Kaspersky CEO Wants End To Online Anonymity 537
Andorin writes "Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of well-known computer security company Kaspersky Labs, is calling for an end to the anonymity of the Internet, and for the creation of mandatory 'Internet passports' for anyone who wishes to browse the Web. Says Kaspersky, 'Everyone should and must have an identification, or internet passport ... the internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public, and it was wrong ... to introduce it in the same way.' He calls anonymity 'the Internet's biggest security vulnerability' and thinks any country that doesn't follow this regime should be 'cut off.' The EFF objects, and it's likely that they won't be the only ones."
"Papers Please" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because requiring passports to entry countries stops all terrorism and crime.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
incentives (Score:5, Insightful)
Next, some genius will get the bright idea to bring biometrics to the Internet Passport, surely *that* will stop The Bad Guys. At that point, spammers have an incentive to kill you and cut off your hand, which they'll attach to a little machine to keep it at the right temperature and perspiration level, so they can send V1@gra spam.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Next, some genius will get the bright idea to bring biometrics to the Internet Passport, surely *that* will stop The Bad Guys. At that point, spammers have an incentive to kill you and cut off your hand, which they'll attach to a little machine to keep it at the right temperature and perspiration level, so they can send V1@gra spam.
You know, the first thing I thought of when reading your post was the "Thumb Thieves" from Back to the Future 2. The "Thumb Thieves" were one of the articles in the USA Today from the future.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:5, Informative)
They were scanned and recorded at the airport before launch.
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't FUD at all. History provides ample evidence that whenever government or any quasi-government organization gets to regulate something there is always a political aim in doing so to the detriment of users and usually to the benefit of government or corporations.
When there was a single provider of domain names in the U.S. they were very expensive. When the monopoly was broken domain names are now much cheaper.
If a "passport" is required for internet access you can be sure that the hoops will be set in ways that prevent some people from having access. Even when they intend to do no harm at all. Convicted felons I predict would be the first group to be banned. Followed by children below a certain age. Then they will require that filters be put in place for some types of "passports" etc...
The internet is a very public place for the practice of free speech and dissemination of all sorts of information, both good and bad. It has been said that the antidote for "bad" speech is not regulation but more speech. Only the individual is capable of determining what he gets from the internet is good or bad... for HIM, NOT the government. Governments will always want to regulate communications between individuals. Governments prefer ignorant taxpayers. A passport would provide the means to identify an individual so they could be readily punished or prevented from exercising the right to speak freely. This is ALWAYS a bad thing.
The answer to the wild and woolly internet is for people to get more intelligent which is something the internet does very well in spite of all of the crap that is out there. Any regulation at all is a bad thing.
Kaspersky is at best a fool.
Edwin
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:4, Informative)
paper trail (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:4, Interesting)
But your freedom is defined by your government. If your government thinks you should not have the right to free speech, then it has no problems making it prohibited by law.
Indded! I just moved from South Korea, and my last few months there were made difficult by its new Internet ID requirements [koreatimes.co.kr]. Suddenly, I couldn't comment on [koreaittimes.com] (or sometimes simply log into) many large websites. Foreigners living in Korea are not able to log into or comment on Korean sites at all, though ironically, ethnic Koreans living overseas are able to register for an ID number [koreatimes.co.kr].
This has a real chilling effect on speech [koreabeat.com] (and I'm not talking about anonymous trolls). There is no way for a well-meaning whistle blower to escape the reach of Korea's oligopoly and political in-fighting.
Even sadder is that the whole system is strongly tied to IE and ActiveX (just like the banking). Sigh. I'm happy to be out of that situation. If the rest of the countries of the world adopt similar systems, we'll see the Balkanization of Internet. That shattering of communication (and a non-neutral Internet) may be inevitable.
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:4, Insightful)
The US Consitutional right to free assembly also embues a right to anonymity.
Kapersky is just looking for a new revenue stream. Indeed there ought to be a way to partition out obvious malware sites and even those that are infected because their management didn't patch them.
But you'll not get rid of anonymity. It's the human condition.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:5, Funny)
Only thing is, they didn't need the passports after their suicide mission.
