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Ok, let's cut the crap. Is Kaspersky a dirtbag or not? I suspect not, but it is an unfortunate accident he was born in and runs his company from Russia, the gov

• oh_sigh 5y ago
  You think the US government waited 12 years to be able to turn the screws on Kaspersky because they uncovered Stuxnet?
• mrtnmcc 5y ago
  Plenty of legit potential concerns.. Russian govt could "nationalize" Kaspersky at any moment and push rogue updates.
  • cf141q5325 5y ago
    Shouldnt i have the same concerns with software from the US? You dont really have to nationalize to force devs to push malicious code (looking at you Australia)
    • jcranberry 5y ago
      Maybe, if the US government thought they could get some useful information from you.
    • ed25519FUUU 5y ago
      As a US citizen you still have some semblance of rights under the constitution that dictate what the government can do.
      • DiogenesKynikos 5y ago
        Snowden's leaks showed that the NSA was simply ignoring the 4th Amendment, and that the secret FISA court was letting the NSA do so. Theoretically, the Constitution protects you. In reality, the intelligence community acts largely in secret, and there's very little preventing them from violating the Bill of Rights. Citizens don't even know what rights they've given up until someone like Snowden spills the beans.
        • temp8964 5y ago
          No. You need to understand what you are comparing to. The question is comparing US and Russia. No. It’s not the same. But you turned this question into comparing US to perfection. Yes, you are right. US is not perfection. But there is a big difference between 70 to 10, even both are not 100. What Snowden revealed does not make 70 to 10. If you think that way, you don’t understand how bad an authoritarian regime is.
          • rat9988 5y ago
            I put both russia and us at 10. Why would I rate it any better, given its past?
            • jiscariot 5y ago
              In the US the press can be openly antagonistic toward the government without reprisal beyond maybe having a WH press-core pass tossed. This provides a path for whistleblowers. Could the Russian press behave toward Putin as the US press toward Trump? If so, then you can have your 10s.
              • rat9988 5y ago
                Snowden and assange have been used as example. Although, there are probably more people shut by the Russian government than by the us, by far. The thing is, the US secret services are secretive enough that non one can complain about, independently of the ability of the people to complain.
    • MattGaiser 5y ago
      Depends on the country. Unlike Russia, the government in the USA is not all powerful.
      • confiq 5y ago
        except when it comes to force companies out of the USA because of "security reasons". I think Russia is using similar tactics, does it?
        • dragontamer 5y ago
          Try saying the words "Ukraine War" in Russia. That alone is grounds for getting arrested, possibly disappeared and/or tortured. You have to say "Ukrainian Special Security Operation".
          • mardifoufs 5y ago
            This is from the first article I came across on the RT front page right now: >Moscow attacked neighboring Ukraine last month, following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols had been designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state. >Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military alliance. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force. It doesn't seem like they are afraid of getting disappeared for saying russia attacked ukraine.
            • deleted 5y ago
              [deleted]
            • dragontamer 5y ago
              RT is the propaganda arm of the Russian government operating in other countries. Internal newspapers, such as Novaya Gazeta, have been shut down for saying "war" in print. Just the latest in many papers, radio channels and more that have been silenced in Russia. > It doesn't seem like they are afraid of getting disappeared for saying russia attacked ukraine. They didn't use the word "war".
    • nopcode 5y ago
      I've worked in multiple European environments (gov & private sector) that mandated usage of European anti-virus & firewalls. In finance I had a client that didn't trust any vendor and asked me to reverse engineer VPN appliances (they negotiate a special clause with the vendor), which makes more sense then trusting based on country of origin.
    • dahdum 5y ago
      > Shouldnt i have the same concerns with software from the US? You dont really have to nationalize to force devs to push malicious code (looking at you Australia) You should have the same concerns about software from anywhere, including the US. I believe it's a couple orders of magnitude more likely I'd be harmed by Russian government malicious code than any other nation. Russia is in crisis, striking indiscriminately, and has no reputation left to lose. So that's where my concern lies.
      • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
        > Russia is in crisis, striking indiscriminately, and has no reputation left to lose. So that's where my concern lies. With wikileaks, we've seen, that americans did all of the same things, you now try to accuse russia of potentialy doing. I'm not saying russians won't do it, but americans already did it.
        • trasz 5y ago
          They have - in the past. The threat from Russia is now.
          • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
            So you're saying that they suddenly stopped for no reason at all?
    • devwastaken 5y ago
      Russia can do it without any backlash from their citizens. U.S. can't do it to their own citizens without backlash. Differences in representation of population means different incentives.
      • rat9988 5y ago
        The only backlash I saw is the backlash to snowden from its own country.
        • monetus 5y ago
          That is just silly, and has to be said in bad faith. Are you serious?
          • rat9988 5y ago
            I do.
          • PoignardAzur 5y ago
            Where's the bad faith? The US and its allies pulled down the plane of the fucking president of Bolivia to catch Snowden. Those are not the actions of the state worried about public perception, except in a "silence the dissidents" sense.
          • 8note 5y ago
            He's still living in Russia in fear for going back to the US
      • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
        Backlash after the wikileaks? What backlash? FISA courts? Gag orders? Just call the "other guys" terrorists, nazis, whatever, and americans can occupy and bomb whatever country they want (and they did that to many countries) withot any backlash. Gone are the days of the hippies and anti-war-anything... sadly. I was kinda hoping for a "revolution" in one of the european countries (eg france) during covid, where people would "remove" the current government, and make the other governments atleast worry a bit when their people get mad... but sadly, not even that.
    • AniseAbyss 5y ago
      It's about probability. I mean I have my issues with US foreign policy but at the end of the day they are more friendly and reliable than Russia. Yeah if the US ever goes rogue we're all doomed but then your antivirus software will be the least of your worries.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • dralley 5y ago
      Sure. But we're talking about a government that just stole hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign planes (and other equipment) and took down satellite radio networks with cyberattacks (causing a lot of collateral damage), recently backdoor'd thousands of companies via Solarwinds, and looked the other way w/r/t ransomware groups until one of them caused a major international incident (Colonial pipeline). The threat from other nations is a lot more theoretical than it is for Russia.
    • xeromal 5y ago
      This kind of comment isn't my favorite, but I do understand where you're coming from. I personally think that it's better the devil you know than the devil you don't. I'm American. My country is the US. Yes, they're spying on me. Yes, they do naughty things. But I assume that at the end of the day, the US has my interests at heart more than China does. Or the UK, or Russia, or Turkey, or anyone else. I happen to live on the land that they'll protect even while filling their pockets. My feedback to you would be to do the same. You don't have to trust your own government but assume your government will keep you around longer than any other government will.
      • 8note 5y ago
        The us government has been known to want to keep people alive for the purposes of chattel slavery. I'd much prefer misdeeds that don't affect me from a government that doesn't care about me, than those of a local government who wants to keep me alive for the purposes of doing more bad things to me in the future
    • lern_too_spel 5y ago
      The FTC isn't telling non-Americans what to do, only Americans. Russian software, outside the jurisdiction of the American legal system and under the control of Putin, is a threat to American infrastructure. American software is not.
    • account42 5y ago
      You should absolutely have concerns with proprietary software from the US but unless you are in a country that is currently in a cold-war relationship with the US the concern is likely VERY different.
  • rangerelf 5y ago
    They don't need to nationalize anything, they can just threaten his family with imminent and painful retribution and he'll open it up to anything they want. Period. All these people whining about "they're both the same", they are not. "Bay of Pigs" argument does not apply, last time I checked Cuba was still standing where on the other hand Ukraine is burning and getting demolished. It seems that those complaining really really do not understand the horror of living under an "official" or "unofficial" (i.e. government sanctioned vs. government tolerated) mafia rule: either you do what they tell you, or you cease to be, along with your spouse, children, parents, siblings, etc. There is absolutely no negotiation.
