rebuttal to Eugene's rebuttal:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/kaspersky-indy/
Of course Central bank of Russia would hire leading Russian security company to secure their network, who else they would hire? What's surprising in that? Of course leading politician may visit a company that is internationally known for its success, especially Medvedev who insisted on emphasizing the "modern hi-tech president" image. Cooperation between security researchers and cybercrime divisions of security services is also nothing new - what else security researchers would do with their findings? They can't prosecute computer criminals themselves... And of course they would get licensed by Russian security services - how else one could get government contracts, which in every country are not negligible source of income for many companies?
Making it sound as if pretty standard business practices and realities - which apply both to such undeniably corrupt country as Russia and to the US and to many other developed countries - as a sign of some ominous secrets is a journalistic malpractice. It may sound to somebody uninformed as there's something shady there - but in fact there's nothing in all that stuff. There might be secrets hidden somewhere - but Schachman findings are extremely weak in that regard.
I feel like you should have used a better analogy, since Facebook is effectively a CIA outlet. They received funding from them.
All those reflexively flinging "conspiracy theory" labels are just sheep in deep, deep denial.
Seriously, though, what CIA would do with such amount of useless data? I could in principle believe Facebook cooperates with targeted surveillance requests (though doing something secret on facebook is incredibly stupid, but there are stupid terrorists too), sending all their data to CIA would be pretty useless.
It's sinister that Kaspersky appears in a documentary talking about privacy concerns? Shachtman's really grasping at straws.
Just he said, he said until one of the parties actually releases documentation (Wired can release emails showing Kapersky's co. cooperated closely with the fact checking, Kapersky can release docs to show the opposite, etc.)
As someone who is a casual reader of Wired and knows little about Kapersky, I don't know who to believe. Russian stereotypes and the current actions of Putin's government would push me towards believing the Wired article but that doesn't make me comfortable enough to say anything with confidence.
Shachtman paints a picture of Kapersky being in bed with the Russian government around innocuous anecdotes such as a government contract and a Christmas card.
The onus is on Shachtman to provide compelling evidence for his assertions. In my opinion he has failed to do that.
Shachtman may have failed to provide compelling evidence for his assertions, but in my opinion, Kapersky's rebuttal was very weak and did very little to prove his case.
Frankly, both rebuttals were weak and probably written in haste without examining how they would come across to an impartial third party.
Instinctually I trust a company run by a former Soviet intelligence officer just as much as I trust a company run by a former CIA or MI-6 officer, which is to say very little and I would assume said companies would cooperate fully with most government requests or initiatives with little resistance.
That's not to say the Wired article isn't bunk, it may very well be nationalist fud.
Definitely. There are UK-registered companies that are little more than shells, but are connected to arms dealing organizations and similar.
Just because they registered in UK doesn't of course prove they are clean, but it indicates that if there were some shenanigans, it would be easier to uncover them than if they were registered only in Russia or some offshore. Since nothing was uncovered so far, it serves as evidence - though not proof - that there wasn't anything to uncover. Of course, this evidence can be trampled by the evidence to the contrary - but this wasn't done.
I guess somebody at Wired thinks they're being funny. IMO they're being stupid.