Yeah they do. You think you can get into paradise to fuck 45 virgins without documentation of some sort? Can you imagine if they just let anybody into paradise without the proper documentation? You'd have every Tom, Dick and Harry claiming that they died for Allah and eventually the place would run out of virgins. Then where would we be?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry but 45 virgins is no longer offered. Due to supplies you will be limited to 3 virgins and then you will be on a waiting list. Virgins will be delivered as they become available. Also the typical description of virgin has changed, we have a large number of incredibly old and incredibly fat virgins that are going unissued. those will be added to the pool.
Note: no refund or exchanges.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I point out the most blatant inconsistency in the entire 9-11 cover story and I become "an idiot" in the eyes of those who confuse advanced degrees with real science. Whether or not you think, or believe, or doubt, or reject outright that WTC7 was demolished, it was necessary on a purely scientific level to look for explosives. That would have been the scientific thing to do. SCIENCE DOES NOT ASSUME ITS CONCLUSIONS. If knowing that makes me an "idiot," then we need a few more "idiots" in this world and a fe
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because requiring passports to entry countries stops all terrorism and crime.
Exactly. But then creating a fear based "papers please" society [wikipedia.org] was never about stopping crime or terrorism to begin with, anyway. Thats just a convenient for voters to believe so various profitable charades [wikipedia.org] can continue [wikipedia.org] and profits continue [wikipedia.org] to flow in...
It is never all or nothing. (Score:2)
Yes, because requiring passports to entry countries stops all terrorism and crime.
It is never all or nothing.
Which is why the geek tends to lose more in the political arena then he wins.
What, no part time psychoanalysts? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kaspersky. See the name? He's a Slovak - I would say Polish, but Slovak for sure. He lives in Russia. He's no young puppy. The man grew up under the old Soviet. His values are not the values of the western world. I don't mean to be judgemental, per se, but I recognize that he ain't like me.
While most of us in the western world tend to deny it, there is comfort to be had inside of a totalitarian regime. You know your place, you know everyone else's place, you do your job and keep your nose to yourself, and everyone gets along. It's easy to sell to the masses, and Joe Sixpack manages alright unless and until some silly sumbitch decides to sacrifice Joe for the "good of the party".
So, Mr. Kaspersky has a touch of nostalgia for the good things from the Soviet, and forgets about the bad things. People tend to do that. Right here in the US, we have all kinds of people who remember the '50's (or whichever decade they were teenagers in) as Utopia. Life was simpler then - mostly because they were kids with no responsibilities.
For that matter, I can probably find a few million people right here in the US why would fall right in line with Mr. Kaspersky's ideas, because it just makes sense. No one needs to be anonymous, unless they are up to no good. Hell, with my own relatively open mind, I think kids are goofy for wearing hoodies. Why cover your face, and try to hide your features, if you're not ashamed of what you are doing? But, I don't make a big deal of the hoodies, because I know the cops aren't always right, or even always honest.
Yeah, I could easily find several million people in the US who will agree with Mr. Kasperski. Some kind of a psychological analysis would be nice to look at. Or, the conclusions drawn by the psych people, anyway.
Any takers?
Re:What, no part time psychoanalysts? (Score:5, Informative)
From the Wikipedia article on Kaspersky, it says, "Kaspersky graduated from the Institute of Cryptography, Telecommunications and Computer Science, an institute co-sponsored by the Russian Ministry of Defence and the KGB[1] in 1987 [wikipedia.org]."
A product of the KGB and defence ministry of the Soviet era. His views make sense then... for a KGB apparatchik. He probably backs the idea of returning Putin back to president (even if he hasn't really stopped running Russia). And he runs the company that many people are 'securing' their computers with. Think about it folks. About as smart as North American bankers offshoring the programming of their financial systems to Chinese and Indian programmers.
Re:What, no part time psychoanalysts? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I could easily find several million people in the US who will agree with Mr. Kasperski. Some kind of a psychological analysis would be nice to look at. Or, the conclusions drawn by the psych people, anyway. Any takers?
I agree with what I assume to be Kasperski's motive: without anonymity, we'd know who controls all these spambots or who is involved in identity theft, or who's writing all this malware, or who writes all those racist trolls on Slashdot. The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [penny-arcade.com] is undeniably true... make someone attach their name to what they write and they're more civil, more reasoned, and they generally tend to take responsibility for their words. Throw anonymity into the mix with an audience and you get a total fuckwad.
