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Kaspersky To Close Washington Office But Expand Non-State Sales (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A Russian software-maker, whose products are banned for use in federal information systems by the U.S. government, is seeking to remain in the North American market and prove its products have no hidden capabilities. Kaspersky Lab Inc. will close its Washington D.C. office that was selling to the government and will keep working with non-federal customers in the U.S. via its remaining offices in the country, vice-president Anton Shingarev said in an interview in Moscow. The company also committed in October to open its product's source code to an independent third-party review and plans to open new offices in Chicago, Los Angeles and Toronto next year. "This allows independent experts to verify that our software has no hidden functionality, that it doesn't send your files to third parties, doesn't spy on you and fully complies with the end-user agreement," Shingarev said. The U.S. banned government use of Kaspersky software in September, citing founder Eugene Kaspersky's alleged ties to Russian intelligence and the possibility its products could function as "malicious actors" to compromise federal information systems. The move caused concern about the company's products in other markets, including the U.K.
First Prostsky
I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why I wouldn't use their product as a regular citizen. They do nothing different than any other anti-virus product when it comes to handling files. The only thing different than most is that their home country is Russia. Its not like the U.S. government doesn't have the exact same powers to subpoena a U.S. companies data, that the Russian government doesn't have to do to their own companies.
--
"I didn't do it" - B. Simpson
See? Here's some source code to review. And, here's a compiled binary that we promise, really, only contains that code. And all of our recurring updates will only be the same code you reviewed. Promise.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
what is that smell? cease fire stand down.. there's moms & babys in all of our towns... software is not the problem,, it's psychopathic obsolete megasloths...
I can understand the government not wanting another government spying on them, but as an individual, if I am going to have a government spying on me, I would rather that it be a foreign one.
-- http://anonet.org -- The internet the way it was meant to be. Check it out, you may be surprised.
God if I only had a mod point
You're just sore you lost the election.
The feds have a lot of credibility at stake. By calling Kaspersky down on this, there has to be a lot of verifiable evidence, or else crying wolf would severely damage the clout of a lot of US interests.
My take: I don't use any of them. AV is notoriously unreliable, and the only thing that is useful are combined tools like VirusTotal to scan packages. In fact a good ad blocker can stop 99.9% of the crap coming in. For everything else, there are backups and the ability to rebuild a machine quickly.
See subject!
APK
P.S.=> You too can be APK!!!!
P.S.=> captcha schweetbruno
Everyone here probably already knows this but... Most software today is delivered AUTOMATICALLY in binary form. Most programs automatically download new binaries as soon as the developers make them available and happily installs and runs them, often without notifying you. Most people get all exited they are getting the "latest version" and generally consider this to be a good thing. The gigantic trust problem with automated binary software delivery is... even if you certify the software is A-OK today, they can push a new version to you tomorrow. that is NOT OK. This brings into question not what the software is, but what the developers might make of it some day in the future.
Enjoy your freedumbs! Maybe take your babby to the mall later for a new handgun?
Personally I think Kaspersky got a bad deal and was the scapegoat for something more internal going south in the government. Heck we have HP and others installing spyware on our PCâ(TM)s these days. Pretty sure I got nothing the Russianâ(TM)s want in the form of information. But there is no doubt this whole thing has cast Kaspersky in a bad light.
I went out of my way yesterday to buy Kaspersky AV since the US and EU decided to vilify them. Because screw 3 letter agencies.
You make it sound like there are only two choices: compromise your machine for the Americans or the Russians. Um, how about neither! Plus it's the "it's okay to have my machine compromised" attitude that seems so shilly (if that's a thing).
What he meant is if the TLA demonize Kaspersky, that is because it throws a wrench in the gears of their evil works.
And if you attempt to imply that TLAs are there to save the day for Average Joe, you watch way too many BS movies. They are actually likely to let a bombing plot that they know of be executed to capitalize on the tragedy and expand their illegal spying program.
I'm more concerned over the US government sanctioned Intel ME Backdoors contained in many of Intel's X86 processors.
"The exact same could be said about the leader of NK"
No it could not. There are no parallels between NK and Russia. There is no media blackout in Russia, there are scores of west funded political parties and media outlets. Russian people aren't dummies, not any more than any other people. Putin's opposition is strong in numbers, and the fact that they make zero progress has to do with people not being dumb enough to fall for their BS. They know that those work for the enemy that wants to ruin Russia and pillage its resources. Only idiots believe that the US will somehow magically bring prosperity, it is perfectly clear that they need to expand their influence in order to mooch on the rest of the world and maintain their own illusion of prosperity. And even then, the US is rapidly fallout down in terms of standards of life, it is already out of top ten, and cannot compare to much smaller countries that are weaker in every aspect - financially, politically, militarily, economically.
