3 ms·

Although the other points you raise are true - IE if the state sets their sights on you, there's little you can do about it - the idea that you have nothing to

Although the other points you raise are true - IE if the state sets their sights on you, there's little you can do about it - the idea that you have nothing to fear from rogue malware is shockingly naive. These rogue pieces of software do occasionally escape their intended target and do measurable damage to infrastructure. Many such cases. The idea that "I don't need quality antivirus, because I have nothing to fear from such threats" has similar energy to "I don't care about my privacy, I have nothing to hide."

mdhb 2y ago
You’ve made a pretty significant change to my argument here. Malware is a real thing that people need to worry about. Being targeted by the NSA doesn’t happen by mistake. As some others have pointed out, there was an incident a few years ago where NSA lost a whole bunch of their malware thanks to I believe again it was a leaker in that case (Joshua Schulte if I remember correctly). That did in turn end up getting used in a North Korean operation shortly thereafter which by contrast didn’t seem to have good controls in place and absolutely spread like wild fire. But as far as I know it happened once, was an anomaly and just isn’t a thing that is likely to ever impact you which is why I’m making the argument that what the OP was saying that Kaspersky is the best anti virus just isn’t a good argument and people shouldn’t feel like they are missing out on anything in this instance.
- tb_technical 2y ago
  I misunderstood. My mistake. Let me make another point. Having access to multiple computer security firms is good, and the services Kaspersky provides do not end with their antivirus software. Security firms regularly publish their work and work with each other. Perhaps I'm wrong here, but if memory serves, Kaspersky was one of the first firms to detect stuxnet and publish it's structure (I could be wrong here, trust but verify). Using this data, Symantec was able to begin studying the virus as well. Walling off security research will lead to more parallel research, rather than international collaboration in computer security. Whether or not this is a good or a bad thing is arguable - but I believe international efforts are a net good while the Internet is an international affair. Who knows, siloing of development might allow creativity and novel solutions in computer security like what happened with the USA/antibiotics and the USSR/phage theory - but I might be coping here.
  - mdhb 2y ago
    I hear what you’re saying, I even share a lot of the sentiment but the geopolitical situation had changed significantly in the past decade. I don’t think there is any reversing of this trend anytime soon unfortunately. There is going to be a lot more of this not less in the coming years.

mdhb 2y ago

You’ve made a pretty significant change to my argument here. Malware is a real thing that people need to worry about. Being targeted by the NSA doesn’t happen by mistake. As some others have pointed out, there was an incident a few years ago where NSA lost a whole bunch of their malware thanks to I believe again it was a leaker in that case (Joshua Schulte if I remember correctly). That did in turn end up getting used in a North Korean operation shortly thereafter which by contrast didn’t seem to have good controls in place and absolutely spread like wild fire. But as far as I know it happened once, was an anomaly and just isn’t a thing that is likely to ever impact you which is why I’m making the argument that what the OP was saying that Kaspersky is the best anti virus just isn’t a good argument and people shouldn’t feel like they are missing out on anything in this instance.

tb_technical 2y ago
I misunderstood. My mistake. Let me make another point. Having access to multiple computer security firms is good, and the services Kaspersky provides do not end with their antivirus software. Security firms regularly publish their work and work with each other. Perhaps I'm wrong here, but if memory serves, Kaspersky was one of the first firms to detect stuxnet and publish it's structure (I could be wrong here, trust but verify). Using this data, Symantec was able to begin studying the virus as well. Walling off security research will lead to more parallel research, rather than international collaboration in computer security. Whether or not this is a good or a bad thing is arguable - but I believe international efforts are a net good while the Internet is an international affair. Who knows, siloing of development might allow creativity and novel solutions in computer security like what happened with the USA/antibiotics and the USSR/phage theory - but I might be coping here.
- mdhb 2y ago
  I hear what you’re saying, I even share a lot of the sentiment but the geopolitical situation had changed significantly in the past decade. I don’t think there is any reversing of this trend anytime soon unfortunately. There is going to be a lot more of this not less in the coming years.