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Kaspersky To Close Washington Office But Expand Non-State Sales (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the interesting-times-ahead dept.

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.

6 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Why not? by Arzaboa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:Why not? by phayes · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Really? One supposes that you would also question whether Weinstein should be trusted with young actresses. After all, "there have yet to have been compelling" proven arguments that he isn't a predator, just like Putin's Russia is.

      You really want to trust someone who has explicitly declared himself an enemy of an open press and the west with auto-update privileges on your PC that he could use to perform attacks on the west? Ooops, sorry about that DDOS on critical infrastructure, it was just an innocent error not at all related to Russia deciding to liberate the poor, suffering ethnically Russian 30% of the Estonian population from their oppressors? Oh and by the way I, Vladimir the Great have decided to annex those parts of Estonia that please me (and rejoin the Kaliningrad enclave with Mother Russia!)...

      Not me. I don't trust men like Putin who kill off those that disagree with him.

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
    2. Re:Why not? by Arzaboa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I had never seen or heard that Putin ran Kapersky Labs. Turn this around and why would the Chinese use a U.S. companies anti-virus? After all, the U.S. wants a free Tibet.

      And again, when it comes to my personal info, wouldn't it be better to have a foreign government see my dirty laundry than the one that could prosecute me? (For the lawyers.... this is all supposition)

      Thank you for your interesting point of view though, which is why I asked the question. Why not?

      --
      "I didn't do it" - B. Simpson

    3. Re:Why not? by Freischutz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Do you have any evidence that anything even remotely close this has ever happened? Or is this just paranoia talking?

      Since we seem to be incapable of differentiating between a company and a government these days, I'm curious why the same level of fear does not govern the rest of your purchases? I mean: That fancy phone you have? The Chinese are after you! Your Nintendo? The Japanese are watching. Your BMW/Mercedes? The Germans are coming! The Germans are coming! That cheese you bought? It could have been poisoned by french spies!

      Can't trust anyone! Food must be grown everyone, and aluminium hats must be smelted personally or they too cannot be trusted.

      There has been a claim to this effect by Israeli intelligence, i.e. that Kaspersky is a front for the FSB and they use it as a search engine to look for documents containing certain code words. They even claim to have hacked Russian systems and watched their Russian colleagues use Kaspersky's systems to run search jobs in real time:

      https://www.extremetech.com/in...

      I don't know if this is true but it sounds plausible. If you wanted to search millions of documents on millions of computers world wide for certain code words can you imagine a better way to do that than modifying an existing anti-virus program already widely installed on many computers world wide that scans every file on your hard disk searching for viruses with your explicit permission? Modifying a virus program to do this would be about as hard as bolting a trailer hook to the back of your car. Also the Defense Intelligence Agency has been flagging Kaspersky as a potential security threat for a few years now.

    4. Re:Why not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Americans have little to fear from Russian Security Services. Americans have much to fear from American Security Services. I'll take my chances with Russian backdoors while in America than American backdoors while in America.

  2. Exact opposite feels for me by GrBear · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.