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Best Buy Stops Selling Kaspersky Security Software (startribune.com)
swschrad writes: Call it a stampede, call it a business decision, but Best Buy has pulled Kaspersky internet security software from its shelves and website. Some in the U.S. government suspect Russian ties make it a suspicious product. Since all major security companies have links with each other and with government security agencies, sharing threat evidence to find counters, Kaspersky's defense seems valid. But if you want it, be prepared to buy it off their own website. Best Buy will give Kaspersky software purchasers 45 days to exchange it for free for another product if they want. Additionally, customers can also uninstall it themselves or have a Geek Squad agent do it for free within that time window.
But then, what will they try to sell you?! They've only been selling Kaspersky for the past 10 years, they don't even carry most other anti viruses except for trash like mcafee, what will they sell now with their computer protection racket.
Wow!
Today Walmart pulled all bottles of Russian dressing from their shelves.
Yep.
So what happened to the free market? Does Best Buy have a good reason for thinking they know better than their customers? What's next? Linux gets a ban in the US?
If you rely on ANY antivirus software then you have already lost. I'm surprised people even still run that shit. Has it even been shown that AV software does anything whatsoever? I've never seen one detect an infection. Usually I'm cleaning off infections from multiple sources that the AV completely failed to detect.
Generally all AV software does is load your system down making it slower and less responsive while not actually protecting you from anything other than exploits from 10 years ago and often not even them.
or, rather, a full blown scam.
the exploits that the US SPOOKS want to keep, they keep and they tell the antivir companies NOT to report on.
that makes all of them - 100% of them - completely untrustworthy. afterall, if their virus check lets to so-called good guys' malware thru, what if you don't think the good guys ARE good guys? and today, a lot of us don't think our own good guys are all that, well, 'good'.
how much could the russians fuck me over? personally - me? not very much. chinese? not very much. US? a whole fucking lot!
I have more to fear from my own so-called good guys than I ever will have to worry about from the foreign 'bad guys'.
this black and white view has to stop. people need to learn that there are many grey levels and giving 100% trust to anyone is a mistake, in today's world.
since the whole antivir space is highly political, I choose not to buy any of their products. if my system gets fucked, I'll reinstall. but then again, I rarely use windows anymore and almost never do I do anything on a public network with windows.
its sad that the US vendors are buying this BS story about one antivir company being 'good' and the other being 'bad'. then again, I bet the decision is made for them, if you get my drift. yet another reason our good guys aren't quite so good anymore.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Will liquor stores stop selling vodka? I heard from an anonymous source's wife's husband that vodka is suspected to also have Russian ties.
... is this the same Best Buy who is best buds with the FBI and whose "Geek Squad" warrantlessly scans every hard drive they touch looking for kiddie porn, warez, etc. and gets paid commission for what they find?
I strongly doubt they have their customer's security interests in mind.
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
Hah, serves Putin right! How dare they covet our precious salads.
You have the right conclusion—there is a scam going on—but the wrong cause.
Programs aren't trustworthy or untrustworthy because of who wrote them. They're trustworthy or not trustworthy because they respect a user's software freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify. Computers don't evaluate the nationality of the people who entered the source code or developed the algorithms, computers execute the instructions they're instructed to execute. The catch is whether those instructions are available to be run, inspected, modified, and shared by the computer's owner (respecting a user's software freedom) or not. Software freedom lets us work together to make sure the programs we run are reliable, safe, robust, and do what we want them to do (even if that means evaluating source code ourselves or taking source code to someone to do trusted evaluations on our behalf for a fee).
No one person can inspect all the free software out there, there's too much. But collectively we can look out for ourselves. This is also no guarantee against bugs; there is no such guarantee as all large programs have bugs. This is as close as we can come to making sure the computers we trust obey our instructions (and those of 3rd parties because we've first given the OK).
There's no defensible argument that concludes Microsoft's, Norton's, or McAfee's anti-malware software (to name a few examples) are trustworthy but Kaspersky's anti-malware is not trustworthy. All of those programs are proprietary (user-subjugating and nonfree), so you're right: they're all untrustworthy.
