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by mjevans 1812 days ago
That has been a consideration in the AV software I recommend to friends, family, and professionally as an informal part of my threat assessment model.

I viewed it as safer to buy products from anywhere other than someone that has ANY potential at all to go to war with the government of the country I live and work in. I really hope it never happens, but 'cold war' tensions might be waged with little cyber attacks and that software came to mind as a risk.
2 comments
SV_BubbleTime 1812 days ago
On the other hand… Kaspersky software isn’t shit. And I expect they catch a few things other US based companies might be incentivized or politely asked to look the other way on.

I wouldn’t run K, but I know from experience it’s actually effective.

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viraptor 1812 days ago
Two more things to consider:

- Can you articulate specific reasons to buy anything beyond the default windows defender?

- If anyone went to an actual war with the US, would the source of your antivirus software get even close to top 5000 things you care about at that point...

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vel0city 1812 days ago
As for default Windows Defender, there isn't really good reporting tools related to it. There are reporting tools for Defender, but those are paid license add-ons.

And yeah there's a decent chance if the US went to war with another country it might not impact the majority of US businesses very directly especially in the short term IRT their IT plans. McDonald's kept selling burgers when we invaded Iraq (multiple times). Ford was still producing vehicles during WWII. There have been lots of military engagements the US has been involved in where things in the mainland US weren't massively affected in day to day operations. Who knows what some potential future war with Russia would look like. Would it be a true head to head war with tanks rolling, fighter jets scrambling, cities bombed? Would it be more skirmishes testing how far the other would really go? Would it just be escalation of supply chain attacks and attacks on infrastructure to weaken the other? Of course this greatly varies based on the specifics on what that potential future war looks like, it would be naïve to think wars will always look like WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, etc from a US mainland perspective.

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viraptor 1812 days ago
The post above was saying "at all to go to war with the government of the country I live and work in." US going to war somewhere is one thing. Another country going to war with the US would be something different.
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