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Comment by ComodoHacker | Hacker News Reader

There's no need to have smoking gun. If confrontation between countries go too far, this is a potential attack vector. It can be used even without any cooperation from Kaspersky, is necessary. And, if used wisely, even without attribution (this requires cooperation though). This risk is enough to justify this move.

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If that's true now, it was true 4 years ago too. The McCain/Rubio claims are what's new.

So its even more important for public to see the evidence. Otherwise it feels like private vendetta most likely because Kaspersky is Russian (you know, our current Administration doesn't like Russians much) who actually build his empire on fighting Russian Government-funded cyberspying (claims Wikipedia).

I'm sure if Kaspersky sells tons of software on US soil, and most likely pay taxes on US soil, then they will sue and have a solid case against the US Government on discriminatory basis; unless of course said smoking gun will be made public. Otherwise it feels guilty until proven innocent (if given chance). Welcome to Russia, err. I mean: America.

Edit: if this falls thru, we have a very dangerous precedence; until now, politicians were taking money and lobbying for/against certain rules to help certain businesses to gain competitive edge. Now we have 2 Senators who happen to have "smoking gun" from "anonymous sources" (I presume) that could pretty much shut the whole company down. Whether Russian or American, irrelevant.

You're unlikely to see the evidence in this case.

Could you be clearer about exactly which "discrimination" code or statute the USG would be violating, even if they were doing this capriciously?

Not a lawyer to know one, just common sense they got banned based on being Russians, unless of course we can be proven otherwise (with evidence)

I think you're going to find that there is no such code or statute that prevents the USG from doing what they did.

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

The federal government choosing to disallow a vendor on the basis of (presumably) security claims/policies is not a bill of attainder.

More likely that not, the sources and methods behind the evidence are classified. See all the Russians that started dying under mysterious circumstances or got arrested, nominally for treason, after the US election.

You can have secrets or you can public policy in a democracy. This stuff isn't chump change, this is a primary debate we are currently having and the public can't see the evidence.

The DoD black budget looks even less like chump change, since it's at least two orders of magnitude larger than Kaspersky's worldwide revenues, yet it's always been top secret: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-...

More likely than not, Rubio and McCain have no capability to assess anything technical and this is all bogus.

It's possible they're trying to tank Kapersky but considering all the backdoors the NSA injected in American software (RSA[0], PRISM[1]), it seems very plausible the Russian government does exactly the same thing to Russian software.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_BSAFE [1] https://www.theverge.com/2013/6/6/4403868/nsa-fbi-mine-data-...

PRISM isn't a software backdoor. It's a system for sending selectors (metadata query terms) to providers under FISA 702 Directives. PRISM : FISA warrants :: Stripe : credit card authorizations.

We always suggested to activists to consider the geopolitical loyalty of the company selling your software (especially security software) when picking a provider. Its a crappy rule of thumb but can occasionally be helpful.

Working in/on Russia - not Kaspersky

Working in/on Israel - not Checkpoint

Working in/on UK (e.g drone strikes) - not Sophos

Working in/on US - etc etc

Ultimately capability and costs of the software was the main thing but the more you heard about Kaspersky style stuff, the more its seems relevant. Hanging around the security space long enough, you meet people at Western security software companies who quietly will express some concern about what goes on inside their own places. It reminds me of Huawei hysteria.

The level of confrontation and its trend is what's new.

That begs the question, which is "why is the level of confrontation increasing now, as opposed to 4 years ago?"

Because Russia is a domestic political issue in the US - it's been anointed as the McGuffin in the battle between the two main parties over the presidency.

The 'anoint' 'McGuffin' combo metaphor doesn't work, and the clash undermines your point.

Thanks for your literary criticism :)

I rather do think that political inclinations are religions in the US, however, but the wars are largely phony and forced - hence McGuffin. I'm sorry it upset you.

Ukraine? Syria?

It does not, begging the question means something else entirely... this raises the question.

There were three off-topic subthreads based on this just yesterday. Let's not replay them, shall we?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15231901

No need for a discussion or link to one, thanks.

Okay. In that case I question what motivated your initial comment correcting your parent? I agree that it's not worth discussing further, so I'll sign off after this comment.

People who take the time to correct others (particularly when it's off-topic) are generally motivated by the desire to genuinely help the discussion or by mean-spirited nitpicking. If the former, they're also interested in learning about how discussions tend to behave on the forum in which they're participating, which is why I chimed it. If I assumed the latter, I would refrain from commenting at all.

Okay. In that case I question what motivated your initial comment correcting your parent?

Correcting a commonly abused saying, and thereby slightly reducing the volume of bullshit if only imperceptibly. I have to wonder why you seem so interested in commenting mostly on the comments of others.

Damn! (Just when I thought I was out….) Honest question deserves an honest answer. Very similar motivation. I'm very interested in figuring out how to promote productive, constructive discussions in general and online in particular. The deep polarization that seems to have increased and been exacerbated by the internet is an issue that I think desperately needs to be solved. HN is a community that values constructive conversation and at the same time struggles with it. If I can help make that better, I want to do so. I think a lot of people actually share that same goal, at least implicitly, and aren't always aware of the dynamics of online forums in general or on HN in particular.

I have to agree with that, although I'm not so aware of the polarization or other dynamics here yet, I can certainly admire your aims and methods. Good luck spreading civility and discourse, although I'd encourage you to assume the best intentions in others as you go.

Thanks. I appreciate it. The polarization I refer to is more apparent in political threads here and in US society at large, not specific to HN. To be clear, my assumption at the start was as I described in my second comment: I did assume that you were sincerely trying to help. Your response was what made me question that that was the case, but I suspect your response was colored by the snark that I allowed to slip into my initial comment. I generally strive to keep that at bay because it's so rarely helpful in conversation, and it was a lack of discipline on my part that I didn't keep in in check here as well.

Would you mind sharing with me how you would have written my initial comment, (given what you know of my intention) that would have had the most positive effect on you? I'll take my answer off the air. Thanks again for your time and attention here. It's a rare opportunity and I do appreciate it.

Sometimes these things are peeves. I have a peeve about using "they" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, but admit it doesn't have much effect on expressiveness.

In general, though, I feel that the more precisely we use language, the more expressive it can be. Begging the question is different from raising the question. If we allow that conflation, it then becomes more difficult or requires more words to express what "begging the question" really is.

>If we allow that conflation, it then becomes more difficult or requires more words to express what "begging the question" really is.

By analogy with Huffman coding, the meanings that are used less often should require more words to express than the more commonly-used meanings. And if you really want to express the meaning "assuming the premise", then you could just say "assuming the premise", instead of insisting on the "precision" of using a 16th-century mistranslation of petitio principii.

Because of everything that has been in the news since before the election. Tensions are higher between the US and Russia, both sides having ejected diplomats. It's very different than it was 4 years ago.

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