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Kaspersky Halts Europol Partnership After Controversial EU Parliament Vote (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Kaspersky Lab announced it was temporarily halting its cooperation with Europol following the voting of a controversial motion in the European Parliament. The Russian antivirus vendor will also stop working on the NoMoreRansom project that provided free ransomware decrypters for ransomware victims.
The company's decision comes after the EU Parliament voted a controversial motion that specifically mentions Kaspersky as a "confirmed as malicious" software and urges EU states to ban it as part of a joint EU cyber defense strategy. The EU did not present any evidence for its assessment that Kaspersky is malicious, but even answered user questions claiming it has no evidence. The motion is just a EU policy and has no legislative power, put it is still an official document. Kaspersky software has been previously banned from Government systems in the US, UK, Netherlands, and Lithuania.
The company's decision comes after the EU Parliament voted a controversial motion that specifically mentions Kaspersky as a "confirmed as malicious" software and urges EU states to ban it as part of a joint EU cyber defense strategy. The EU did not present any evidence for its assessment that Kaspersky is malicious, but even answered user questions claiming it has no evidence. The motion is just a EU policy and has no legislative power, put it is still an official document. Kaspersky software has been previously banned from Government systems in the US, UK, Netherlands, and Lithuania.
The way things are going, Kaspersky will become the victim of "we can't prove it but they are evil" global campaign, eventually leaving the company very few options to survive. A natural shift would be to cyber-security offensive tools - a cyber weapon manufacturer if you will. While the US may balk at using Kaspersky as a defense tool, I don't think the FBI will blink if they can buy a better iPhone hacking tool from Kaspersky, or US or Chinese army if they can buy a better cyber-weapon. They'll rename it for security reasons I'm sure, so it won't be Kaspersky iPhone hacking or electrical grid crashing tool, it will be ACME Inc.
That's one way to create cyber-weapon manufacturers in today's world. No need to wait for someone to start it and get funding from investors with no scruples.
Kaspersky dared to reveal NSA malware, when all other "anti"virus company cooperated.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
That doesn't protect the EU though.
Kaspersky has been the prime antagonist of US internet intrusion based spying worldwide. Which is why propaganda against them has gone into overdrive. The EU is killing our best defense against US spying, then again the EU has always been a tool by which the US can control Europe, so no surprises there.
And people wonder why Britain voted out.
Not at all - we just don't agree about the reason. To me it is obvious that people voted leave (by a small majority) because they were lied to by a small group of people, who either expect to gain personally from the chaos that is the consequence of Brexit (as we can already see now), or who hate all things foreign.
The Remain side, by and large, led a sober, pragmatic and fairminded campaign, while the Leave side appealed to what we used to call the inner Schweinehund in the many people that have been affected by the financial crisis, as well as using outright lies. As Hitler famously said, if you repeat a lie loudly and frequently, then people will eventually believe it.
I don't think there are many, even on the remain side, that love the EU - being sober, pragmatic and fairminded means that you are able to see both the advantages and the disadvantages of EU, but in this casehave decided that it is better to remain and work on improving things. Fortunately nothing is permanent - I remain confident that once we have experienced the reality of this mess long enough, we will seek to get back in.