Agnitum Outpost, DShield.org Report Utility

Hello All Outpost Users,

I recently contacted Mr. Wayne Larmon of Dshield.org about the plans on releasing a report utility in the fashion of ZonAlarm Visual Report utility and the response was quite positive! Here it is :

Outpost is on my list of firewalls to support. We have already had several requests for Outpost support. But one Outpost user told me that Outpost will be releasing a new version shortly, with different log format, and that I should wait until it is released before writing a converter. Do you know anything about this?

Otherwise, I'll schedule some time to examine Outpost and see what I can do with it. Watch our "What's New" page for an annoucement of Outpost support.

Wayne Larmon
DShield.org

If any of you are fans of that firewall (like me), I would appreciate if you could email Agnitum to tell them you are interested in a report utility for Outpost. I sent the following to [email protected] :

Dear sirs,

I recently inquired with Mr. Wayne Larmon from Dshield.org about plans of crafting a submission utility for logs created by your firewall to their excellent database and he mentionned me he had plans of coding one but was informed by Outpost users that your company would soon release a new version of Outpost with a different log method. Is that a fact or only online blahblah?

Anyhow I think you should get in contact with Mr. Larmon and discuss together about that possibility. There are several report utilities for competing firewalls (ZoneAlarm, BlackIce Defender, etc...) and I think this is an opportunity for you to give an edge to your awesome firewall...

Here is Mr. Larmon's email : [email protected]

I dearly hope you will consider that opportunity,

Sincerely.

My goal is to get them to talk together and come up with something as good as the ZonAlarm Visual Report Utility, if possible... My experience with such request is that the more they get the quicker the tool comes out so I hope you guys will jump on the wagon with me!

Thanks for your help :D

Here is the answer from Agnitum!

I f you want something done, put it in the hands of the GREAT ORGASMATRON :D :D :D

Thank you for interest in creating such kind of utility. New log system will
be available no earlier then the end of this summer, so I do not think that
we should wait until then.

Can you please tell me more about this utility and your plans?

Thank you

Best regards
Mikhail Zakhryapin
Director, Agnitum Ltd.
http://www.agnitum.com

Good job, my experience with Agnitum is that they listen. I used Jammer way back when it first came out and remember sending them a suggestion in response to an email survey they sent out. They actually responded and used it. Amazing.
Don't you wish more companies listened to their user base that way?? :D

Sure do :) The good old small customer oriented businesses, a nice change from those stupid faceless megacorps...

Yet another episode in the Quest for a Agnitum Outpost report utility :)

My reply to Agnitum and DShield.org :

Dear Sirs,

I am only a fan of your firewall and Dshield, I am not a coder to any extent...
I really enjoyed using the VisualZone Report Utility while I used ZoneAlarm and (maybe in my dreams) I would really like to have a similar utility for Agnitum Outpost. I don't know if you have the time, will or power to craft such a tool. Pretty much anything would be fine for me as long as it submits the logs to Dshield.org...

I only wanted you guys to discuss together and see what is possible... I think I succeeded at that and now can't wait to see the outcome of your discussions!

Here is the link to VisualZone : http://www.visualizesoftware.com/
Maybe these guys would be interested to code a similar utility for you?
Send news my way if you plan on releasing a report utility someday...

Many thanks to both of you for you prompt replies! It feels good to be listened to as a end user in this world of Megacorps...

Sincerely.

I have only recently started using Agnitum Outpost and so far so good, I will send an email off as well and yes I am incredibly impressed that they responed to you, as so many companies don't. Hurray for good service, something that is fast becoming a lost art.

Ok Here is the final chapter of my quest... It seems we will have to wait a few months :)

Correspondance between DShield and Agnitum :

Wayne Larmon,

> DShield.org is a distributed database of firewall logs. We solicit the
> public to submit their firewall logs to us so we can put them into our
> database. The database is publically accessable (except that we don't
> reveal the target IPs, except when we send an abuse report to a network
> administration.)
>
> More information about DShield is available on the our site.
> http://www.dshield.org/

Thank you for information. I am aware of DShield and its services.

> We have had several requests from Outpost users to add support for Outpost
> so that Outpost users can submit their firewall logs to DShield.
> Our usual
> method of adding support is to write a conversion utility that
> will convert
> from the firewall's native format to our own "DShield" format, and then
> email them to us. Our own "Universal" DShield client is at
> http://www.dshield.org/windows_clients.html Listed below that is other
> third party programs that have support for submitting logs to DShield.
>
> Information on the format of our DShield log format is at
> http://www.dshield.org/specs.html along with other particulars on
> submitting
> firewall logs to DShield.

I suppose the best solution is incorporate log submitting facility in
Outpost's Attack Detection plug-in. Right now we are very busy with
releasing new version so I have scheduled this feature for future releases.

Best regards
Mikhail Zakhryapin
Director, Agnitum Ltd.
http://www.agnitum.com