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Kaspersky Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft Over Disabling Its Antivirus Software (bloomberg.com)
Russian security software maker Kaspersky Lab has filed antitrust complaints against Microsoft with the European Commission and the German federal cartel office, it said in a statement on Tuesday. From a report: Kaspersky sent a formal complaint to European Union and German antitrust regulators, saying "hurdles" created by Microsoft limit consumer choice and drive up the cost of security software. "With the release of Windows 10, Microsoft started to create obstacles to competing manufacturers of security solutions, and introduce different ways of pushing users to forgo third-party software in favor of its own Windows Defender," Moscow-based Kaspersky said in a statement. In a statement, Eugene Kaspersky said, "We see clearly -- and are ready to prove -- that Microsoft uses its dominant position in the computer operating system (OS) market to fiercely promote its own -- inferior -- security software (Windows Defender) at the expense of users' previously self-chosen security solution. Such promotion is conducted using questionable methods, and we want to bring these methods to the attention of the anti-competition authorities."
Microsoft has created a monopoly by almost literally forcing (decades ago) OEMs to pre-infect their hardware with Windows OS. If Microsoft can have a monopoly on systems infected with malware, then why can't it have a monopoly on the cure? It must be one of the rules of acquisition. Sell them the problem, and then sell them the cure for it. Why should others be able to profit selling the solution to a problem Microsoft created? If the solution is "too" effective, then malware may disappear -- which would hurt the market for anti-malware.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I'm sure this topic combining both politics and anti-virus will be filled with insightful commentary and free from any prejudices or biased opinions. Thanks slashdot editors.
Imagine the lawsuits if Microsoft decided to make a secure OS!
I'm not expecting any different outcome in the long run.
Oh, Microsoft, is there anything you can't fuck up? Is there any line you won't cross in pursuit of profits and customer lock-in? Is there not a single engineer, programmer, or executive in your organization with an intact pair of balls who will pause, and think, "Wait, we shouldn't do this..."?
No? Okay, just checking.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Microsoft has been an upstanding corporate citizen since settling the US antitrust case and increasing its lobbying budget from zero dollars to millions of dollars each year.
Lady to Churchill: Sir, you are drunk!
Churchill to Lady: Madame you are ugly. And in the morning I will be sober, but you will still be ugly.
Regardless of whatever hardware is running, Windows is still a security mess compared to OS X.
That company makes cars easily stolen because the lock is weak. Thus a number of 3rd party shops sell locks that improve the car security. Then the car maker decides to fix the locks and the 3rd party accessory is not necessary anymore - who is to blame? Seriously, these anti-viruses have always been Windows parasites that only flourished thanks to Microsoft unable to implement a decent security solution earlier.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Give us access to the low level stuff/make the system more insecure so we can sell our product!
Microsoft sucks, too...and they're deserving of the hate they get, but Kaspersky may suck worse. I lost all respect for them as an "antivirus" application when one of my clients couldn't use Git because of it. Kaspersky identified Git (using SourceTree as a client) as malware, and kind of fucked up her file system, requiring her to do a system restore. After that, the client pretty much refused to use SourceTree, because she was convinced that it was a virus. Fuck Kaspersky...go Microsoft.
Seriously, I work in the IT industry, many of us ban all traffic from Russia and several Asian states by default. This means that Kapersky has the unfortunate side effect even though being cheaper unable to automatically update because it's on russian soil thus for us IT folks we've started to Migrate to other software that does auto update without fail and has local servers. If Kapersky would setup sub update servers on each state and tie their software to the country, with the correct DNS ties in the software the update process wouldn't be that difficult to maintain.
The geek never learns this lesson: The OEM system install is essential for mass market sales --- and being "forced" to purchase an OEM license for Windows 95 wasn't a problem for HP or pragmatists like Michael Dell.
a company like Kaspersky, who has done a tremendous service to the world with their AV products, just like F-Secure, Avast etc., but now the U.S. wants to destroy them because they're simply Russian and have a big share in an important segment. Fuck you, America.
... given that Windows Defender is a re-branding of Reliable AntiVirus, whose architect (Costin Raiu) Kaspersky hired from GeCAD before GeCAD sold RAV to Microsoft?
