Kaspersky wants to make Tor illegal and supports a globalized policed internet.

Jacob Todd jaketodd422 at gmail.com
Sun Oct 18 15:14:55 UTC 2009


On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 04:38:57AM -0700, Kyle Williams wrote:
> I just read two articles that moved me to bring this to the attention
> of others.  Kaspersky Labs thinks anonymity is the problem with the
> Internet.
> 
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/16/kaspersky_rebukes_net_anonymity/
> "
> In Kaspersky's world, services such as Psiphon and The Onion Router
> (Tor) - which are legitimately used by Chinese dissidents and Google
> users alike to shield personally identifiable information - would no
> longer be legal. Or at least they'd have to be redesigned from the
> ground up to give police the ability to surveil them. That's not the
> kind of world many law-abiding citizens would feel comfortable
> inhabiting.
> "
> 
> He's talking about supporting a police state, where the "law" can
> watch everything you do.
> 
> http://www.zdnetasia.com/insight/security/0,39044829,62058697,00.htm
> "
> [Q:] Are you saying that people often don't understand the
> complexities of the work security researchers are involved in?
> Consumers, businesses and even governments?
> [A:] Governments do understand because they are more and more in touch
> with these problems. Enterprises, big enterprises, some of them have
> dedicated teams of security experts and they really understand what's
> going on. Consumers generally have no clue, but they don't need to
> understand.
> "
> 
> The only thing that works better than his A/V software is a well
> informed and educated user.
> My mom didn't know shit about what to do and not to do on the Internet
> and downloaded everything that was free, and that's why I would have
> to "fix" his computer every few months even though she uses AVG and
> SpyBot.  Finally I sat her down, explained to her why this was
> happening, and told her not to do that anymore if she wanted her
> computer to work right.  She listened, and hasn't had any serious
> problems for a few years now.
> 
> From the same article...
> "
> [Q:] If you had the power to change up to three things in the world
> today that are related to IT security, what would they be?
> [A:] Internet design--that's enough.
> 
> [Q:] That's it? What's wrong with the design of the Internet?
> [A:] There's anonymity. Everyone should and must have an
> identification, or Internet passport. The Internet was designed not
> for public use, but for American scientists and the U.S. military.
> That was just a limited group of people--hundreds, or maybe thousands.
> Then it was introduced to the public and it was wrong…to introduce it
> in the same way.
> I'd like to change the design of the Internet by introducing
> regulation--Internet passports, Internet police and international
> agreement--about following Internet standards. And if some countries
> don't agree with or don't pay attention to the agreement, just cut
> them off.
> "
> 
> This is scary talk from a man who owns the largest anti-virus company
> in the eastern hemisphere.  Read these articles, and you'll see this
> guy talks about a global "Internet police" or "Internet Interpol".
> That's serious globalization talk from someone who millions trust to
> protect their computers.  All they need to do is label some code as
> malicious, and it'll be removed from your PC after the next A/V
> update....even if you use it to regain lost civil liberties.  How long
> until Kaspersky labels Tor a trojan or virus?  If that happens, then
> what?
> 
> People who seek to control society fear society having anonymity, for
> it's with anonymity that society can stand up against corruption of
> the state when it occurs.  The latest Iran election and the actions
> that followed are a great example of this, and it's was technology
> such as Tor that helped them get the truth out about what was being
> done.  When was the last time a trojan horse or virus helped a country
> regain liberty or help bypass censorship?  To treat Tor as such
> malware is down right insulting to people's rights everywhere.
> 
> Normally I would never think about the following, but as a developer,
> I'm weighing the idea of detecting, disabling, and/or deleting
> Kaspersky before installing any of the projects I work on.  Such
> action should be brought to the users attention, and the action to do
> something about it should be evoked by the user.  However, if
> Kaspersky does go too far and labels Tor as malware, you can be damn
> sure JanusVM, *maybe* Tor VM, and Chromium Browser VM will take
> automated action to prevent itself from being attacked by Kaspersky
> products, and will do so in a very harsh way.
> 
> Something worth noting, today's A/V solutions do not scan inside
> virtual machines and would not be able to detect Tor easily.  Use
> encryption with the VM and it'll be impossible for any A/V product to
> scan the data inside.  If you use an external anonymity device like
> januspa or a linux router + Tor, then you would not feel the affects
> of bad A/V software against your anonymity.
> 
> Personally, I will be encouraging everyone I know to stay as far away
> from this company and their products simply out of principle at this
> point.  I had no problem with Kaspersky until I read this.  If
> Kaspersky is going to treat non malicious software as malware, then we
> might as well treat their software with the same regard.
> 
> Spread the word, Kaspersky Labs is not a friend of Tor.
> 
> Best regards,
> Kyle
> 
> "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do
> nothing." - Edmund Burke
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Thanks for the link.  While I don't see this as a threat in the US, some East
Asian countires wouldn't surprise me if they did similar to this.

-- 
Jake Todd
// If it isn't broke, tweak it!
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