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Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

arstechnica.com

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Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#11

Post by ctrl-j »

X86BSD wrote: post #4
r3bl wrote: post #3

I have to ask: Is there any concrete evidence against Kaspersky doing anything remotely concerning since this whole charade against them started in 2015 or is it still "they're Russian, so they must be doing something bad" scenario? EDIT: Fuck if I understand why people like JohnStrange, revelation and ryanlol are downvoted in their replies to this comment. They're on topic.

It’s a witch hunt slash scapegoat. Just as is Russian “collusion” with trump. Absolutely zero evidence at all only unnamed sources and speculation. All the money wasted on this politics garbage sigh.

> Just as is Russian “collusion” with trump. Absolutely zero evidence at all only unnamed sources and speculation.

Just out of curiosity, what makes you think there is zero evidence?

How would we know what evidence Mueller's team has uncovered?

How do you reconcile all of the interactions between the trump campaign and the various Russian entities involved?

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#12

Post by sschueller »

matt4077 wrote: post #5

Kasperky's story here seems completely believable. Yet the US government's warnings also seem reasonable even given just the facts everyone agrees on. I guess the larger lesson may be how Russia's failure to establish rule of law makes it impossible to run a business that depends on trust. The US should take note: if they succeed in breaking Apple et al's attempts to protect their users, pretty soon the only countrie…

With secret warrants and other questionable laws trust is also becoming an issue for US companies.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#13

Post by forapurpose »

ryanlol wrote: post #10
orf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just as is Russian “collusion” with trump. Absolutely zero evidence Well... not quite.

Can you link to any evidence suggesting foul play on Kasperskys part? edit: This question was far more reasonable before the parent comment was edited.

[deleted]

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#14

Post by matt4077 »

r3bl wrote: post #3

I have to ask: Is there any concrete evidence against Kaspersky doing anything remotely concerning since this whole charade against them started in 2015 or is it still "they're Russian, so they must be doing something bad" scenario? EDIT: Fuck if I understand why people like JohnStrange, revelation and ryanlol are downvoted in their replies to this comment. They're on topic.

It's a security company run mostly by ex-KGB and dependent on the good will of an administration willing to very publicly murder their opponents[0], and not bound by anything resembling rule of law.

So yes, it is possible, maybe even likely, that Kasperky is doing nothing shady and has only the best intentions. It's also somewhat irresponsible to entrust them with any data of value. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#15

Post by orf »

ryanlol wrote: post #10
orf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just as is Russian “collusion” with trump. Absolutely zero evidence Well... not quite.

Can you link to any evidence suggesting foul play on Kasperskys part? edit: This question was far more reasonable before the parent comment was edited.

I was responding to the comment regarding collision between the Trump campaign and Russia

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#16

Post by ihaveahadron »

X86BSD wrote: post #4
r3bl wrote: post #3

I have to ask: Is there any concrete evidence against Kaspersky doing anything remotely concerning since this whole charade against them started in 2015 or is it still "they're Russian, so they must be doing something bad" scenario? EDIT: Fuck if I understand why people like JohnStrange, revelation and ryanlol are downvoted in their replies to this comment. They're on topic.

It’s a witch hunt slash scapegoat. Just as is Russian “collusion” with trump. Absolutely zero evidence at all only unnamed sources and speculation. All the money wasted on this politics garbage sigh.

This is hacker news where we are smart which includes proper grammar. Why did you write out the word "slash", don't you know it's sybolized with a / sign.

Learn to philosophalize better.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#17

Post by ctrl-j »

ryanlol wrote: post #10
orf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just as is Russian “collusion” with trump. Absolutely zero evidence Well... not quite.

Can you link to any evidence suggesting foul play on Kasperskys part? edit: This question was far more reasonable before the parent comment was edited.

I mean... it was all over the news?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/technology/kaspersky-lab-...

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#18

Post by ryanlol »

forapurpose wrote: post #13
ryanlol wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you link to any evidence suggesting foul play on Kasperskys part? edit: This question was far more reasonable before the parent comment was edited.

[deleted]

Really only describes standard AV co practices.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#19

Post by ryanlol »

ctrl-j wrote: post #17
ryanlol wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you link to any evidence suggesting foul play on Kasperskys part? edit: This question was far more reasonable before the parent comment was edited.

I mean... it was all over the news? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/technology/kaspersky-lab-...

You could write a very similar article about any AV company.

I've personally been automatically scanning data shared by various¹ AV companies for sensitive documents. I only store files not detected as malware by any scanners, and filter out large usually boring files (i.e. videos, audio). I also make an effort to filter out publicly available documents by googling them. So far I've gathered over 20TB of data.

So far I've found:

  Entire customer database of a Swedish bank
  Thousands of git repositories
  Hundreds of passport scans
  Tens of gigabytes of sensitive medical documents
  Tens of gigabytes of internal government documents
  Payroll data for hundreds of thousands of people
  Entire email inboxes, both government and corporate.
  Hundreds of website dbs in various formats
This is just off the top of my head, I could keep going for a while. I've got a searchable archive of tens of millions of clean pdfs, word docs, excel spreadsheets, powerpoints and so on. All pulled from users computers by their AV software.

¹ Not including Kaspersky, but including many US firms.

Re: Kaspersky: Yes, we obtained NSA secrets. No, we didn’t help steal them

#20

Post by revelation »

r3bl wrote: post #3

I have to ask: Is there any concrete evidence against Kaspersky doing anything remotely concerning since this whole charade against them started in 2015 or is it still "they're Russian, so they must be doing something bad" scenario? EDIT: Fuck if I understand why people like JohnStrange, revelation and ryanlol are downvoted in their replies to this comment. They're on topic.

The best part of all of this is how there is all this media coverage on a fricking antivirus, but nobody seems all too concerned with the NSA losing more secrets.

It's like incident #100, maybe Kaspersky is the KGB, good on them since they are clearly more competent than the NSA. Maybe we can poach them?

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