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Kaspersky Inks a Deal With Qualcomm To Improve Android Security
First time accepted submitter llebeel writes "Kaspersky Lab has signed an agreement with chip designer Qualcomm to improve security at 'the lower level' of a smartphone's mobile operating system. The Russian security firm told The Inquirer that it has agreed to offer 'special terms' for preloading Kaspersky Mobile Security and Kaspersky Tablet Security products on Android devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors."
Poop
nothing else.
marketing at work.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This seems like a bad thing - I don't really trust any of the AV companies after 20 years of experience on Windows OEM AV crap...Is android doomed to the same bundled security crapware that plauges off the shelf Windows PCs in the retail channel?
Give it 12 months from the launch of this and you will have Norton/Mcafee trial crap on every android device when Asus/Samsung/Whoever figure out that there is money on the table...
instead of better band-aids?
Considering the bugs in the last two Kaspersky enterprise AV releases, I'd say this is a terrible move for Qualcomm. I can't say enough horrible stuff about kaspersky AV.
Let's just pile on more software.
I understand the concept of layered security, but I'm not convinced, especially not when things are bundled like this -- instead of serving as an independent layer, it seems like it'll just make a bigger attack surface.
This is something that should be fixed lower down. Phones need to be easy to upgrade to the newest version. Having a band-aid that has root privileges is a bad idea, especially when your phone doesn't have the battery to keep scanning 24/7.
hey, at least the performance and battery life degradation is free! /s
just wait until this software is preinstalled on new phones from the MFR, cannot be disabled, or is put into hardware.
I'd give it a year.
It will be the same sort of deal McAfee has with Adobe. Money paid to Adobe to bundle it with pdf reader and flash and McAfee gets to try to turn those into ongoing sales.
This deal will be the same, Kaspersky trying to sell their virus software and Qualcomm trying to make a bit of commission off the sale.
The press release suggests more, but that sounds like joint marketing fluff. Qualcomm must be struggling against Exnos and NVidia Tegra chips, it needs a usp.
While I'm sure that Mr. Kaspersky is a trustworthy, ethical person and that his staff adhere to the highest of professional standards, the fact remains that Kaspersky is based in Russia and therefore most of its assets (and employees!) are subject to the whims of the Russian government.
And yes, I do mean "whims". I'm sure that close observers of Russia will agree that the rule of law does not apply when strategic interests (defined as whatever interests Putin) are at stake. While the United States by comparison, is hardly an angel in that regard it cannot be compared to a government that throws Billionaires in prison on trumped up charges and assassinates its own agents overseas (with Polonium no less) who cross it. Ethics and professional standards would/should crumble when your life or the lives or your family members are at stake.
So should Kaspersky be allowed to make changes (at the chip level!) I would hope that at the very least it can be shown that it does not give the Russian govt. a back door into the platform. (For the same reason I would be very reluctant to use a home grown Chinese OS on a smartphone.)
I know what you mean. There are way too many downsides to reactive malware software. I was really hoping Google would have hired Moxie Marlinspike to improve their general OS security instead of letting Twitter grab him. It seems like such a waste to have him there.
As if all vpn users in the universe let out a collective moan which could be heard in even the farthest reaches of space.
That's what the rest of the world thinks about America and their WinTel monopoly. Deal with it.
Really. America has never assassinated one of it's agents ever? You sure about that?
Hmm, and jailing billionaires? Say it's not so! Let's start a "Free the billionaire" charity. We could sell cookies.
but hardware vendors are under no obligation whatsoever to, say, have a bootloader that accepts firmware images that aren't cryptographically signed.
Hardware vendors have an obligation to their shareholders to provide a device that won't cause the company's customers to defect to Nexus in droves. It's analogous to pricing pressure and license pressure.
Having a band-aid that has root privileges is a bad idea, especially when your phone doesn't have the battery to keep scanning 24/7.
Then perhaps it could scan newly installed applications while the device is charging.
You made a number of points. Let me strike a line across them to assuage your concerns.
After the fall of the Soviet Union a lot of Russia's state-owned resource-driven economy was privatized. It was a very murky process, in the result of which a few people grabbed huge industrial assets while paying a tiny fraction of the price. One of them is Khodorkovsky.
After Putin was elected in 2000, he has taken measures to curb the influence of the said oligarchs. That resulted in a lot of complaints about the rule of law (and selectivity of its use) in Russia from the Russian liberals and Western states.
The Western media maintain that the only cure to the situation in Russia is the respect for the rule of law (and down with Putin btw).
