[cookiengineer]

Kaspersky was spying on international citizens for over a decade, providing data for both the FSB and GRU.

...and now they're complaining about counter surveillance by the FBI?

[f6v]

You make it sound like big tech companies never cooperate with the law enforcement. I bet CIA and FBI have their hand so far up Zuck’s ass it’s almost like Minority Report at this point.

[cookiengineer]

Of course it is like this. We live in the golden age of cyberwars.

But you as a founder decide whose values of the surrounding society you align your company with.

In an autocratic nation these controls are kind of absolutist in nature, whereas in democracies you have at least some sense of oversight.

Given the mechanics of the game, where you reside your company tells a lot about who you're friends with.

These days on a larger scale there's basically NATO, SCO, UAE, Israel and the African Union as alliances (setting aside (former) British colonies).

Companies have to cooperate with either of those, otherwise they would not be allowed to exist.

[agentgumshoe]

> These days on a larger scale there's basically NATO, SCO, UAE, Israel and the African Union as alliances (setting aside (former) British colonies).

Which one's the good one?

[SenHeng]

Only Siths deal in absolutes.

Among that list, NATO is by far the preferred option.

[ben_w]

I'm not even sure which SCO is under discussion here, the unix one, Pakistan's "Special Communications Organization", the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, or if Scotland is up to something surprising, or if it's one of several "State Controller's Office" and "Special Counsel's Office" in the USA…

[f6v]

I mean, unless you live in Middle East and one day they say you have WMD and they destroy your whole country. If you live in the EU or the US - then yes.

[kmonsen]

Which middle eastern country have NATO attacked?

[agentgumshoe]

Or you live in Russia and you thought you had a deal that NATO wouldn't encroach further on your border...

It was a trick question, none of them are good.

[hulitu]

> whereas in democracies you have at least some sense of oversight

Can you give some examples of oversight ?

[Veen]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com...

[enkid]

None of those things except NATO is an actual alliance.

[zamalek]

How is disclosing an Apple security issue "complaining"?

[brookst]

It’s the polemics. Complaining is a matter of presentation, not content.

Plenty of security disclosures are matter of fact and not loaded with opinion and innuendo.

[crimsontech]

Do you have any sources for this? I'm interested in reading more about it after seeing a lot of allegations. I don't recall ever seeing anything concrete.

[shmde]

Literally one google search gave me this.[1] You could have saved a lot of time writing "Kaspersky FSB GRU" in google than writing this comment to someone to cite their sources.

[1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-11/kaspersky...

[crimsontech]

Yeah sorry, I should have been more specific. I was looking for evidence that:

> Kaspersky was spying on international citizens for over a decade, providing data for both the FSB and GRU.

You linked a news article that states:

> The U.S. government hasn’t identified any evidence connecting Kaspersky Lab to Russia’s spy agencies

Maybe more evidence will be uncovered by the (alleged) targeted attack against Kaspersky though.

I'm interested in the technology created to perform these activities more than the politics surrounding it. How they do it, not why.

[defrost]

Could you quote a paragraph from that article that supports the claim

> Kaspersky was spying on international citizens for over a decade, providing data for both the FSB and GRU.

I read it through twice and aside from implication the strongest assertion was that Bloomberg had seen emails that confirmed Kaspersky had worked with the FSB to supply anti-DDOS systems that included counter measures (the ability to hack and disrupt hackers attacking systems) which wasn't denied by Kaspersky who maintained they do similar work with many governments and their 3-letter-agencies.

[dmix]

There's apparently an entire wiki on the subject and again it's mostly speculation, misunderstanding (ie, in the NSA case), or as you said misrepresenting what was essentially a pretty innocuous defensive gov contract by an infosec company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_bans_and_allegations...

It makes sense for western governments to be wary of using it but going beyond that is just speculation at this point.