Laudele lor desigur m-ar mahni peste masura.
Since it became possible, I have enabled regular Defender checks in the side of the third-party antivirus. For a long time every anti-virus software update disabled the parallel check without any notification.
It can handle 128GB and it's trivial to install your own RAM. But I know that won't affect your opinion. Instead you'll just find something else to complain about. And if that too turns out to be totally wrong then you'll again find something else, without your opinion softening in the slightest along the way. That's some fine critical thinking. Reach a conclusion first, then find the reasons later.
I don't see (hardly any) anti virus applications out there for iOS as I assume the Virus interception is handled by the OS. If Windows Defender comes free with the OS, couldn't the argument be made that Microsoft is acting the same as Apple is with iOS? Seriously, Apple has bundled all sorts of crap in their OS for decades (or it may be hidden beneath the covers) but no one seems to have much of an issue with it. I say "so what" to Kaspersky. If your product is so much more valuable your customers will know how to use it. The better Windows Defender is, the better it is for all consumers who have Windows PCs/laptops.
Kaspersky could argue, "By creating an OS that limits the ability of malware to infest and proliferate a large section of users who would have otherwise chosen an anti-virus solution Linux and its originator are inhibiting the ability of Kaspersky to seek fair return on their investment in anti-virus technology".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Kernel Patch Protection is a mechanism used by Windows which aims to protect the integrity of certain Windows modules and structures in memory. An example of these is the System Service Dispatch / Descriptor Table (SSDT) which is essentially a table of Windows kernel function pointers and which is infamous for being used by malware, rootkits and a DRM system by Sony to intercept Windows kernel functions. It is also used by many anti-virus software and some drivers and this is again infamous for causing stability problems and even kernel mode security vulnerabilities.
So Microsoft basically wants to end this. It argues that the Windows kernel modules and structures shouldn't be touched by third-party developers because it's both unnecessary and dangerous and it intends to make modifying the running Windows kernel as hard as possible. It even applies this principle to other Microsoft products, including non-kernel mode Windows components.
Kaspersky on the other hand argues that it's unfair and that they should be granted permission to do anything they like with the Windows kernel, even though they themselves have exposed their users to serious security vulnerabilities in the past using this method.
Everyone knows Microsoft started creating obstacles to competition over 20 years ago. American antitrust regulators just bent over and looked the other way.
The Europeans probably have their price too.
What this really comes down to is Kaspersky stating you are not allowed to improve your product. This is insane! Windows Defender is not a product, it's now a core part of the OS. AV's are band-aid solutions, and we're at the point where the band-aid needs to come off. This reminds me of being sued because you removed some images on your site that someone else has hotlinked to for their business. Go away!
switch to Linux and you wont need an anti-virus software. sheesh!!! just how shitty does the MS-Windows environment have to get before it runs itself out of business
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Whooooooo000ooooooooooooooosh
https://eugene.kaspersky.com/2017/05/02/at-last-not-all-so-quiet-on-the-antitrust-front/#more-22090
...seriously - we're supposed to trust the Russians to say that their firm is supposed to count as a valid, quality choice when it comes to your computer security?
Last thing I'm interested in doing is giving access to my entire system to Putin - as de facto as may be.
it's not trivial to retape the screen in imac's to do some thing that other AIO's make easy to change and for 5K 32G with only an 8 core cpu is low.
Netscape was just one small example of MSes anti-competitive business practices. Microsoft saw NetNanny, Cybersitter, and other internet control projects as a threat (some due to bad press). So they built in their own inferior system, and put the majority of those out of business. Microsoft wanted total control of Office Applications, gave away enough "Word" to put competitors out of business. Novell was basically put out of business by MS giving "free" licensing (scaling limits) with NT3 and NT4 for a few years. See what MS did to Bordland for compiler space as well.
I'm not surprised Kaspersky filed suit, I'm more surprised that other companies had not already done so. Then again, there is a whole lot of back room deals with MS and US AV/Security companies.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Non standard pcie ssd connectors forcing you to pay through the nose for storage.Apple charges you over $200 for a 256gb SSD, almost a hundred dollars more then a standard NVME drive you can find on Amazon.
