9 ms·

rebuttal to Eugene's rebuttal: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/kaspersky-indy/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/kaspersky-indy/

by zht 14y ago

andrewfelix 14y ago
That was a quick rebuttal. It was also awful. The author fails to counter point by point Kapersky's detailed response. Shachtman comes off as arrogant and defensive.
- modfodder 14y ago
  It wasn't any worse than Kapersky's rebuttal, which also didn't counter point by point the article other than generalized statements, i.e. "registered in Great Britain" so obviously we are on the up and up, "I really like Facebook", etc. Just he said, he said until one of the parties actually releases documentation (Wired can release emails showing Kapersky's co. cooperated closely with the fact checking, Kapersky can release docs to show the opposite, etc.) As someone who is a casual reader of Wired and knows little about Kapersky, I don't know who to believe. Russian stereotypes and the current actions of Putin's government would push me towards believing the Wired article but that doesn't make me comfortable enough to say anything with confidence.
  - andrewfelix 14y ago
    "registered in Great Britain" isn't a generalized statement, it's a fact. Shachtman paints a picture of Kapersky being in bed with the Russian government around innocuous anecdotes such as a government contract and a Christmas card. The onus is on Shachtman to provide compelling evidence for his assertions. In my opinion he has failed to do that.
    - modfodder 14y ago
      The generalized statement is Kapersky's assertion that being Registered in Great Britain means they aren't doing anything nefarious or unethical. Just because they are registered in the U.K. doesn't mean they are clean, I'm sure there are plenty of companies registered in the U.K. that are up to no good. Shachtman may have failed to provide compelling evidence for his assertions, but in my opinion, Kapersky's rebuttal was very weak and did very little to prove his case. Frankly, both rebuttals were weak and probably written in haste without examining how they would come across to an impartial third party.
      - supercanuck 14y ago
        I didn't get the same generalised impression. His point was his company is governed by the laws of Great Britain not Russia. So if some sort of law was broken, he could be held accountable in Great Britain. The article implies his company can run amok under the guise of a russian corporation and be protected by the Kremlin. His rebuttal asserts this not to be true rather directly.
        modfodder 14y ago
        Except that we've seen Western companies act with nearly complete impunity in highly regulated industries (most recent and notably in the banking industry in both the U.S. and the U.K. as well as companies with close gov. ties like Blackwater). And although it's registered out of the U.K., it's operating mostly in Russia. It could run amok and the U.K. courts would have a difficult time even investigating any possible transgressions, especially if the company is as close to the Kremlin as the article implies. Instinctually I trust a company run by a former Soviet intelligence officer just as much as I trust a company run by a former CIA or MI-6 officer, which is to say very little and I would assume said companies would cooperate fully with most government requests or initiatives with little resistance. That's not to say the Wired article isn't bunk, it may very well be nationalist fud.
      - jonhendry 14y ago
        " Just because they are registered in the U.K. doesn't mean they are clean, I'm sure there are plenty of companies registered in the U.K. that are up to no good." Definitely. There are UK-registered companies that are little more than shells, but are connected to arms dealing organizations and similar.
      - andrewfelix 14y ago
        But would you assert Shachtman's proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false?
        sigzero 14y ago
        No.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
mcantelon 14y ago
>And Kaspersky agreed to appear in a documentary that used his son’s abduction as a prime example of why social networks are dangerous. Those are facts that neither he nor I can avoid. It's sinister that Kaspersky appears in a documentary talking about privacy concerns? Shachtman's really grasping at straws.
- makomk 14y ago
  It's sinister that he's using it to argue that access to the Internet needs to be tightly monitored and controlled, especially as we're talking about Russia where (for instance) if people couldn't use the Internet to broadcast messages that were hard to trace we wouldn't have all gthe photographic evidence proving massive ballot-box stuffing and electoral fraud in the last election that we do have.
smsm42 14y ago
Schachman alleges that Medvedev's visit to Kaspesky Lab and work for Russia's major government bank somehow means that Kaspersky has nefarious links to the government. This is baloney. It's like saying if Obama visits Facebook or Google headquarters these companies now are CIA outlets, or saying if the Fed hires Symantec to secure their networks Symantec is now linked to US government. Of course Central bank of Russia would hire leading Russian security company to secure their network, who else they would hire? What's surprising in that? Of course leading politician may visit a company that is internationally known for its success, especially Medvedev who insisted on emphasizing the "modern hi-tech president" image. Cooperation between security researchers and cybercrime divisions of security services is also nothing new - what else security researchers would do with their findings? They can't prosecute computer criminals themselves... And of course they would get licensed by Russian security services - how else one could get government contracts, which in every country are not negligible source of income for many companies? Making it sound as if pretty standard business practices and realities - which apply both to such undeniably corrupt country as Russia and to the US and to many other developed countries - as a sign of some ominous secrets is a journalistic malpractice. It may sound to somebody uninformed as there's something shady there - but in fact there's nothing in all that stuff. There might be secrets hidden somewhere - but Schachman findings are extremely weak in that regard.
- nice1 14y ago
  There is a huge difference between the way the US works (with all its flaws) and the way a dictatorship works. The Soviet Union/Russia is more like a mafia organization than a state in the usual sense. If anyone here wishes to raise their awareness of this it is rather easy (google for Litvinenko, Magnitsky, Politkovskaya). This is why the WIRED article was truthful.
- knewter 14y ago
  > It's like saying if Obama visits Facebook or Google headquarters these companies now are CIA outlets I feel like you should have used a better analogy, since Facebook is effectively a CIA outlet. They received funding from them.
  - 14y ago
dgudkov 14y ago
Did you notice tag "Crazy Ivans" below the article? That's pretty offensive...
- smsm42 14y ago
  Looks like it's a recurring tag for Wired: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/tag/crazy-ivans/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/tag/crazy-ivans/ I guess somebody at Wired thinks they're being funny. IMO they're being stupid.