  • raffraffraff 5y ago
    Or rouge updates?
• older 5y ago
  Kaspersky graduated from The Technical Faculty of the KGB Higher School in 1987. That was a definition of a dirtbag in Soviet time.
  • mkbkn 5y ago
    What he could have done then at that time? To not study? To remain illiterate?
    • aaomidi 5y ago
      I know right? Like what the hell kind of criticism is that lol.
      • mopsi 5y ago
        The kind that understands historic nuance.
        • naniwaduni 5y ago
          That understands nuance, but not history.
    • older 5y ago
      You really think the choice was to go to KGB school or remain illiterate? There were a lot of other options to study. Much better options if your want to do science. For one thing, education in Soviet Union was decent and free for everyone. Going to KGB school was a choice, very specific one.
    • jonathanstrange 5y ago
      I know brilliant people from the GDR who studied at Moscow Polytechnic University, they weren't in the KGB or Stasi. You had to be system-conform to study anything, that much is true, but that's still far away from joining the KGB.
  • libraryatnight 5y ago
• mmastrac 5y ago
  His only statement so far on the far (keeping in mind this is rather than saying nothing) called it a "situation" in Ukraine. That's not much to read into, but he also could have chosen to say absolutely nothing. "We welcome the start of negotiations to resolve the current situation in Ukraine and hope that they will lead to a cessation of hostilities and a compromise. We believe that peaceful dialogue is the only possible instrument for resolving conflicts. War isn’t good for anyone."
• ajross 5y ago
  The sanctions in question are against Kaspersky Labs the company, not Eugene Kaspersky the man. Frankly none of the analysis involves a decision as to whether he is a "dirtbag", by association or not. It's just that there's no way anyone can reasonably trust "security" software produced by entities in a totalitarian state, especially so when it's at war.
  • Maursault 5y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. So it is not a situation were we have actual evidence of dirtbaggery against the company, but that we are rationally paranoid that Kaspersky Lab could somehow steal our Pokemons.
• _8j50 5y ago
  Even american security companies have ties to the intelligence community. Kaspersky is no different. In most countries private sector pays more so state hackers work at places like Crowdstrike or Kaspersky after some time. Their relationship with the IC helps develop and share intelligence both ways.
  • NelsonMinar 5y ago
    There's an important difference: American security companies have ties to American intelligence. The concern here is Kaspersky has ties to Russian intelligence. If you're an American company or government agency and have to choose between the two the choice is pretty clear. I have a lot of respect for Kaspersky and hope they are still independent. But "ties to intelligence" can come in many forms: deliberate, coerced, or via infiltration. We've seen similar issues here in the US. Sometimes companies work voluntarily with the FBI and NSA, sometimes they are infiltrated or tricked by them.
    • sovietmoonbase 5y ago
      > If you're an American company or government agency and have to choose between the two the choice is pretty clear. I suppose that entirely depends on one's threat-model. As an American, I have greater concerns of USG oppression than I do Russian. As the Russians have their ham-fisted means of exterting influence on a company, the US has their very own nasty ways of infiltration. If you're interested in personal freedoms free of malicious government intrusion, they both suck.
      • NelsonMinar 5y ago
  • BTCOG 5y ago
    It's not just security companies. US ISPs are heavily tied to agencies and so are the large corps. The media is state ran just like Russia.
• tjoff 5y ago
  I thought the question was much older than stuxnet?
• tomc1985 5y ago
  When was Kasepersky ever considered a dirtbag? That company has written a lot of technically in-depth security reports over various threats for a long time. AFAIK it's a (relatively) honest business, though sadly the target of American russophobia
  • Maursault 5y ago
    Unsure of reason for downvotes, but this was my observation as well, and my experience is that Kaspersky Labs scanning software successfully sanitizes its targets and does so without giving the uncanny feeling of wasting one's time. Putin and friends are moronic for bullying and harassing and mugging Ukraine. But if I were him, I would definitely declare apple pie a security threat in response.