Imagine if people could drive a vehicle on the roads and be guaranteed that nobody could ever find out whose vehicle it was or who the driver was? Can you imagine the level of road rage that would result if someone pissed you off and you could simply ram them off the road with no repercussion? Today, the only anonymity we have on the roads is by walking, using a bicycle, or through a proxy such as a bus or taxi where someone else's identity is responsible for the driving.
The problem with Kasperski's approach is that it's completely impossible to retrofit the entire Internet for this kind of identification. Not only that, but there's no technical way to guarantee that it's unhackable. Your computer gets compromised somehow and now someone has the ability to do anything using your identity. And it fails to take into account a family computer, for example. Did John Smith really write that, or was it one of his kids fooling around?
So unless we want to turn the Internet into a place as highly regulated and enforced as the average Western nation's public roads, mostly anonymous it is.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The fuckwad theory inaccurately assumes that we begin with "normal" people. I had decades of people watching behind me before the internet came along. Those "normal" people were ranting about their pet peeves way back in 19?? - before that, even. The only difference was, they couldn't be heard as far away as they are heard today. Smaller soapbox, smaller audience. But, they were just as "abnormal".
If anything, the fact that those fuckwads are on the internet is a good thing. They run at the mouth here
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Re:"Papers Please" (Score:5, Insightful)
On the internet, there's plenty of reason to preserve anonymity and free speech. You can't kill someone over the internet, and real criminals will always find ways around a "passport" system, they already find ways around other kinds of security.
Which, as far as Kapersky is concerned, is a business opportunity! Eliminate anonymity, and then sell products that mostly, but far from perfectly, protect against abuses of that information.
Always follow the money, it explains all corporate actions.
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:5, Interesting)
Eliminate anonymity, and then sell products that mostly, but far from perfectly, protect against abuses of that information.
One of the other technicians where I work recently used a computer with Kaspersky on it. I watched their scanner merrily let spyware through while actively stopping some of the techniques and programs we use to get rid of spyware. Delete an infected registry key? "Kaspersky has stopped a change to your registry!" Unregister a spyware-installed DLL? "Kaspersky has stopped a change to your critical system files!"
In light of this, I suggest changing "sell products that mostly, but far from perfectly, protect against abuses of that information" that to "sell products that appear to, but don't, protect against abuses of that information".
Re:"Papers Please" (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you just have to decide which is more important: that the product is good, or that buying that product funds War on Freedom.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Please, for the love of $DEITY, stop treating anonymous users as illegitimate. Most of us just want to browse in peace.
He's a witch get em!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If he doesn't like anonymity... (Score:5, Funny)
You mean he's going to make his own network without blackjack and hookers?
Ps: Eugene Kaspersky murders and eats cats.
To my dear Kaspersky: (Score:3, Funny)
HAhhahahahha HAhhahahahha HAhhahahahha HAhhahahahha hahahh hahahh hhahahh hhahahhahahahhah HAhhahahahha hahahha hhahah hhaha Aaaahahahah hahaha hahaha hahah HAhhahahahha HAhhahahahha HAhhahahahha hhahahhahahahhah
Then I'd like to follow up with:
Fuck off, you tool.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eugene-Kaspersky/26270793749?v=wall [facebook.com]
Here's his failbook page if anyone wants to harass him.
I'm posting this anonymously because I can and this is the way the internet should be.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in every country. And then there's Tor.
Re:If he doesn't like anonymity... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If he doesn't like anonymity... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get your point. That sounds just like required registration on most websites nowadays.
Like Slashdot? I'm guessing tkinnun0 isn't your real name, and pharmboy isn't mine. With proxy servers and/or anonymous email, it is trivial to comply with "required registration" and still be anonymous.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:identify yourself (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:If he doesn't like anonymity... (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't pure rhetoric and sarcasm, whether the author meant it that way or not.
Credential Grab: I'm a doctoral candidate, and this is in my area of research.
The right solution, without considering feasibility, is that traffic may be anonymous, but that receivers should be able to refuse to receive anonymous traffic, and should also be able to refuse to grant resources (such as incoming network capacity) to that traffic. The current Internet architecture doesn't make this technically feasible, as the sender is generally in control of your inbound network capacity. There's a research push toward architectures that remove this limitation, such as the Internet Indirection Infrastructure [berkeley.edu] (i3). (Not one of my favorites, but it illustrates the point.)
