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Kaspersky Lab Sues Trump Administration Over Software Ban (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

Moscow-based anti-virus company Kaspersky Lab sued the Trump administration in U.S. federal court on Monday, arguing that the American government has deprived it of due process rights by banning its software from U.S. government agencies. From a report: The lawsuit is the latest effort by Kaspersky Lab to push back on allegations that the company is vulnerable to Kremlin influence. The Department of Homeland Security in September issued a directive to U.S. civilian agencies ordering them to remove Kaspersky Lab from their computer networks within 90 days. The order came amid mounting concern among U.S. officials that the software could enable Russian espionage and threaten national security. The ban was codified last week when President Donald Trump signed legislation banning Kasperky Lab from use across civilian and military agencies.

10 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. You Cannot Sue City hall... by bobbied · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Trump is only preventing Federal agencies from using Kaspersky Lab's offerings, he's not keeping them from selling to other US customers. You can still buy their products in the USA. I realize that this Federal ban does cut into their market share, but how will suing fix this?

    How do they have a lawsuit? Can I now sue the Federal Government if they refuse to use *my* software product?

    You cannot sue city hall, Kaspersky Lab's needs to file that suit in the circular file marked "trash" because it's going to be dumped by the courts eventually and turn into a waste of good money.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re: You Cannot Sue City hall... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      As opposed to a Mac judge who will wonder why they have antivirus in the first place.

    2. Re: You Cannot Sue City hall... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Meanwhile the Linux Judge is still trying to install his AMD Catalyst drivers.

    3. Re:You Cannot Sue City hall... by swb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think it's not just that the Federal government has banned it, I think the mere presence of that ban is having a chilling effect. I know a guy who works for a fuel supplier to an energy utility and they are being told to rip out all Kaspersky products by the utility and supposedly the utility is being told this by the Feds.

      Even if this is only partly true, I'd guess its being repeated in other areas. Eventually even if still buying their products isn't illegal or officially banned for anyone other than Federal agencies, this will fan out and ruin its reputation.

      I'm of mixed opinions on this. I don't think Kaspersky was proactively engaged in a conspiracy to commit espionage, but I think they are uniquely positioned to be influenced by the FSB in ways that creates an existential risk.

      My guess is Eugene Kaspersky thought he could retain Russia as a major office (good talent, a market unto itself, etc) and be a global software player without those two things being in conflict. Turns out maybe he should have relocated and left Russia behind.

    4. Re:You Cannot Sue City hall... by Somebody+Is+Using+My · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I am not a lawyer.

      However, it was explained to me that the problem is that Kaspersky was singled out specifically, rather than failing to make the cut due to certain considerations. It's one thing to say "the government may only buy software from vetted software companies that are not also doing business in Russia" versus naming the company directly even though the end result may be the same. It's like how you can't make laws to single out individuals.

        The current ruling means that even if Kaspersky corrects everything that the government doesn't like about them (e.g., moves out of Russia, replaces all their programmers, opens their source-code, whatever), they are still out of the running for government contracts solely because they are Kaspersky, and it is this that the company is claiming is unlawful. The law prevents this because otherwise the government could simply forbid certain otherwise qualified companies (usually because someone in the government has stock in company X and doesn't want company Y to be able to compete).

      Or so I was told. Hopefully somebody with a better understanding of both this ruling and the law will be able to clarify the issue.

  2. This feels terrible. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm not one to defend what the current administration/congress does but banning the use of software on government and government contractors' computers that is suspected to be under the control of a foreign government seems well within the scope of the law.

    Frankly, if they banned Microsoft's shoddy products then you wouldn't need to bother with Kaspersky.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  3. Re:And Kaspersky will win. by coastwalker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indeed. It would be the end of Kasperkey software if there was the slightest hint that they were colluding with the Russian state. As it would be for all of the American companies who obviously are compromised by the NSA. You jokers are all as bad as each other. Trump is a cretin.

    --
    Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
  4. Re:Muh Russian Hackers by Lord+Kano · · Score: 5, Informative

    Only Americans have rights to anything, due process included.

    You are not correct in this assertion.

    Only rights guaranteed to "the people" are exclusively applicable to American citizens.
    Rights guaranteed to "persons" belong to everyone.

    To make it clearer, would it be legal to hold a slave if that slave is not an American citizen?

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  5. Whoever thought this was a good idea in the first by bigmacx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    place? Sheesh, let's see, our government uses closed source SECURITY software from a company located in a (hostile?) foreign country and everyone in the US doesn't automatically think it's a Bad Idea?

    And yes I know there's a lot of software made outside of the US by non-US companies that are likely used in the US gov't, but security, especially closed-source, software should not be one of those.

  6. Re:Due process rights? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    People aren't the issue here. Sales to the federal government are. Kasperksy has a US subsidiary. The US subsidiary is a US citizen to the extent the Supreme Court has said corporations are citizens. The US subsidiary has due process rights under the US constitution. Trump saying the US subsidiary cant sell its software to the US government because its actually a hostile arm of the KGB or whatever the exact accusation is doesn't fly without due process. The US subsidiary is entitled to it's day in court. At the end of the day a simple enough audit of the code can show what is or isn't true. Litigation is exactly how this should be resolved.