CPF consistently fails pcflank.com leak test [Resolved]

[Guest]

[DoomScythe]

I sorry to bother again you with the leak test but after repeating the test a few more times I have more questions.

The scenario is: I type a text string into the test and press next, then I get the popup together with the viewing results box.

At this point if there are 3 possibilities:

• w/o responding to the popup I paste the results link into a browser window. I get the results page with a passing test result (no text in table).
• w/o responding to the popup I press the open browser button. I get page not found.
• respond to popup with deny then I get a page not found error whether I paste the results link or press open browser. Then I must close all browser windows (and possibly also the pcflank box) in order to resume work.

What am I missing?  What is the popup that appears when I press next in pcflank after typing  the test string? Is it the popup for the test which must be denied or the popup for the result which must be allowed? If it is the popup for the test and I don't respond then the result is a pass only because no attempt has yet been made to send the test and therefore the result is meaningless.  If I deny the popup which concerns IE, then it is obvious that IE is blocked for everything because the notation of leaktest in the popup is merely informative but the program that is being blocked is IE either with Site Advisor or svchost.exe.

I greatly appreciate your patience and responses.

Hi r2baruch,

I will attempt to answer your questions based on my understanding (hopefullly I am right ). Alright, the PCFlankTest working is as such. First, you launch the PCFlankTest, it instructs you  to open a browser by clicking the 'Open Browser' button. Up to this point, the test has not been conducted yet. I will usually open the browser manually to avoid false positives.

Next, it gives you the option to insert a text string. After inserting the text, you press 'Next'. Okay, this is where the real test is. Taking your first option where you do not respond to the pop-up and you paste the results into a browser window, of course there will be no results. Not responding is equivalent to pressing the 'Deny' button. Until you click the 'Allow' button, everything is put on hold (or denied). The appropriate response to the pop-up is 'Deny' because the PCFlankTest is performing the leak test.

If you do not respond, the results are NOT meaningless. It simply means that the data is not leaked or permitted to be transmitted to the Internet by the firewall. On clicking the 'Next' button of the PCFlankTest, the test is already executed. The pop-up that follows is actually that of the CPF's.

Okay, proceeding with the test, there is an option that says 'View Results'. Clicking that will cause CPF to generate another pop-up. This is the pop-up by PCFlankTest that should be allowed. This is merely a command from the PCFlankTest that instructs the browser to the results page.

I hope my explanation will satisfy your thrist for knowledge. Yet again, I would appreciate if someone who is more knowledgable to come along and correct whatever mistakes that exists in my explanation.


Yours truly,
DoomScythe

[r2baruch]

Hi r2baruch,

I will attempt to answer your questions based on my understanding (hopefullly I am right ). Alright, the PCFlankTest working is as such. First, you launch the PCFlankTest, it instructs you  to open a browser by clicking the 'Open Browser' button. Up to this point, the test has not been conducted yet. I will usually open the browser manually to avoid false positives.

Thanks but not quite right. You activate the test by pressing "download on the pcflank page and then start the test by pressing next.  Then you type your text string and again press next which ostensibly sends the test, changes the pcflank window to "viewing results" (and also contains the open browser button) and causes the first popup.  Earlier in the thread I posted a screen shot. Showing the popup should mean that the data was not sent. At this stage is the scenario that I described in my post.  Pressing deny in the popup blocks all access to the web until closing all IE windows and the pcflank viewing results box. If w/o pressing deny I copy the link from the pcflank viewing results box into a new browser window then I get the clean results table.  This seems to indicate passing the test.  The question is why pressing deny seems to totally block all access to the internet even to other sites by "access denied " messages, so that pressing the pcflank open browser button or trying to enter any other site, does not let you see anything, while not responding to the popup doesn't affect interet access. In fact when I try to post or review this message I again get the leaktest popup and unless I press allow I will not be allowed to send it. But if I press allow then pressing open browser shows  the test result blank i.e. a pass.  Thus I do not think I am getting a popup for sending the test but only for showing the result.

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