My personal goal is that we develop an internet architecture which allows for provisioned virtual network links on shared physical infrastructure. Then Kaspersky (and anyone who agrees with him) really can have an isolated network, carried on the same physical infrastructure, while those who think anonymity is an important goal can have their own isolated network, sharing hardware but with neither able to impact the other. Network overlays can do all of this right now except for the provisioned links, and MPLS and similar technologies could already enable provisioning if they were widely adopted and deployed.
(My own research is into high-speed overlay hosting platforms.)
Re:If he doesn't like anonymity... (Score:4, Interesting)
You are the receiver. Your ISP is a carrier. You elect to connect to private networks, who may charge subscription fees of you. For use of the ISP's network, those same private network owners may pay for their provisioned capacity.
This is possible, sure. Just as, today, the same lobbying group could attempt to force the government to mandate that your ISP sniff your every packet to detect that you're pirating Steamboat Willie. However, bear in mind that the goal is to add an economic incentive to the ISP to fight restrictions. The ISP wants to sell services to as many private network providers as possible because they are being paid for the reserved capacity. When the copyright cartel meets the ISP lobby in Congress, there's at least a chance that things could improve. As it stands, the only ISP incentive to fight it is the cost of the monitoring equipment, and I'm sure the copyright cartel would be thrilled to provide it to them, along with their own custom software....
Either I have not explained things adequately or you have misunderstood. The goal is to enable disruptive, innovative network technologies which cannot currently be deployed because they might conflict with the existing technologies. (For a particularly disruptive example, look at Decongestion Control [PDF [ucsd.edu]].) There's no desire to block existing technologies, and I'd fully expect the existing Internet to continue alongside the new networks. Retaining the existing Internet is a primary goal of the research thrust, and I'd reject as unworkable any new architecture that didn't enable it.
Really, the most undesirable thing about the model is that it enables a lot more nickel-and-diming from the ISPs and the network providers. You might pay a base fee for ISP connectivity, followed by an additional fee for access to the base Internet, then you pay a fee to connect to the SpamFreeEmailNetwork, and so forth ad nauseum. But at least you only need to pay for the services you use, and I could see package deals (analogous to cable channel bundles) becoming a selling point, too.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps I'm a little slow here, but I thought I'd addressed his concern: today's existing Internet doesn't go away. It exists in parallel with
How difficult? (Score:2)
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Seriously! If you do this, the internet just becomes one huge "big brother" machine.
Can't wait for the direct marketing to come (Score:2, Insightful)
when I have to log on using my biometrical passport. And every web page owner will know exactly who I am and what I do online.
Sir, we have a special offer JUST for you.
Good times are ahead.
Oh, and the other way also "sorry, this part of the internet is JUST for women in Southern Italy aged 40-44. NO ACCESS."
Open letter to Eugene Kaspersky (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Eugene,
Go fuck yourself.
Sincerely,
Anonymous.
I agree! (Score:5, Funny)
It should also not be possible to anonymously put mail in mailboxes. The harm that is done through postal mail is incredible!
Yeah, I'm sarcastic here.
Guess who's security software I won't be buying? (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy apparently doesn't understand that for many, anonymity is a security feature.
Anonymity is prone to abuse, sure, but it is vital for free exchange of ideas. People who are identifiable are less likely to make risky statements, and this is detrimental to culture. Repression and oppression should not be the goal of Security.
Beyond that, not everything on the internet is a person.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The guy obviously never lived under the Stasi but instead, wants to become one
Re:Guess who's security software I won't be buying (Score:4, Informative)
Considering that Kaspersky grew up and lived under Soviet Russia Communist rule, his statement is surprising - unless he is part of the old boy apparatchiki network. But, yeah, he can go bugger himself sideways with a stiff wire brush.
Re:Guess who's security software I won't be buying (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again, I wasn't really in his potential customer pool to begin with, so it might not matter.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Guess who's security software I won't be buying (Score:5, Funny)
Junior J. Junior III is not actually printed on my birth certificate, just to clear up any confusion.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Bullshit.
The only thing you really need for free exchange of ideas is a society where that its respected, and a government that protects it rather than prosecutes it. Oh... and the courage to speak up and own your own words. Anonymity is a fallback tactic for use in oppressive societies, needed only in extreme circumstances. We managed to freely exchange ideas long before the internet gave everyone an anonymous soapbox, kids.
