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That the Pentagon has announced it will cease defending Americans against Russian threats hardly means that Americans are not threatened.

somenameforme 2y ago
Or it means that the original bans were primarily instituted because of myopic geopolitics and not because of any meaningful threats. In particular US ire towards Kaspersky grew rapidly after it was the only antivirus that picked up on NSA/'equation group' malware. It's similar how the US banned all cooperation with China in space [1] because of some tropes about them being unable to do anything except steal American tech. That's why, to this day, there are no Chinese on the ISS. After that law China proceeded to develop, launch, and man their own space station, put a rover on Mars, and even carry out an unprecedented sample return mission from the dark side of the Moon, and just generally run circles around the US (except perhaps SpaceX) in space. Interestingly US researchers may not be able to access those Moon samples (which China shared with scientists worldwide) due to this stupid law. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment
- leoc 2y ago
  Regardless what the original story behind the Kaspersky ban was, if you genuinely don't think that a Russian antivirus company represents a state-controlled threat to US organisations, public and private, in 2025 then I don't know what to say to you.
  - wqaatwt 2y ago
    Not if US and Russia become “allies”. Then UK/EU companies will become a bigger “threat”. It should go even further e.g. you don’t want ARM installing backdoors on their chips and giving hostile foreign organizations like the MI6 access to vital American infrastructure, intelligence data etc. do you? It might be the time to consider switching to Elbrus or at least mandating that all devices used by US government agencies have to use Intel’s chips.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
    I think the argument is that non-cooperation represents a much greater long term threat to everyone involved than cooperation, collaboration.
    - rectang 2y ago
      Increased collaboration between the Russian state and the American state is bad for the ordinary citizens of both — and for freedom-loving people in Ukraine, Europe, and everywhere else.
      - somenameforme 2y ago
        The US and Russia are the biggest nuclear powers in the world. Positive relations here are good for absolutely everybody. Positive relations do not mean one has to approve of the political system, ideology, or whatever else of the other side. See: Saudi Arabia which remained a key ally for many decades in spite of being wayyyyyy further off the spectrum (relative to the US) than Russia could ever be. Overtly adversarial relationships trend towards violence, sooner or later, and that's not a path we ever want to go down.
        rectang 2y ago
        The US has turned towards enabling Russia’s imperialist war, and the Pentagon article explains how it will unilaterally disarm in the face of Russian cyberwarfare, leaving Russian criminal groups to run rampant in Europe and even the US. Abetting conquest and criminality is not the sort of collaboration we should cheer.
        somenameforme 2y ago
        Wars are largely started because of poor relations. The US overtly supported and encouraged an effort within Ukraine to overthrow a democratically elected president because he moving more towards Russia than the West. Russia then ended up invading Ukraine for fears of having NATO not only right on their doorstep, but right in their geographic Achille's Heel. If the US and Russia were on good relations none of this would have happened, Germany's economy would still be booming, and just about everybody would be so much better off today. And no, the article does not say the Pentagon will "unilaterally disarm." It ordered a halt to offensive operations against Russia - e.g. the Russian government which is certainly going to be reciprocated. Criminal elements are a different topic, but I do expect as relations between US and Russia warm, they will no longer be looking the other way when these groups target the West.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    After the initial US allegations they moved their infrastructure and customer data over to Switzerland intentionally leaving them subject to both EU and Swiss customer data protection laws, and also opened up various hubs to enable interested parties to review their source code on demand, if desired. I don't think every Russian company is conspiring against the US anymore than I think every US company is conspiring against Russia. In this case there's a clear and malicious motive for the US to want to block them that has nothing to do with threats, and they've gone way beyond any sort of reasonable standard to make it clear they have no ill intentions whatsoever. Of course the problem is that proving you're not a witch is basically impossible, which is why innocent until proven guilty is a standard across the world, except when it comes into geopolitics when allegations are proof, leaving the accused parties to prove a negative.
  - aa-jv 2y ago
    I think the more prudent approach in the modern age is to simply assume that all states control organizations within their midst with the intention of posing a threat to citizens - foreign and domestic - and a misplaced trust in ones own state above all others is not only naive, but super dangerous. If you're not holding your own government to the standards you apply to other states, you're putting yourself in danger. Especially given the fact that the USA and its partners operates the largest, by far, information gathering/human rights abusing apparatus with well-known subversive purposes, by a long margin..
    - rectang 2y ago
      I agree with this, but would extend the distrust to all concentrations of power. Supremely wealthy corporations and individuals, although on their own lacking the state’s monopoly on violence, eventually co-opt the state through regulatory capture or other means (although they can ruin lives even without the state’s power). See Elon Musk for a particularly vivid contemporary example.
      - aa-jv 2y ago
        This is clear, long before Elon Musk came along - although previously, these corporate-capture individuals have worked to hide their malign influence, and in Musks' case, he seems more inclined to make it obvious and open. Although it has to be stated, I don't think Elon has been calling for the bombing of innocent human beings at the same rate as his predecessors.
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  > meaningful threats True, they cease being “meaningful” the moment you surrender and stop viewing them as threats. OFC it’s all relative, Russia and similar actors having more political/economic influence in the US (and by extension globally) might not be viewed as a negative by some people.
- ayewo 2y ago
  I appreciate your tangent wrt US vs China in space. TIL: I had no idea China had already launched their own space station: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station
- watwut 2y ago
  Meh, or it was meaning threat, it is just that Trump is myoptic and completely under Putins control.

