
US bans Kaspersky software in federal agencies amid concerns of Russian spying - ryan_j_naughton
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-to-ban-use-of-kaspersky-software-in-federal-agencies-amid-concerns-of-russian-espionage/2017/09/13/36b717d0-989e-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html?utm_term=.1d0890c99f72
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Ice_cream_suit
Oracle, Palantir, Symantec and IBM have close links with American intelligence
agencies.

Perhaps all non-American countries should ban the use of their products.

~~~
empath75
If you're a non American government agency using American software or hardware
you should absolutely be concerned about American intelligence services co-
oping them.

I think every government should be wary about using software from an
adversarial country.

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whoopdedo
Setting aside the spy game rumors, isn't this essentially "US government
prefers to purchase products made by US companies"? That if I followed the
money on this I might find a Symantec or Mcafee lobbyist behind it.

~~~
jtd514
You say that as if its a bad thing.

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WhatsName
I always wonder if there is any substance to such claims other than that it is
made by a russian company.

In which case one might as well claim "ties" between Symantec and US
intelligence or Checkpoint and Israel.

~~~
JohnStrange
It is pretty unlikely that there are no such ties, hence you should choose
your security products accordingly. It's kind of obvious that government
employees of one country shouldn't use software from another, not very
befriended country for handling sensitive data.

~~~
JohnStrange
Downvoted for making sense...

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fiokoden
Thus begins the softwar in which software trust runs on national boundaries
and the reciprocal bans will drop into place everywhere.

~~~
stephengillie
Soon, it will be illegal to transport encryption technologies across national
borders.

~~~
pjc50
It used to be illegal to export crypto from the US. Nobody remembers the RSA
"this tshirt is a munition"?

~~~
CWuestefeld
I still have that t-shirt in my drawer. If you've not seen it, here's a link:
[http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/uk-
shirt.html](http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/uk-shirt.html)

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a115ltd
Why was the other side of the story banned on HN, but this one allowed?

This is retaliation for Kaspersky showing the middle finger to CIA backdoors,
as was reported in multiple non-western news outlets over the past week.

~~~
Gatsky
HN doesn't ban stories friend. Why don't you post a link?

Maybe Kaspersky is completely innocent, but the fact is they are based in a
country which would have no problem in asking/coercing/outright forcing them
to spy on other nations. That is a competitive disadvantage for a security
company. If you think that's unfair then talk to Putin.

~~~
draugadrotten
> ...they are based in a country which would have no problem in
> asking/coercing/outright forcing them to spy on other nations.

As a non-US citizen, I laughed at this.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/business/us-snooping-
on-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/business/us-snooping-on-companies-
cited-by-china.html?mcubz=0) [https://qz.com/105490/how-the-us-government-
uses-information...](https://qz.com/105490/how-the-us-government-uses-
information-from-spying-on-foreign-companies/) and so on

~~~
Gatsky
I'm not American either.

~~~
jkrioca
that's even sadder

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mhkool
The agencies want to increase their own spying and started an anti-Kaspersky
campaign (remember the anti-chinese network equipment campaign and the Cisco
backdoor?). Since they have access to US antivirus vendors, they want
everybody to use those tools so that they can spy on everybody. The agencies
have less ways to spy on you if you use Kaspersky.

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legitster
Going through a comments section on subjects like this is playing a game of
"Who's the spy?".

Has anyone developed a honeypot or other system for identifying astroturf
comments?

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Shivetya
on a related note the service our work uses flags all sites which might have a
Russian domain and we cannot gain access from our desktops to them. this hits
some blogs and such I like to use at work because their cloud providers are in
the wrong part of the world.

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TheRealDunkirk
... Giving new meaning to the term "security theater."