Re:Guess who's security software I won't be buying (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Don't be a dolt; that's not what I said. I was rebutting the clueless assertion that free speech can't exist without anonymity. There's a reason for the term "anonymous coward": anonymity is the coward's favorite approach to free speech.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, OK. How do you propose to bring about a society in which everyone respects the free exchange of ideas, and a government that can perfectly protect everyone who expresses an unpopular opinion?
Re:Guess who's security software I won't be buying (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, OK. How do you propose to bring about a society in which everyone respects the free exchange of ideas, and a government that can perfectly protect everyone who expresses an unpopular opinion?
The First Amendment's free speech clause is very misunderstood these days, thanks to decades of piss poor civics and history education in the government schools. Thankfully I wasn't mis-educated in one of them.
The First Amendment isn't in there to protect popular speech. It's in there to protect UNPOPULAR speech, so that people who say something that the government or even a large majority of the people CAN say it without being thrown in jail.
Does anyone want to live in a society where I can't say "Bush was an idiot and Barak Obama is too" without being thrown in the gulag? Well, that day is coming. They already want to restrict blogs.
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Re:Guess who's security software I won't be buying (Score:4, Insightful)
There are two parts to free speech. First is the ability to speak without any explicit or implicit restrictions. Explicit restrictions are outright bans or legal restraints. Implicit restrictions are what they call "chilling effect". Intimidation in the form of threats or simply having a law enforcement official standing nearby while you are speaking.
The second is the ability to listen without any explicit or implicit restrictions. It does you no good to speak if nobody feels free to listen to what you're saying. If the cost of me hearing someone speak on some topic is being identified, I'm probably not going to do it thereby denying the speakers free speech right.
We have had anonymous speech in the United States for over 200 years. the most common form of anonymous speech prior to the electronics era has been pamphlets and posters. Law enforcement agencies have routinely violated anonymity and speech rights by photographing people in crowds and then publishing those photos trying to identify the "perpetrators"
Anonymity has nothing to do with cowardice or irresponsibility. It has everything to do with being able to speak against the more powerful foe and hopefully survive any retribution for speaking out.
anonymity can be abused by many people ranging from sociopaths, /. Users, and those in power but used appropriately, it's a wonderful tool
Re:Guess who's security software I won't be buying (Score:5, Insightful)
People like this need to understand who is actually making the purchasing decisions for software such as what Kaspersky makes.
It's people like us. And we tend to be very libertarian when it comes to free speech and anonymity. The guys in the suits who sign the PO's don't make these kinds of decisions in reality because they don't want to get the blame for a bad decision made out of ignorance.
I, too, will make sure his product doesn't grace the door where I work. And we, in fact, just happen to be looking for a new Corporate antivirus/spyware/spam suite now that our McAfee contract has (thank God) ended. They were on our list to evaluate. They won't be on Monday when I get to work.
As others have said, physical passports in the REAL world did nothing to stop terrorists from coming in. They also do nothing to stop millions of Mexican peasants who can't even speak English from crossing the border, getting driver's licenses, and getting jobs despite the fact that all THAT is supposed to require passports and documentation.
Considering how much easier it is to forge stuff that is in 1's and 0's than paper, do the math. All this "Internet Passport" idea is going to do is make it easy for oppressive countries like China, Russia, and yes, add the United States to that list too with that wannabe Hugo Chavez in the white house. His people also want to regulate speech on the internet and have a goon in the FCC already proposing it. This will only punish the honest, criminals will never submit to it. Suggesting that ending anonymity for web surfing is going to end whatever problem he is proposing it as a solution for is going to be as effective as gun bans have been at ending crime. Zip, Zero, Nada effect.
Fact of the matter is, the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. The only way to change that is to tear it down and redesign it from scratch to be the KGB controlled streets of the Soviet Union. Thank God it was designed in the 1970's in this case.
Re:Guess who's security software I won't be buying (Score:5, Informative)
Another reason to not buy his software, fwiw, is that it injects DLLs into Firefox that slow down DOM manipulation by 100x or so. And those DLLs are injected even if the antivirus software is disabled, as long as it's installed.
Internet Police Force (Score:4, Funny)
They can call it the Kaspersky Guardian Bureau.
Quote: (Score:2)
Eugene Kaspersky once told a competitor to his face: "I will eat you." The co-founder and CEO of Kaspersky Lab was certainly not into cannibalism,[...]