rebuttal to Eugene's rebuttal: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/kaspersky-indy/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/kaspersky-indy/

by zht 14y ago

rebuttal to Eugene's rebuttal: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/kaspersky-indy/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/kaspersky-indy/

andrewfelix 14y ago

That was a quick rebuttal. It was also awful. The author fails to counter point by point Kapersky's detailed response. Shachtman comes off as arrogant and defensive.

modfodder 14y ago
It wasn't any worse than Kapersky's rebuttal, which also didn't counter point by point the article other than generalized statements, i.e. "registered in Great Britain" so obviously we are on the up and up, "I really like Facebook", etc. Just he said, he said until one of the parties actually releases documentation (Wired can release emails showing Kapersky's co. cooperated closely with the fact checking, Kapersky can release docs to show the opposite, etc.) As someone who is a casual reader of Wired and knows little about Kapersky, I don't know who to believe. Russian stereotypes and the current actions of Putin's government would push me towards believing the Wired article but that doesn't make me comfortable enough to say anything with confidence.
- andrewfelix 14y ago
  "registered in Great Britain" isn't a generalized statement, it's a fact. Shachtman paints a picture of Kapersky being in bed with the Russian government around innocuous anecdotes such as a government contract and a Christmas card. The onus is on Shachtman to provide compelling evidence for his assertions. In my opinion he has failed to do that.
  - modfodder 14y ago
    The generalized statement is Kapersky's assertion that being Registered in Great Britain means they aren't doing anything nefarious or unethical. Just because they are registered in the U.K. doesn't mean they are clean, I'm sure there are plenty of companies registered in the U.K. that are up to no good. Shachtman may have failed to provide compelling evidence for his assertions, but in my opinion, Kapersky's rebuttal was very weak and did very little to prove his case. Frankly, both rebuttals were weak and probably written in haste without examining how they would come across to an impartial third party.
    - supercanuck 14y ago
      I didn't get the same generalised impression. His point was his company is governed by the laws of Great Britain not Russia. So if some sort of law was broken, he could be held accountable in Great Britain. The article implies his company can run amok under the guise of a russian corporation and be protected by the Kremlin. His rebuttal asserts this not to be true rather directly.
      - modfodder 14y ago
        Except that we've seen Western companies act with nearly complete impunity in highly regulated industries (most recent and notably in the banking industry in both the U.S. and the U.K. as well as companies with close gov. ties like Blackwater). And although it's registered out of the U.K., it's operating mostly in Russia. It could run amok and the U.K. courts would have a difficult time even investigating any possible transgressions, especially if the company is as close to the Kremlin as the article implies. Instinctually I trust a company run by a former Soviet intelligence officer just as much as I trust a company run by a former CIA or MI-6 officer, which is to say very little and I would assume said companies would cooperate fully with most government requests or initiatives with little resistance. That's not to say the Wired article isn't bunk, it may very well be nationalist fud.
    - jonhendry 14y ago
      " Just because they are registered in the U.K. doesn't mean they are clean, I'm sure there are plenty of companies registered in the U.K. that are up to no good." Definitely. There are UK-registered companies that are little more than shells, but are connected to arms dealing organizations and similar.
    - andrewfelix 14y ago
      But would you assert Shachtman's proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false?
      - sigzero 14y ago
        No.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