All proprietary software regardless of ostensible purpose is untrustworthy. Proprietary OSes being "defended" with proprietary anti-malware software is using one black box to guard another black box from inscrutable weaknesses. The fix is software freedom: run a free software OS, use and support (financially as well as in conversations) free software anti-malware software, and (since the public clearly has plenty of money to spend on these programs) pay for programmers to develop and maintain free software anti-malware programs and free software OSes. Since modern societies rely on computers more and more, this is also another opportunity for us to develop cross-platform, free software, anti-malware software funded with taxpayer money. We know what the proprietors offer: secrecy and untrustworthiness. I think we can do better and respect our software freedom while simultaneously offering living-wage paying jobs for long-term development and maintenance.
Digital Citizen
Why does america hate capitalism?
By not selling Kaspersky I feel much better now!
At that point, the only way the government can come out of it clean is to either reveal the basis for their conclusions (which to the best of my knowledge, they do not want to do), or else go on the record as stating that it is in their opinion only.
If Kapersky wins the lawsuit, then the US government could be compelled to officially retract all relevant libelous statements, and may (?) even create a precedent for Kapersky to be able to sue them for lost income.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Do people still actually buy software at the store in a box as opposed to downloading it?
How retro.
You don't trust their program but you do trust their uninstaller?
AV programs hook deep into the OS, sometimes in undocumented or proprietary ways.
If you really don't trust the program, then prudence dictates you re-install Windows.
Anything linked to Russians must be evil.
These companies can't do what they claim. They can't fix the bugs. The problems are with the software / operating system which is near entirely proprietary. Trying to catch viruses with virus definitions is like using a hammer to kill a line of ants coming in. You might get some, but they're still coming in. You got to patch the hole and anti-virus companies aren't in control of the components that need patching so can't and don't.
I don't use Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X or Chrome or Android or iwhatever. These systems can't be secured and even my computer isn't entirely secured yet. I'm waiting for the EOMA68 cards to start shipping and then I'll have my hands on a EOMA68 laptop. It's not going to be everything, but it's at least going to enable us to start resolving long-standing security issues which haven't been addressable with underlying hardware. And Intel/AMD security functionality is a joke. I refuse to use Qubes- a theoretically good idea in some respects based on a flawed security model. Relying on the very companies that refuse to release a complete set of code is hardware you can't ever secure. Now there are some other arguments against virtualization from a security standpoint. Virtualization isn't a security function and adds bloat and bugs. Theo de Raadt was right or is right if he's still making this argument.
Everyone knows China track record of cyber espionage is far more extensive than that of Russia. Remember how we lost those F35 blueprints.
So guess we are going to boycott Apple too?
By the way Apple really deserves a boycott for withholding a 250 US$ from taxation by keeping their profit outside the US exploiting internal transfer pricing between its companies.
Software is still sold in boxes on shelves? Like actually? Does it come with a CD / DVD? That leads me to a follow up questions: Do people still have working CD/DVD drives in their computers?
Who can you trust?
99% of AV is Proprietary Software!
(The rare exception(s), 1%, like clamav, ClamWin, etc?)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stall...
"With software there are only two possibilities: either the users control the program or the program controls the users. If the program controls the users, and the developer controls the program, then the program is an instrument of unjust power. " -- rms*
[*] it really is that simple
Now if you're willing to play the game and install AV software, go nuts and install as many as you can from around the world to air gapped systems and see if you can find any type of APT infections from other (and/or your) nation(s) and collect your prize!
What is this Best Buy and why is it considered a story when they sell or don't sell something?
Is there really someone left who buys software offline?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Streisand effect at its fullest potential. God, this is far better effect than the solar eclipse a few weeks back.
I will hand my computer directly to the Russian Mafia before I let a Geek Squadder anywhere near it.
to keep all the dumb Americans scared. The Red Danger is making its way back, courtesy of American politicians. I hope this brain-damaging disease will not spread outside of America.
Which is precisely why that are banning Kaspersky. It probably works!
Ha!.....
to purchase software?
Kaspersky is ace. Just saying.
Cheap is not necessarily the best option most of times.
Consumers are mainly guided nowadays for lowest prices that big corporations offer... So keep on digging your own hole, my friends. Do not complaint when there will be only one place to buy.