    • tomc1985 5y ago
      Yeah, it was my preferred AV for a while, til I switched to a local company
  • eunos 5y ago
    I think there was an incident in which some NSA contractor had Kaspersky installed in their workstation and the heuristic caught up NSA tools https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/kaspersky-russia-nsa-contractor-leaked-us-hacking-tools-by-mistake-pirating-microsoft-office https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/26/kaspersky...
    • toyg 5y ago
      They did the right thing - finding suspiciously malicious code is their job. Not their fault the user was an idiot, spooks PEBKAC is still PEBKAC.
      • dralley 5y ago
        Sure, but the allegation was that soon after Kasperky detected the NSA tools on his system he was hit with a very targeted cyberattack. IIRC that's where the allegations of Kasperky's involvement with the Russian government came in. And anecdotally there were a lot of MSPs in /r/sysadmin claiming that every single one of their Kasperky customers would be hit by ransomware while few if any of their other customers were.
• seventytwo 5y ago
  Your entire post is pure speculation.
• JabavuAdams 5y ago
  The problem is: how do you run a business that has offices and physical assets in Russia, without being at least partially beholden to the Russian government? They have demonstrated that they are not shy about using gangster tactics. One could say that the same is true in the US, but I believe the degree matters. Although the US government and intelligence agencies will and do try to overreach, there is a strong legal and cultural tradition of exposing, resisting, and fighting these overreaches in the US. I don't see that in Russia. So, I would not be surprised to see the US strong-arming US companies, but they would do this with sham/flimsy legal cover. The result of non-compliance would be at worst asset seizure and/or imprisonment. Both of these can be examined and contested. I imagine that the penalty for non-compliance in the Russian system would max out at having an unfortunate accident. Gangsters all, but the level of gangsterism and possibilities for investigation/redress matter. All that said, I'm not a US citizen (although in a Five-Eyes country), so I do worry about using US-hosted services.
  • skeptikal 5y ago
    • layer8 5y ago
      Russia is free to ban Microsoft Defender et al.
    • edgyquant 5y ago
      Which is the entire point of their argument? The Russian government is objectively worse by any honest metric.
      • naoqj 5y ago
        • xur17 5y ago
          Did you read the GGP? > One could say that the same is true in the US, but I believe the degree matters. Although the US government and intelligence agencies will and do try to overreach, there is a strong legal and cultural tradition of exposing, resisting, and fighting these overreaches in the US. I don't see that in Russia. > So, I would not be surprised to see the US strong-arming US companies, but they would do this with sham/flimsy legal cover. The result of non-compliance would be at worst asset seizure and/or imprisonment. Both of these can be examined and contested. I imagine that the penalty for non-compliance in the Russian system would max out at having an unfortunate accident. Gangsters all, but the level of gangsterism and possibilities for investigation/redress matter.
• viktorcode 5y ago
  It doesn't matter. The fact is Kaspersky (the company) can be coerced by the Russian government to exploit their highly privileged systems access to millions of computers around the globe. I don't expect Kaspersky (the person) to play hero under these circumstances.
  • publicola1990 5y ago
    But is FTC acting after seeing evidence for clear and present wrongdoing or is it merely making a geopolitical assessment. FTC should follow a fair and evidence based process for arriving at a decision like this. There should be punitive measures only after it has been established that there is wrongdoing.
  • UnFleshedOne 5y ago
    Don't expect him to be _able_ to play hero even if he wanted.
    • chess_buster 5y ago
      In my opinion, that's the right way to look at it.
  • ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    So can microsoft, adobe, google, etc. Even without them, NSA can intercept the hardware and put their software on those boxes... wikileaks showed a bunch of stuff NSA did. If you're a valuable target, it's basically choosing if you want to be spied on by the russians or the americans. (or installing linux, and hoping for the best).
