We have placed full sanctions on Russia. It's common sense not to rely on them too much.
Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
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Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found it always fishy that telegram applauds itself for being a secure messenger but decided against encryption by default. With the flick of a switch every doubt would go away but alas.
I have also been amused by the number of technical people that prefer Telegram vs Whatsapp in terms of security.
> Telegram vs Whatsapp in terms of security.
The 3-letter US agencies do not have direct access to Telegram's servers, they do have when it comes to Whatsapp (or to any other US-based company). The same goes if you're a Russian doing anti-government stuff in, well, Russia, it's better to put your fate in Whatsapp's (and Meta's) hands, presumably the US agencies won't come after you for being against the Russian government. It's a classical game of arbitration (for lack of a better word).
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#33Is there any point in using antivirus these days anyway? I'm open to being wrong here, but I'm under the impression that antivirus exists only to tick boxes in outdated security compliance checklists. How big of a threat are viruses compared to, say, rogue antivirus products themselves?
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely not banned in Russia: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/19/last-apps-standing-...
Not sure why you're down-voted for stating out the facts as they are.
Because some people do not like pesky facts when those interfere with the narrative?
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found it always fishy that telegram applauds itself for being a secure messenger but decided against encryption by default. With the flick of a switch every doubt would go away but alas.
I'm only tangentially aware of secure messaging apps. How do you feel about Signal? What is your preferred client?
Telegram is fine if you just use it for 1on1 conversation with encryption enabled. The same goes for whatsapp (encryption is enabled by default). If you are looking for secure group chats signal would be my choice because it skips the server (WhatsApp sends all group messages to a server before distributing it). There are also more exotic providers like threema, matrix and many others but the onboarding for non technical users is harder, though they also have advantages like not needing a telephone number to sign up. For the general public I would use Signal mainly because it’s directly in the middle of security and ease of use.
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#36> Kaspersky also maintains that it “doesn’t have any ties with any government, including Russia’s This take is either naive in the extreme, or disingenuous. For a security company trying to maintain a trusted reputation, neither of those two options is good. While possibly technically accurate, it is a dodge or a flub that overlooks the fact that their autonomy can be usurped by the governments where they are based a…
Exactly. They're one OMON or FSB visit away from 'having ties to the Russian government.' Refusing to acknowledge that is just downright disingenuous.
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#37I spent Sunday researching alternatives, then uninstalling KIS and trying to install BitDefender.
From this I conclude that the current state of AV/Security apps is dismal. Researching alternatives is difficult, it falls directly into the cesspool that is web product recommendation in 2022. Trying to weed out the garbage articles, I find a handful of apps that are consistently rated that the top.
I discarded the recommendation of McAfee. I'm forced to use that awful thing at work, and I won't deal with the performance penalty it exacts. I wound up deciding that BitDefender was the best choice.
But setting up the new software has been an awful out-of-box experience. Configuring the tool was a serious chore. The tools (like for the firewall) were clunky and difficult to use, and once I finished on one machine there's no way to export the settings to apply to other devices. Going to their website to make suggestions, I found another post indicating that their tool is unable to restore from quarantine, files that belong in protected parts of the filesystem. The support analyst had replied "thanks for the interesting suggestion" - for something that seems like a Severity 1 bug!
I'm not trying to advocate for Kaspersky - I can see that with security being its raison d'etre, they're a bridge too far. But come on, the rest of the industry really needs to get their act together. The KIS product is really head and shoulders above other products I've seen, and we should be competing on the merits, not just "the Russians are a*holes".
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#38Wonder if Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, etc will be added to this list. While US may consider them national security assets, it is usually the opposite that is true. Like building backdoors into encryption, these services build backdoors into peoples lives. Also note, it usually often only takes one rogue employee with superuser access to compromise a system.
This is by design. All those companies are in bed with the feds, and no matter what administration.
The State is not there to protect and serve you. Unless proven otherwise the State sees you as a potential enemy.
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#39Is there any point in using antivirus these days anyway? I'm open to being wrong here, but I'm under the impression that antivirus exists only to tick boxes in outdated security compliance checklists. How big of a threat are viruses compared to, say, rogue antivirus products themselves?
It’s a good question for the Windows ecosystem, because it was absolutely necessary for Windows 7 and earlier, but I haven’t used later versions.
I’ve been using Linux/Mac exclusively for the past 10 years and never even considered it.
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#40I spent Sunday researching alternatives, then uninstalling KIS and trying to install BitDefender. From this I conclude that the current state of AV/Security apps is dismal. Researching alternatives is difficult, it falls directly into the cesspool that is web product recommendation in 2022. Trying to weed out the garbage articles, I find a handful of apps that are consistently rated that the top. I discarded the reco…
I'm curious, can you tell me why Windows Defender is inadequate? I also gather that Microsoft sells an enhanced version for businesses with needs beyond local machine antivirus.