I feel my complaint is more then justified.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Particularly because Windows is very happy to work with other security solutions. If you install a 3rd party AV or firewall it is no big deal. That software can turn off Windows' included solutions and then once installed, Windows will happily report that the new stuff is acting as your security solution. MS does not insist on you using their product, they just include it as an option.
>...and it's trivial to install your own RAM
HUH? That sh1t is soldered to the MoBo. If you want more, you gotta pay Apple up front, and get the unchangeable design specs added to your Pro at time of purchase.
Used to not be that way but hey, since Crucial.com is not Apple's business, they want to steer us 'away' from third party memory manufacturers and 'but direct' from them now. Where you been brotha?
Yeah.
Russian company (Kaspersky), produces product (KAV) that removes non-russian malware (e.g.: WannaCry's NSA ancestor), but perhaps spies on the users, on behalf of Russian organisation (FSB, ex-KGB).
American compagny (Microsoft), produces product (Security Essentials), that removes non-american malware, but very probably spies (Windows 10's cluster fuck of telemetry) on the users, on behalf of American organisation (NSA - see Snowden files).
And you could very likely be able to say the same about chinese software.
The only question is :
what happens when you install several of them together ? How do they fight ?
Will each product be able to neutralise the other one's spying ?
Or will you machine be open to all of the above ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
On the other hand :
Linux is extremely pervasive on anything else except the desktop.
Both ends of the scale.
Linux is extremely popular on cluster compute nodes. All the top 500 super computers exclusively run Linux.
That some heavy power that would be very handy to hacker groups if they managed to get their hands on
(lots of potential abuse, from tools to helps crack leaked password salted hashes, to mundane use like mining whatever crypto coin is currently CPU-only (or GPU-only if you managed to get your hands on a CUDA cluster), to stupid use like helping compressing pirates ultra-hidef movie releases...)
Linux is extremely popular also on small embed platforms usually with busybox (Modems, set-top boxes, smart TVs, IoT, Wifi fileserver embed in compact photo camera, etc.) or Android (smartphone, tablets, etc.) userspace.
Every user bashing Linux for not having any significant market share, because they use Windows Laptops at home, is probably actually having at least a dozen of such invisible devices, that they completely overlooked.
That's also lots of potential abuse, speially for D-DOS and other types of service disruption.
(And that's neglecting other corner uses, like Linux being popular on cars' infotainment center - though not necessary on the controller, where QNX is a bit more popular, even if some company like Tesla are Linux-all-the-way. Again incentive to find way to hack into the car's security)
In other words, black hats have actually tons of incentive to violently target Linux (and the various user spaces).
But - compared to the fractal-catastrophe of Microsoft's own Windows 10* - it seems to actually hold not that bad given all the above.
---
*: I'm not saying that Linux is magic pixie dust above everything in terms of security. It's not.
On the other hand, it's at least some decent security, like other Unix.
It's microsoft's... huh... "production", that can be considered "unfit to keep existing" security-wise.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
who cares about macs... I'm sure you can find some very good alternative OS to windoze or macos that you can install on your computer...
A successful anti-trust case demonstrates you are wrong to blame gcc. This is in addition to actual history which shows gcc has never been heavily used on Windows systems. The case was decided long after Borland was killed off, as was true with Correl and WordPerfect. MS has been found guilty of antitrust violations more than any company in history, even those that are 3-4 times older than MS.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
switch to Linux
The geek has been dancing to this tune since 1995 but the only Linux client distribution to win significant popular acceptance is Android --- arguably the least secure of all mass market oriented operating systems. T
I found a workaround for this problem.
Open your remote desktop port, and email vladimir.putin@whitehouse.gov your credentials.
Then sit back and watch Trump's Russian masters "scan" your files...
This is the answer as antivirus can no longer run at same level as kernel. Even windows defender can't run with those high privileges.
How many years was Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister?
A) 900 years
B) 3,000 years
C) 11 years.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Well Dick, it seemed like B but I'm going to go for A.
MS just wants users to be protected regardless of how it happens.