mcantelon 14y ago

>And Kaspersky agreed to appear in a documentary that used his son’s abduction as a prime example of why social networks are dangerous. Those are facts that neither he nor I can avoid. It's sinister that Kaspersky appears in a documentary talking about privacy concerns? Shachtman's really grasping at straws.

makomk 14y ago
It's sinister that he's using it to argue that access to the Internet needs to be tightly monitored and controlled, especially as we're talking about Russia where (for instance) if people couldn't use the Internet to broadcast messages that were hard to trace we wouldn't have all gthe photographic evidence proving massive ballot-box stuffing and electoral fraud in the last election that we do have.

smsm42 14y ago

Schachman alleges that Medvedev's visit to Kaspesky Lab and work for Russia's major government bank somehow means that Kaspersky has nefarious links to the government. This is baloney. It's like saying if Obama visits Facebook or Google headquarters these companies now are CIA outlets, or saying if the Fed hires Symantec to secure their networks Symantec is now linked to US government. Of course Central bank of Russia would hire leading Russian security company to secure their network, who else they would hire? What's surprising in that? Of course leading politician may visit a company that is internationally known for its success, especially Medvedev who insisted on emphasizing the "modern hi-tech president" image. Cooperation between security researchers and cybercrime divisions of security services is also nothing new - what else security researchers would do with their findings? They can't prosecute computer criminals themselves... And of course they would get licensed by Russian security services - how else one could get government contracts, which in every country are not negligible source of income for many companies? Making it sound as if pretty standard business practices and realities - which apply both to such undeniably corrupt country as Russia and to the US and to many other developed countries - as a sign of some ominous secrets is a journalistic malpractice. It may sound to somebody uninformed as there's something shady there - but in fact there's nothing in all that stuff. There might be secrets hidden somewhere - but Schachman findings are extremely weak in that regard.

nice1 14y ago
There is a huge difference between the way the US works (with all its flaws) and the way a dictatorship works. The Soviet Union/Russia is more like a mafia organization than a state in the usual sense. If anyone here wishes to raise their awareness of this it is rather easy (google for Litvinenko, Magnitsky, Politkovskaya). This is why the WIRED article was truthful.
knewter 14y ago
> It's like saying if Obama visits Facebook or Google headquarters these companies now are CIA outlets I feel like you should have used a better analogy, since Facebook is effectively a CIA outlet. They received funding from them.
- 14y ago

dgudkov 14y ago

Did you notice tag "Crazy Ivans" below the article? That's pretty offensive...

smsm42 14y ago
Looks like it's a recurring tag for Wired: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/tag/crazy-ivans/ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/tag/crazy-ivans/ I guess somebody at Wired thinks they're being funny. IMO they're being stupid.