Earlier quoted context omitted.
> explain how they are not equivalent Press. Political competition. Courts. Broadly, the rule of law. Nobody is perfect at any of these. But if the FSB wants a code change in Kaspersky, they're getting that code change. There is no independent press to report it. No opposition incentivized to call them out on it. No court in which they could lose.
While the methods may differ, is this not true of any governments intelligence agencies? Whether or not there is press/courts/rule of law. For press to report on an event they have to be aware of it, for courts to intervene they also have to be aware of it, for rule of law to matter then no part of a government can operate outside of it in any manner, so no extrajudicial actions either.
Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
251–260 of 435 posts
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The problem is: how do you run a business that has offices and physical assets in , without being at least partially beholden to the government? The problem with this kind of Mad Libs argument is that it falsely implies the substitutions are equivalent when they're not. Also your quote shears away the context of the original statement that made it meaningful.
There definitely seems to be at least a little truth to that argument, though. Over the years Kaspersky has found and documented a whole bunch of seemingly US government linked malware whilst their Western competitors just haven't, and I think there's at least some evidence this is intentional on the part of those other companies.
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. They're one OMON or FSB visit away from 'having ties to the Russian government.' Refusing to acknowledge that is just downright disingenuous.
The same can be said about any vendor in the world, though. Any of them is one NSL away from becoming a spy, wrecker or saboteur. If your threat model includes foreign governments, don't use foreign closed source software. If your threat model includes your government, don't use domestic closed source software. Or do, but either be ready to mitigate the harm, or be willing to live with it.
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, Snowden's leaks show DoD lawyers working hard to justify programs under the 4th Amendment. In the fallout of the leaks, all but phone metadata collection passed muster.
The dragnet surveillance programs that Snowden revealed are obviously outlawed by the 4th Amendment. Of course lawyers working for these agencies will try to justify them. That's what they're paid to do. During the Bush Jr. years, lawyers for the administration also argued that torture was legal, despite the fact that it's blatantly illegal. Nevertheless, these programs are incredibly difficult to challenge in court,…
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
That's funny as the thread is about contrasting Russia with US, but I don't seen to recall US invading any neighboring countries under the false pretense of defending some minorities.
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plenty of legit potential concerns.. Russian govt could "nationalize" Kaspersky at any moment and push rogue updates.
Shouldnt i have the same concerns with software from the US? You dont really have to nationalize to force devs to push malicious code (looking at you Australia)
But we're talking about a government that just stole hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign planes (and other equipment) and took down satellite radio networks with cyberattacks (causing a lot of collateral damage), recently backdoor'd thousands of companies via Solarwinds, and looked the other way w/r/t ransomware groups until one of them caused a major international incident (Colonial pipeline). The threat from other nations is a lot more theoretical than it is for Russia.
Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#257Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#258Re: Kaspersky is declared a US national security threat and is banned by the FCC
#259Is 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
#260Globalization was a terrible idea the way it was done and I'm glad it's coming to a close.