Why are quantconnect.com, quantopian.com, and quantquote.com flagged moderate risk or suspicious?

  • 23 June 2016
  • 9 replies
  • 64 views

Userlevel 3
Hi,
I've read favorable reviews of the subject sites and they seem legit, so why are they flagged with the minus sign and exclamation signs in front of their seach listings? QuantConnect even has a github account. Have there been reports of anything nefarious with these sites? Any malicious links or payloads?
 
I'd like to visit these sites but I certainly don't want trouble. 
 
Might these sites be flagged because they all have "quant" in their names?
 
Sorry if my questions seem stupid, I just don't know how the flagging works and whether it's a real threat. I'm hoping it's just a mistake. If it's true that these sites are indeed nefarious, will WebRoot still protect me against malicious links and payloads? 
 

9 replies

Userlevel 7
Hi MystrTiger
 
Welcome to the Community Forums.
 
A quick check over at www.brightcloud.com (URL / IP Lookup) reveals the following:
 


The boxed & arrowed informatiob explain the current reputation rating, i.e., they are relatively new & at present not seen as popular. I suspect that this is the same for the other 2 sites you mention.
 
I suspect that this will change over time but if you are minded to assist their reputation rating then you can lodge a request for it to be reviewed by submitting a URL Reputation Change Request over at brightcloud.com via this web page, the instructions on how to proceed are provided on the page.
 
I hope that helps?
 
Regards, Baldrick
Userlevel 3
Excellent - thanks Baldrick! And thanks for quick reply!
 
I will follow your advice. I feel a lot better knowing it's just a lack of popularity and not something nefarious.  🙂
Userlevel 7
You are most welcome, MystrTiger...please to be able to assist a fellow Community member. :D
 
One can also get similar but less detailed information via a link in the WSA client:
 
Gear/cog symbol to right of Utilities tab > Reports tab > Submit a file...which will open a web page which is a Webroot Lookup page and on which there is a tab marked 'URL Reputation Lookup'.
 
Entering a URL in that provides the following lesser information, but it is still a useful facility if you want to check a site out before heading over to it:
 


 
Hope that helps further?
 
Regards, Baldrick
Userlevel 3
Thanks again Baldrick! I tried the lookup via utilities. I also did a lookup of the other two quant sites using brightcloud and that was very informative - both are also flagged for low popularity and not because of any threats. Thanks so much for showing me how to use brightcloud -  I now have a new skill! 🙂  
Userlevel 7
Again, you are most welcome, MystrTiger.:D
 
That is part of what we are here for...to learn and share all together.
 
Regards, Baldrick
Both QuantConnect and Quantopian are years old (quantconnect.com was created in January 2011, and quantopian.com was created in April 2009), but BrightCloud gives an age of "0 months (Not established)" for both of them. This is simply wrong. How is BrightCloud determining the age of a domain?
 
Furthermore, Quantopian has over 80,000 registered users, a Github account with several popular open-source projects on it, many articles about it on news sites, and links to it from all over the internet, so it is hard to understand how BrightCloud categorizes its popularity as "Unknown".
 
In short, I don't think this reputation score is at all in any way reliable.
 
(Note: I work for Quantopian.)
 
Userlevel 7
Hi jikamens
 
Welcome to the Community Forums.
 
Thanks for your input...best approach if you would like to get the reputation score for the sites involved reviewed/changed etc., is to submit a URL Reputation Change Request to BrightCloud which you can do directly from this SITE.
 
I am sure that the BrightCloud Reputation Team will be pleased to receive your input/request.
 
Regards, Baldrick
Frankly, a web reputation service which presents bogus information to users and requires end users to submit update requests to correct such bogus information is a very poor, untrustworthy web reputation service indeed. It's sort of a joke, actually.
 
 
Userlevel 7
You are of course entitled to your views and opinions...but I respectfully contend that it is not 'bogus' information and, for information Webroot does not block access to the site as a result, just warns as the the potential for issue...the user is at liberty to override and proceed to the site without further hinderance.
 
Given the number of sites on the Web and the number of such incidents which we hear about, which are frankly very, very low indeed, I feel that BrightCloud does an excellent at safeguarding users.
 
There is no such thing as perfection in terms of this...and I have used a number of other reputation applications (which I will not name) and they have perfromed rather worse than BrightCloud...it is just unfortuante that a site that you are involved with has been caught up in this...and to correct this as quickly as possible the change request is the best approach.
 
Regards, Baldrick

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