He only wanted to eat him. Then eat him Eugene!
too late (Score:5, Interesting)
He may be correct that the internet shouldn't have been opened up like it was. I've been online long enough to remember when you could assume (perhaps wishfully) that nearly anyone obviously misbehaving badly on it could be identified with a couple e-mails or phone calls to the right sysadmins, and the notion of banning a user or cutting off a rogue node was plausible. I kind of miss the relative safety and decorum of that internet. But the ship of general unrestricted access set sail a couple decades ago, and that horse has long since left the barn. If you want an internet with the kind of accountability that Kaspersky is taking about... it can't be the internet that everyone's already hooked up to. That bell can't be unrung... and if you need any more metaphors for this, I can supply them. :)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
and if you need any more metaphors for this, I can supply them. :)
Well, as a regular /.'er I have become accustomed to at least one or two car analogies in the comments.
How about a metaphor that doubles as an analogy? Involving cars of course! Thanks in advance for any
assistance you can provide with this.
Re:too late (Score:4, Funny)
The stallion has left a barn, found a nice trainer, entered and won a Kentucky Derby, retired to a nice farm in Iowa, and sired a son, which is now on the resource list for a humanitarian agency for kids in Ottowa.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Wrong to release to the pubic? (Score:2)
Well, if that was the case you would be out of a job, ya hypocrite. Sounds like yet another company to boycott due to the lunacy of its management..
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The problem is: To effectively boycott the company, you'd need some desire to otherwise buy their products.
Not the whole internet (Score:2, Insightful)
won't save idiots from themselves (Score:2)
Anonymity IS a threat (Score:4, Insightful)
But most of the people it is a threat to, frankly deserve to live with being threatened.
Anonymity can enable online bullying or petty fraud, but those are nuisances on the grand scale of things. The people for whom anonymity is an actual threat are governments who want to monitor and control their citizens, unsavory groups such as the church of Scientology who want to harass their critics, and businesses that want to force consumption of their products in the way they demand they are consumed.
Let them be threatened. They deserve to live in fear.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But most of the people it is a threat to, frankly deserve to live with being threatened.
Here are a few things that are done, frequently, under the cover of pseudo-anonymity on the Internet:
Please explain to me how a typical victim of these crimes deserves the consequences.
Obviously there are many more illegal acts committed routinely under cover of on-line anonymity, particularly those to do with infringing intellectual property rights and defamation, but I'm omitting those because there is at least the pote
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There is also the issue of the highly toxic environment that online anonymity brings.
Theres a cartoon with an equation:
Normal person + Audience + Anonymity = Fuckwad.
This was presented as a joke in the cartoon but it is the truth.
Anonymity in online forums and mmos, for example, is wholly responsible for the vitriol and bile that people spew all over these online places.
I don't think that what is required is to tie all of a persons online identities back to their street address, but for others on the intern
"work much like driver licenses do" (Score:3, Insightful)
Around where i live, a drivers license just says you have paid your tax ( ok, and taken the 'competency test'.. but that's a different discussion ) and gives you the right to drive around at will, anonymously. We don't have checkpoints where we have to produce ID.
Perhaps its different where he lives, which is a shame.
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Agreed, they had no problem identifying me when I was a young, not so great driver and ran a red light. No officer saw
me and pulled me over. A camera affixed to the traffic light photoed my plate and I received a nice, personal ticket in
the mail. No human interaction required...
Re: (Score:2)
That is my car, not me. My car doesn't have a drivers license, I do. ( the story stated drivers license, not a license plate/tag )
Also, the numbers/owner translations on license plates aren't available to the general public or the businesses that i visit anyway, so for all practical purposes its anonymous.
Re: (Score:2)
Read my other post that answers that same question, YOU are anonymous, its your CAR that isn't.
And driving 'in a manner that causes a cruiser to notice you' changes the balance at that point. As long as you are obeying the law and don't call attention to yourself, you are in effect anonymous.
Considering the amount of identity fraud... (Score:2, Insightful)
Considering the amount of computer-based identity fraud in the world, all this would accomplish is to get millions of people unjustly pegged for crimes they didn't commit. Suppose that identity is conferred via X.509 certificates. What is to stop a garden-variety rootkit/botnet from using these certificates for their own purposes? My spam trap is filled with hundreds of messages each day from unsuspecting victims; why would it make a difference if these messages were digitally signed?