somenameforme 2y ago

Or it means that the original bans were primarily instituted because of myopic geopolitics and not because of any meaningful threats. In particular US ire towards Kaspersky grew rapidly after it was the only antivirus that picked up on NSA/'equation group' malware. It's similar how the US banned all cooperation with China in space [1] because of some tropes about them being unable to do anything except steal American tech. That's why, to this day, there are no Chinese on the ISS. After that law China proceeded to develop, launch, and man their own space station, put a rover on Mars, and even carry out an unprecedented sample return mission from the dark side of the Moon, and just generally run circles around the US (except perhaps SpaceX) in space. Interestingly US researchers may not be able to access those Moon samples (which China shared with scientists worldwide) due to this stupid law. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Amendment

leoc 2y ago
Regardless what the original story behind the Kaspersky ban was, if you genuinely don't think that a Russian antivirus company represents a state-controlled threat to US organisations, public and private, in 2025 then I don't know what to say to you.
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  Not if US and Russia become “allies”. Then UK/EU companies will become a bigger “threat”. It should go even further e.g. you don’t want ARM installing backdoors on their chips and giving hostile foreign organizations like the MI6 access to vital American infrastructure, intelligence data etc. do you? It might be the time to consider switching to Elbrus or at least mandating that all devices used by US government agencies have to use Intel’s chips.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
  I think the argument is that non-cooperation represents a much greater long term threat to everyone involved than cooperation, collaboration.
  - rectang 2y ago
    Increased collaboration between the Russian state and the American state is bad for the ordinary citizens of both — and for freedom-loving people in Ukraine, Europe, and everywhere else.
    - somenameforme 2y ago
      The US and Russia are the biggest nuclear powers in the world. Positive relations here are good for absolutely everybody. Positive relations do not mean one has to approve of the political system, ideology, or whatever else of the other side. See: Saudi Arabia which remained a key ally for many decades in spite of being wayyyyyy further off the spectrum (relative to the US) than Russia could ever be. Overtly adversarial relationships trend towards violence, sooner or later, and that's not a path we ever want to go down.
      - rectang 2y ago
        The US has turned towards enabling Russia’s imperialist war, and the Pentagon article explains how it will unilaterally disarm in the face of Russian cyberwarfare, leaving Russian criminal groups to run rampant in Europe and even the US. Abetting conquest and criminality is not the sort of collaboration we should cheer.
        somenameforme 2y ago
        Wars are largely started because of poor relations. The US overtly supported and encouraged an effort within Ukraine to overthrow a democratically elected president because he moving more towards Russia than the West. Russia then ended up invading Ukraine for fears of having NATO not only right on their doorstep, but right in their geographic Achille's Heel. If the US and Russia were on good relations none of this would have happened, Germany's economy would still be booming, and just about everybody would be so much better off today. And no, the article does not say the Pentagon will "unilaterally disarm." It ordered a halt to offensive operations against Russia - e.g. the Russian government which is certainly going to be reciprocated. Criminal elements are a different topic, but I do expect as relations between US and Russia warm, they will no longer be looking the other way when these groups target the West.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  After the initial US allegations they moved their infrastructure and customer data over to Switzerland intentionally leaving them subject to both EU and Swiss customer data protection laws, and also opened up various hubs to enable interested parties to review their source code on demand, if desired. I don't think every Russian company is conspiring against the US anymore than I think every US company is conspiring against Russia. In this case there's a clear and malicious motive for the US to want to block them that has nothing to do with threats, and they've gone way beyond any sort of reasonable standard to make it clear they have no ill intentions whatsoever. Of course the problem is that proving you're not a witch is basically impossible, which is why innocent until proven guilty is a standard across the world, except when it comes into geopolitics when allegations are proof, leaving the accused parties to prove a negative.
- aa-jv 2y ago
  I think the more prudent approach in the modern age is to simply assume that all states control organizations within their midst with the intention of posing a threat to citizens - foreign and domestic - and a misplaced trust in ones own state above all others is not only naive, but super dangerous. If you're not holding your own government to the standards you apply to other states, you're putting yourself in danger. Especially given the fact that the USA and its partners operates the largest, by far, information gathering/human rights abusing apparatus with well-known subversive purposes, by a long margin..
  - rectang 2y ago
    I agree with this, but would extend the distrust to all concentrations of power. Supremely wealthy corporations and individuals, although on their own lacking the state’s monopoly on violence, eventually co-opt the state through regulatory capture or other means (although they can ruin lives even without the state’s power). See Elon Musk for a particularly vivid contemporary example.
    - aa-jv 2y ago
      This is clear, long before Elon Musk came along - although previously, these corporate-capture individuals have worked to hide their malign influence, and in Musks' case, he seems more inclined to make it obvious and open. Although it has to be stated, I don't think Elon has been calling for the bombing of innocent human beings at the same rate as his predecessors.
wqaatwt 2y ago
> meaningful threats True, they cease being “meaningful” the moment you surrender and stop viewing them as threats. OFC it’s all relative, Russia and similar actors having more political/economic influence in the US (and by extension globally) might not be viewed as a negative by some people.
ayewo 2y ago
I appreciate your tangent wrt US vs China in space. TIL: I had no idea China had already launched their own space station: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiangong_space_station
watwut 2y ago
Meh, or it was meaning threat, it is just that Trump is myoptic and completely under Putins control.