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According to emails from October 2009 obtained by Jordan Robertson and Michael Riley at Bloomberg it appears that Kaspersky Lab has been working with Russian Intelligence. Despite long standing rumours over these connections Eugene Kaspersky has always denied this to be the case, including as recently as last week in response to questions in the US Senate by Florida Republican Marco Rubio when he stated that "Claims about Kaspersky Lab's ties to the Kremlin are "unfounded conspiracy theories" and "total BS,"" on Reddit, and even offering to hand over the source code to the US Government for inspection.
While the exact nature of the co-operation with the FSB is still unclear, in the emails Kaspersky outlines a project undertaken in secret a year earlier "per a big request on the Lubyanka side," a reference to the FSB offices, that "includes both technology to protect against attacks (filters) as well as interaction with the hosters ('spreading' of sacrifice) and active countermeasures (about which, we keep quiet) and so on," Kaspersky wrote in one of the emails. Kaspersky Lab has confirmed that the emails are authentic. Whether this was legitimate work with the FSB in the prevention of cybercrime or securing FSB facilities or something more nefarious, it seems likely that this is not going to alleviate concerns over the use of their software putting further pressure on Kaspersky's business in other countries.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 12 2017, @07:33AM (1 child)
But it's different! There's a difference between selling to your Gov and unethically selling out other citizens to your Gov.
There seems to be more evidence that various US companies have sold out US citizens unethically to the US Gov than there is evidence that Kaspersky has done a similar thing.
Cooperating with the Russian Gov to locate people doing a DDoS? "Damn I'm evil".
Cooperating with the US Gov to spy on millions of phone calls with just one wiretap order: http://www.zdnet.com/article/one-federal-wiretap-order-recorded-millions-phone-calls/ [zdnet.com]
"OK I'll help you spy on millions, just following orders as a good citizen".
Or how about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A [wikipedia.org]
See also: https://qz.com/620423/heres-how-often-apple-google-and-others-handed-over-data-when-the-us-government-asked-for-it/ [qz.com]
By the way, most people normally have more to fear from their own government than a foreign government. So if you are a US resident not dealing with US national secrets or doing similar work, and have little to do with Russia, it might actually be a good idea to use Russian security software or online services. Assuming everything else is equal (quality, technical security etc). Whereas if you were in Russia you might prefer to use stuff from the USA or other non-Russian/ex-Soviet related countries. Especially countries without extradition treaties with your country or similar. e.g. if you were in Russia and Putin wanted to _secretly_ read your emails he might be less likely to succeed if you were using gmail than if you were using mail.ru or yandex mail.
That said do see: https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/1112/Governments-around-the-world-demand-more-user-data-from-Facebook?cmpid=TW [csmonitor.com]
http://www.zdnet.com/article/what-google-does-when-a-government-requests-your-data/ [zdnet.com]
(non-US Governments have succeeded in getting data from Facebook, Google etc).
I wonder whether this is why Kaspersky is getting "the treatment", perhaps they weren't cooperative enough with the US Gov.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday July 12 2017, @11:03AM
This is something I cottoned on a while ago. I actually put an effort to use as much Russian software and services as I can, because a) I have no connections to Russia, b) I have never even set foot in the country, and c) I am not a threat to them. They don't care about me, and as a matter of principle they won't just share everything with the five-eyes setup for a boring citizen. if the US/five eyes actually wanted some data about me stored on Russian servers, they would need to make use of some political capital with the Russians (currently in short supply) to get it, so unless you really really peeved someone off in your home country, you will most likely be left alone. There is no scope for rummaging through your private life "just in case" as happens if you use local services.
Indeed, a lot of "Russian activists" that are anti-government go out of their way to only use US software/technology for the very same reasons.