In looking at the logfile for networking in my Essential NetTools program, I have seen some Host Names that I do not know at all. My ZoneAlarm FireWall did not block these. What are they? Are any of them bad guys that I need to block? How do I block them if so?

Communicating with FireFox:
a209-152-119-232.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com
s170.x1.fr
webcluster2a.telenet-ops.be
planetlab16.Millennium.Berkeley.EDU

Communicating with Thunderbird:
mirrors.easynews.com (I did just update it. Would this be the update host?)

Communicating with vsmon.exe:
a209-152-119-254.deploy.akamaitechnologies.com

Orange Blossom

Windows XP Home SP2
AdAware SE Plus
Spyware Blaster
SpyBot
SpyWare Guard
ZoneAlarm Security Suite
The Ultimate TroubleShooter
Essential NetTools

Firefox and Thunderbird updated starting Wednesday. 10 to 1 that is what the three items relate to.

Akamai provides many IT services like application hosting, content delivery,
and streaming media services, but they are probably best known for their
massive distributed computer infrastructure. In lay terms, they have upwards
of 15,000+ servers positioned around the globe providing content (software
downloads, etc) and media (like QuickTime, RealAudio, or Windows Media
files) for their customers (the likes of Apple, GM, MTV, Department of
Defense, IBM, Microsoft, Monster.com, Yahoo!, Adobe...).

So for instance, say your company developed a web site/application for use
by your customers. On this website, you wanted to make available a few
hundred moderate length video clips. If you intend your website to have even
moderate traffic, you will quickly realize the potentially prohibitive
time/energy/costs involved with building an infrastructure capable of
delivering this content - to make those files available reliably you'll need
lots of bandwidth, reliable servers with a backup strategy, redundant power
and A/C, lots of RAID-ed disk space, finely tuned security precautions, lots
of manpower to watch over everything, and on and on and on.

This is where Akamai comes in. They have the infrastructure already in place
to deliver these services. Companies can save money by having Akamai deliver
their content for them. Akamai has become so ubiquitous that it's hard to go
a day without (perhaps unknowingly) pulling at least some content of one of
their servers, as you have discovered!

Thanks, that's cool buddy215, but what about these?


Thanks for the info., I wasn't able to find anything on a google search.

Orange Blossom

Zone Labs uses akamai to deliver updates, new trash signatures for virus scans and so on for Zone Alarm products.
Microsoft uses akamai to do updates, as far as I recall.

Thanks for the info. tos226.

Orange Blossom

This is my problem too. From time to time, completely randomly, my Zone Alarm opens two or more ports to Akamai server and I am unable to close or filter them. They do nothing bad... but whenever are those ports to Akamai opened, EVERY program I run causes a "domain" packet to be sent to network - resulting in slowdown of said program's startup. I am furious! I tried everything to make it stop: tried to block Akamai server in hosts file, to block it directly in Zone alarm, tried to find any option to turn this feature off... no avail. I thought firewalls are supposed to STOP my computer from sending things to network, not to send things themselves. I'll delete Zone Alarm and demand my money back. :-/

I use ZoneAlarm and my programs don't do this when ZoneAlarm communicates with the internet. Let's check your settings for the other programs in the firewall. You may have allowed them to send stuff when they shouldn't.

Restore the ZoneAlarm window.

First let's check your general program settings. Click on Programs Control on the left side, then click on the Main tab on the upper right side. I have Program control set to medium and SmartDefense Advisor set to medium. I also have a dot by On under Internet lock.

Now, click on the programs tab at the top right. This will show a listing of programs and their permissions.

An example: SpywareBlaster permissons has been set by the system. There is a green check under "trusted" and "internet" under the access column, and red x's under "trusted" and "internet" under the server column, and there is a red x under send e-mail. This program never tries to send stuff to the internet except when I update the program.

It is possible that you have allowed program to act as servers that don't need to. One by one, right click on a program name that is causing you problems. Click on remove: The system will then automatically set the program permission settings the next time the program runs.

Do not remove multiple programs from the list or immediately one after another as this can cause a system crash, especially if those programs are currently in use.

Hope this helps,

Orange Blossom

Thank you for your time and willingness to help. I tried as you said, but it doesn't stop. It seems to be feature of new version of ZA Pro. It is definitely related to ZA, because when I shut down ZA, all these requests to network are stopped and all ports to Akamai are closed.

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EDIT: Seems I found a solution. I turned off a SmartDefense Advisor *completely* - and all network requests stopped. No opened port to Akamai in sight, either. I guess I can do without SmartDefense Advisor; it is weird though, because I was using ZA for more than three years now and I never encountered any trouble with SDA before...