Putin is a great politician unlike western stringed puppets, which are just mouthpieces. Putin is actually more lenient than he outta be. And Russians support him not because they were trained to, but because they know what it is like to have trash politicians like Yeltsin or Gorbachev, and they have a point of reference to evaluate Putin objectively. Unlike people in the states who have had nothing but trash to the point of assuming this is the norm.
You have been systemically indoctrinated to be clueless and ignorant and spew out the same old empty cliches. Barking at Russia for what the US is doing on a much larger scale. The US has over and over leaked its own dirty secrets, of its own world wide criminal activity in total disregard to domestic, foreign or international law. It is not allegations, it is a fact. Yet somehow, and despite all the outrage, even domestically, it seems to be OK and far better than the completely unproven allegations of Russian misdeeds.
I'd say US citizens outta fix their own sty before giving it a mandate to fix the world. I am not saying Russia is somehow intrinsically good, in all likelihood they are only as bad as they can afford to be, and would probably be as bad or even worse than the US if they could afford to. But for the time being they can't, and they are basically stuck at being a lesser evil.
In this aspect I'd rather be spied on by Russia than US, at least the odds of Russia being more professional about it are higher, it is less likely that they dig into stuff that is not a direct threat to their national security, it is less likely that they sell or leak the data due to incompetence to 3rd party exploiters. For some reason Russia isn't leaking dirty secrets like an old rotten septic tank, which means that they either don't have them, or at the very least, they are competent enough to not leak them.
It isn't a company selling a product.
The Russiagate narrative aims at distracting you away from assigning Hillary Clinton full responsibility for her own campaign, restarting a cold war with Russia, and it's all based on stories that fall flat on inspection. Kaspersky's software is part of the anti-Russia hysteria and is properly dismissed out of hand not for being from Russia but for being nonfree (proprietary, user-subjugating).
Consider what they're telling you in the article: "This allows independent experts to verify that our software has no hidden functionality, that it doesn't send your files to third parties, doesn't spy on you and fully complies with the end-user agreement". These "independent experts" do not include the users, no matter how willing or technically astute Kaspersky's users are. Furthermore these alleged experts are unknown to you, subject to change (not at your choice), and even they don't get their software freedom respected with the software. Also, it's quite easy to bamboozle anyone who doesn't get free software.
There's no reason to trust that one nonfree program will somehow "protect" you from the problems of malware. This has nothing to do with who wrote the software, what country the authors come from, or what they claim "experts" will vet. Proprietary software is often malware.
Digital Citizen
Literally every mainstream processor in the past 4 years has a read-only signing key in it restricting you from either replacing the firmware, or from using your own OS without invalidating it as a 'secure platform' for DRM software (such as netflix, hulu, google pay, etc.) Those same 'secure' platforms often having exploits which allow ripping of said content, or forging of valid payments utilizing software exploits on the system.
Whether it is your cell phone, or your tablet/notebook/desktop computer, none of them can currently be trusted. None of them can currently be secured (unless old enough to not have these features included.)
The concerns brought about when Intel made microcode software updatable, against the backdrop of the Clipper Chip and Anti-Encryption legislation of the 90s, have been expanded to a scope long feared and now fully realized in every major brand of processor on the planet. If they can turn on the functionality in these chips, or pass the legislation to make enablement mandatory, we are all technologically fucked at a breadth and depth that makes dystopian fiction like 1984, Farenheit 451, A Brave New World, etc pale in comparison to the reality.
Cell phones, computers, televisions, telephones, many street corners and every corporate store, all spying on you, tracking you, watching you for dissentive thoughts or speech, or purchases.
Once the legislation is passed and the blockchain is used for its true purpose of ledgering all common man's monetary transactions ever made from that period forth, we will find ourselves trapped with no way out. As the metaphoric beast curls its tail around you and prepares its fangs to strike, what will you do to fight back before it is too late?
Companies that live off the federal government directly (by subsidies or simply being a preferred vendor) or indirectly (by lobbying for laws to create and enforce regulatory capture) open offices in Washington DC or as close to there as possible for the convenience of their lawyers, lobbyists and other staff. When they lose access to the government nipple, there's no longer a justification for the premium rates for office space.
Over the past eight years, with government growth on steroids and the regulatory super-state growing like a virus, the five counties around Washington DC became the richest counties in America. They surpassed the counties in the California Bay Area (whicn MAKE stuff), the counties where car companies make cars, where steel makers make steel, the counties where plane and ship builder make planes and ships..... EVERY other county in the USA was surpassed by the counties around DC.
The founders of the USA specifically made that city NOT within any state and thus NOT represented in the congress as part of an effort to keep America's capital city from becoming an old-style gilded city of leaders living a wealthy life very different from the lives of the citizenry. This is breaking down as modern tech (from computers to transportation) enable the DC-related activities and people (and associated corruption) to bleed into the surrounding counties of the surrounding states.
Sadly, this instance of a company closing its DC shop is far too rare; it would be nice to see everybody else who makes sub-standard crap for the government also shrivel-up and retract from the swamp (Boeing? LockMart? SEUI?)