    • TaylorAlexander 5y ago
      This is true, tho installing linux is probably not going to make a difference if you are a target. But the USA can issue national security letters through the FISA court with gag orders that keep the NSL secret. Not only that, but the major US companies have lucrative government contracts such that it can be in their interest to provide the US government with certain kinds of access without being compelled through national security letters.
• sharken 5y ago
  Here is my humble opinion. Kaspersky is by definition a Russian company that provides antivirus software to many influential western companies and institutions. The risk of Kaspersky bowing to the pressure from Putin is just too great to ignore. For Kaspersky this can seem unfair, but that is one of the many consequences of Putins actions. Don't forget who started the invasion and who is still hurting innocent Ukrainians.
• starwind 5y ago
  Kaspersky himself had deep connections with the KGB
• dc-programmer 5y ago
  The Stuxnet association seems completely basis, and you do not provide any evidence for the assertion. There were multiple firms and individuals responsible for the discovery, reverse engineering, and attribution of Stuxnet, so you are overplaying their involvement. This decision was certainly made by a bureaucrat who may not even know about Stuxnet. It’s simple risk mitigation. Why even take the chance Kaspersky is a malicious entity? It’s not important software. Some of the conspiracy theories people throw out around here…
• RadixDLT 5y ago
  funny you say that, because bitDefender always outshines Kaspersky in all the AV tests and was always ranked #1 also dont forget that the Global Research & Analysis Team @ Kaspersky is not Russian
• DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
  I don't think there is a conspiracy here about tit-for-tat stuxnet or even if he is a "dirtbag". All AV shift trust from the system to the AV. That is the root of the issue and it is an unsolved problem no matter where you try to secure something in the end there is always a compromise somewhere that boils down to "but eventually you need to trust something". If that something is owned by your enemy in a hot war it's game over. The minute a vendor can be leaned on by a hostile government (even they are not in the country like the founder of Telegram) and the interest is strong enough to lean on them (hot war) the trust assumption becomes problematic. How problematic? I think it doesn't get more urgent then in a hot war. Kaspersky needs to pack up in all NATO countries. Not just because they pay taxes in RU (also this is a good enough reason for me). But also because if you share data with a non-NATO country it immediately becomes problematic too if your business partner is using their products. The options under which they should be allowed to continue to operate is purely academic because it involves not only shifting all operations out of RU but also getting rid of any executive who moves to the new location that can be leaned on back home (e.g. family and friends etc). There is no middle ground because the minute these steps are initiated Kaspersky has good reason to feel mistreated by the West. So even they kept their hands clean until now they might start doing what they've been accused of anyway. Also if Positive Tech and others have been sanctions already some months ago there is no reason to give this much bigger potential threat a pass.
• cptskippy 5y ago
  > Ok, let's cut the crap. Clearly you were joking? The crap is your assertion that this has anything to something other than what's happening in Ukraine. Kaspersky is collateral damage and fallout from Russia s actions and nothing more. Please let's cut the crap.
• IngvarLynn 5y ago
  Kaspersky consciously, under no pressure chose to be chekist. That is absolutely all You need to know about this person and his deeds, consequentially. The numerous ruminations on "coercion" are just deeply naive. He is a member of kremlin gang. Anything else falls into bottomless category of whitewashing.
• dgut 5y ago
  You're saying things that are obvious but the facts are: 1. Kaspersky could have long ago left Russia 2. We can't trust Kaspersky 3. The fight is real, even if the US gov lied, incentives matter
• yes_really 5y ago
  > Is Kaspersky a dirtbag or not? I suspect not, but it is an unfortunate accident he was born in and runs his company from Russia, the government of which is a dirtbag, so, correct me if I am wrong, Kaspersky must be a dirtbag by association [...]. Even if he is not a dirtbag, being in Russia means Putin has power to use Kaspersky technology in war.
• lazyeye 5y ago
  You dont sound like a patriot.You sound like the opposite.
• jansen555 5y ago
  [dead]