The problems are
Chillingly reminded of ... (Score:2)
Reminds of two things, RMS's parapble [gnu.org] and one of my favorite depressing but funny movies [wikipedia.org].
Between this and reading that Microsoft is assisting Lockheed-Martin with the "new" internet I've decided it's best
I just go back to bed for a few years...
Let's put an end to Kaspersky's company (Score:2)
What a surprise! (Score:2)
The former head of 'cyber' for the communist Soviet KGB doesn't believe in people right to privacy. I for one am shocked.
Look at his personal history (Score:4, Informative)
As you might expect (Score:4, Interesting)
Security expert wants a more secure system. Freedom experts want a free system. Unsurprisingly these two views clash - because they are designing things for different use cases.
Screw the honest guy, Make rich the bad guy! (Score:3, Interesting)
Great the honest guy who goes through the process of being a legit passported internet user is going to get screwed as everything he does skimmed by 20 people for cash.
The bad guy on the other hand with 5k forged identities makes out like a bandit.
Anonymity is the only thing that makes the internet work.
What else does he believe (Score:5, Insightful)
Kaspersky Proves Himself an Idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly there is a lot of fraud and theft on the Internet, and people who do bad things. But the anonymity aspect to the Internet is one of its greatest assets. I prefer my identity to not be known when I post, read news stories, research things, and known only to those where I buy things.
As it is, if someone really wants to know who I am, they can find out. Link up IP address with logs from my ISP and I'm no longer anonymous.
Already, and it is just the nature of the beast, everything people do online can be sifted, sorted, mined, etc. People can be identified by their browsing habits. They can be profiled by their search histories. Governments everywhere have their unblinking robot minions scanning for any key words and actions that might indicate someone is a malcontent and worthy of monitoring more closely. There is no need to make it any easier to monitor people or to allow others to join in the fun.
Official answer from Anonymous: (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous Wants End to Online Kaspersky CEO.
Anonymous Coward writes "Anonymous, from the well-known Internets, is calling for an end to the Kaspersky CEO on the Internet, and for the creation of mandatory 'Brains and common sense' for any CEO who wishes to browse the Web. Says Anonymous, 'Every CEO should and must have a brain, or common sense ... the internet was designed not for retard Nazis, but for porn and free thought. Then it was introduced to the commerce, and it was wrong ... to introduce it in the same way.' He calls the Kaspersky CEO 'the Internet's biggest freedom vulnerability' and thinks any community that wants to limit this freedom should be 'cut off.' The PMF (Political Marionettes Foundation) objects, and it's likely that they won't be the only ones."
He just lost a customer (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah well. We were going to buy an enterprise licence for his product (Been evaluating for a few months). Not now. With renewals it would have been a nice chunk of change. To stop idiots such as this, we need to vote with our pockets.
On a larger scale, without internet anonymity, we wouldn't have wikileaks. We wouldn't have free and open speach. We can and do critize bad laws, bad companies.
It wouldn't be lonf until its a "pay to play" scenario.
what's wrong with the design of the Internet? (Score:5, Informative)
Internet design--that's enough.
That's it? What's wrong with the design of the Internet?
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.
-- unquote --
That's total BS, what's wrong with the Internet is the vast networks of compromised desktop computers co-opted to be used as botnets to provide spamming and phishing services to the criminal sector. The vast majority of which run on Microsoft Windows. And people like you making a good living out of selling 'security' solutions. If everyone on the planet switched off their office 'computer' when they went home from work, the amount of spam/malware on the Internet would drop by over a half.
There is nothing wrong with the Internet, it performs as designed. It delivers packets to-and-from IP addresses. It doesn't know or care what's in 'em. Nor should it, that would break the design. Security should be handled at the end connections. What would cure the current smam/phishing/malware infestation is to design a desktop 'computer' that don't get infected by opening an email attachment or clicking on a URL.
"If I were Bill Gates, I'd run another company--100 percent owned by Microsoft--that produces the antivirus under a different brand"
It's never occured to Kaspersky to suggest that Bill Gates design an Operating System that don't rely on AV to protect. As Marcus Ranum [ranum.com] once said enumerating badness is a bad idea since, ' the amount of Badness in the Internet began to vastly outweigh the amount of Goodness '.