However, that's a mistake, and as a slashdotter, you should see why. The mistake is that the privatization of 90s and partial re-nationalization of 2000s of the natural-resource-extraction-driven economy is prone to generate conflicts of interests between powerful figures. The conflict will persist until the economy itself will not change. (Why not to privatize everything and end the story? Okey, let's do it; then there are the Communists who would be happy to make a law to nationalize the said assets: then it would be legal!)
The Kaspersky lab is a good example of the new type of the economy, which is not based on gaining control over Soviet-era industrial assets. If more of the Russian economy was like that, there would be less space for the conflict between oligarchs and the authorities.
While I understand your concerns about the rule of law in Russia, you should understand too, that supporting Russian companies such as Kaspersky lab will indirectly strengthen the rule of law in Russia.
What you should be primarily concerned with as a slashdotter is whether they are making better (and cheaper) software than other AV companies or not. Hope this helps.
At least until the US market stops being so heavily driven by carrier marketing, 'subsidies', and 'exclusives', I expect the steady stream of locked down and stuffed-full-of-shit phones to continue
T-Mobile itemizes now. If you live and work in T-Mobile's service area, you can port your number to T-Mobile and leave behind the VZW/ATT carrier marketing.
A Russian making pro-Putin arguments... Hmmm!
Since Android 4.2, Google has been including antivirus with Android.
That's what the rest of the world thinks about America and their WinTel monopoly. Deal with it.
Really. America has never assassinated one of it's agents ever? You sure about that? Hmm, and jailing billionaires? Say it's not so! Let's start a "Free the billionaire" charity. We could sell cookies.
In case you haven't heard, the Wintel monopoly ain't what it used to be. Also, while I'm hardly dreamy eyed about the US, it's historical sins, and certainly its current path, comparing the US to Russia is ludicrous. Perhaps the US has assassinated some of its own agents. Please provide citations. As for crying over fraudulently jailed billionaires, I don't lose much sleep over them either. However, you're missing the point. If they can jail someone with that much influence and visibility on trumped up charges, then what chance does anyone else have? In the US, if you're stuck with a public defender, you're toast. If you can afford good enough lawyers though we actually have pretty good protections for criminal defendants. It sucks that it depends on how much money you can pay for lawyers, but at least there's some chance. In Russia apparently, not so much.
The Western media maintain that the only cure to the situation in Russia is the respect for the rule of law ... However, that's a mistake
Please forgive my Western bias, but I can't think of a single historical example where the Rule of Law wasn't preferable to the alternative. You seem to think Russia is an exception due to "special circumstances". That's the usual excuse for destroying the Rule of Law. Also, it's hard to think of when in Russian history people haven't argued that there were "special circumstances".
It's not about cultural differences; it's about different views on the history.
Let me reiterate my major points: (1) violations of the rule of law started in 1990s with the deeply flawed privatization program, and the violations during the partial re-nationalization of 2000s were just another aspect of the same problem. [Ergo, oligarchs are just as "bad" as Putin is.] (2) while concerns about the rule of law are valid, the major underlying question which spurs the debate is ownership of the large post-Soviet assets.
I totally agree that the Rule of Law is preferable to the alternative. But the large underlying problem of the fair ownership of the Soviet assets has no easy solution [until it's solved one way or another].
It's not about cultural differences
That was part of my point.
oligarchs are just as "bad" as Putin is.
Probably worse. I never said otherwise.
the large underlying problem of the fair ownership of the Soviet assets has no easy solution
I understand. The "privatization" of Soviet assets was theft on an unprecedented scale. It dwarfs even the West's more recent ripoff by their banks. However, that still doesn't justify Putin's "strong man" approach and eh, less than zealous concern for the Rule of Law. I can't think of when that's ever turned out well. In 1917 Russia wound up trading the czar for the Bolsheviks. How did that work out? Maybe they could tax assets in excess of $10M at a 95% rate, I don't know. But do it according to the law.
Ok. Your argument makes sense. However, perhaps overtaxing the riches would give Putin just the same amount of bad press (and which is worse, bad economy and low investments). There are no easy solutions to the mess.
p.s. By the way, is that +10 or -10db? That's either a very good or a very bad signal-to-noise ratio, but from your nickname it's not evident which one is implied.
+10 or -10db?
I've forgotten. Maybe I'll say it depends on my mood. -10 means I'm very optimistic (because I think I can demodulate a signal like that!).
Smart coding makes wonders, they say.
Maybe I'll donate more to cyanogenmod.
I do not say that you should love Putin. Just that you shouldn't shy away from software produced in Russia because of him.
So, when a Western company hires a Russian freelancer to do a 100$ job, it's okey. But when a Russian software company sells its product worldwide, it's all fishy and KGB. Indeed, why are Russians allowed to run software-related businesses? All coders from Russia should work for Western companies for food.