://submit.symantec.com/whitelist/isv/
>>> 
>>> 3) We could digitally sign our Windows installers.   Apache already
>>> requires a detached signature.  But Symantec has no idea about these.
>>> We need traditional Windows exe code signing.  This will help us with
>>> Windows 8 as well.  So it is something we probably want to look into
>>> at some point.
>> 
>> This is likely to be a release requirement. Remember all artifacts in an 
>> Apache Release must be signed and installers are artifacts. (This touches  
>> your discussion on the other thread about what is AOO, what is powered by, 
>> and what is "White Label")
>> 
> 
> Right.  But all that is required are *detached* signatures.  These are
> fine for human verification, but they don't help in this case.
> 
>> I believe that signing process is being worked on elsewhere in the 
>> foundation in a way that can make this an easy part of the release process. 
>> I've a little experience with signing installers a few years ago, but I 
>> won't have many cycles for it for a few weeks. I'll look in my ML archives 
>> and ask the question on the appropriate Incubator ML about our participation 
>> in these tests.
>> 
> 
> With current approach, it is based on "web of trust". So Release
> Manager, and other PMC members verify and sign.   But normal code
> signing on Windows is more hierarchical, and based on a trusted root
> CA, etc.  Is the plan to have each PMC have its own signing cert?  In
> this case the IPMC?

I'll need to confirm the status with Infrastructure, but I think that an ASF 
wide certificate was being considered. There was a lot of debate and it is hard 
to know without followup what happened. I'll ask now.

Regards,
Dave


> 
> -Rob
> 
>> Regards,
>> Dave
>> 
>>> 
>>> My recommendation:
>>> 
>>> Plan on doing 1.  Do 2. as soon as we have a release.  Look into 3. for AOO 
>>> 4.0.
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> 
>>> -Rob
>> 

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