So basically because people like Kaspersky have failed at security, and want to implement an Internet Stasi (Staatssicherheit). I don't think so. There are enough people out there that'll see it don't ever happen. --
'Kaspersky Lab UK provides the leading antivirus [reviewcentre.com] and spyware software'
please by more of my bogus 'security' solutions - nuff said
Oi! There's this thing called "other countries"! (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to actually enforce what he is suggesting you would have to effectively ban or censor all private individuals and companies from using protocols not endorsed by the government, all countries would have to agree on the bans and rules, and you would have to block traffic from non-cooperating countries.
However that is not enough, because some of the countries from which you want to allow traffic may be allowing proxies used by countries that don't cooperate. So if Switzerland were to allow the Swedish to use Swiss proxies, and if the US didn't like Sweden's way to do things, then not only would they have to refuse all traffic from Sweden, they would have to refuse all traffic from Switzerland too. And if the UK allowed the Swiss to use UK proxies, you'd have to ban the UK too.
Then there is the practical problems. How do you stop people from stealing each others "passports"?. How do you stop people peeking over each others back when they type in passwords ? How do you stop man in the middle attacks? Are you going to encrypt every single transmission ? And all countries will agree to encrypt all their traffic too? How do you manage the keys across international boundaries? What happens when I go on vacation in a country that doesn't agree with your rules ?
Now what about compromised systems? What do you do when you get packages from Russia, Nigeria and China flooding your key servers with false requests? What do you do when the attacks come from compromised systems in Australia, Norway, Israel and France? Do you block all those countries, do you disconnect all your citizens that can't access your key servers? Do you allow everybody access if the key-servers are flooded? Do you cut foreign countries off from your citizens thereby screwing over all your international trade?
Somebody didn't think this through...
Follow the money. (Score:5, Insightful)
Such a program would need to be administered, of course, and who's better qualified to do so than "security" companies? A billion or so Internet licenses at maybe $5/year with a buck or two in "adminstrative expenses": do we see a financial interest here? Naw. I'm sure he has only the best interests of the Internet community at heart. No CEO would ever be influenced by the prospect of increased revenue for his company.
You're welcome to create your own network (Score:3, Interesting)
Eugene, you're welcome to create your own network with controlled access and tight protocol control. It will fail horribly, but you're welcome to try.
There were dozens of network in the '80s, competing with the Internet. The Internet won because it was open. If the Internet hadn't been open, something else that *was* would have won instead.
When anonymity is outlawed... (Score:3, Interesting)
When anonymity is outlawed... Anonymous will be outlaws.
Seriously though, does he actually think that the criminals, fraudsters, libelers, and the worst of the worst, the copyright breakers will not find a way to get around his passport system? Assuming every country in the world would even go for this, the best they could do is find a way to sue everyone who says a bad word about Kaspersky or his clients.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When anonymity is outlawed... Anonymous will be outlaws.
Not all of us see that as being a bad thing. There is a very, very ugly side to the Internet, and it is almost entirely made possible by anonymity. Having a band of invisible vigilantes around (especially given the degree of sociopathic immaturity that is generally associated with the group we're talking about here) means that they can attack whoever they want, and if they can attack whoever they want, that also potentially means you or me, as much as it means governments.
The argument that Anonymous shoul
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Cut Kaspersky off (Score:5, Funny)
Can we just cut Kaspersky off? Put him in a tightly sealed room where he can be safe and happy, and securely identified, free to send authenticated packets to himself.
Kaspersky CEO wants more money (Score:3, Interesting)
The real meat of the matter here is this Kaspersky guy's business is kind of in the dumps. He's being eaten alive by AVG and Clam, so a bit of trolling gets his name around the e-rags and a few people go "WOW they're still around ? ZOMG I'll try their A/V again".
If Kaspersky "ends online anonymity", they will end their revenue stream. It would seem logical that a company thriving off the constant threat of malware, would not want to see that malware willed away via draconian ID mandates and exclusionary tactics. Then we'll all know the Kaspersky guys were the ones writing viruses all along...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Godwin's Law [wikipedia.org], triggered already?
Sorry, dude, but you just lost the debate.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
there is not much you can do if that person is at the other side of the globe. Yes you can call police, but they will seldom do something.
Don't count on it:
The federal government can extradite a man to face a first-degree murder trial in the United States on charges of killing his wife, even though the evidence presented against him does not meet the test for the same charge in Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled. Top court okays U.S. extradition [montrealgazette.com] [Oct 16]
A Briton accused of hacking into secret mi