Re: In an Era of Russian Hacks, the US Is Still Installing Russian Software on Government Systems

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Christian Huitema <huitema () huitema net>
Date: Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 12:44 AM
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: In an Era of Russian Hacks, the US Is Still
Installing Russian Software on Government Systems
To: <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () listbox com>




On 6/15/2017 5:52 PM, Dave Farber wrote:
> This is not just American jingoism.  Most advanced countries do the
> same when they can.  I seem to recall that some years ago China made a
> blanket decision that they would not run Microsoft operating systems
> on certain categories of government computers.  This would seem
> prudent to me from their point of view.  Perhaps someone else
> remembers this and can elaborate.

It is the classic problem of convincing a customer that your product
does what the customer wants and can be trusted. Check this recent news
article about Microsoft providing Chinese government buyers with a
special version of Windows 10 that use encryption codes approved by the
Chinese government:
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/microsoft-release-windows-10-china-government-edition-chinese-partners/
.
Or this older article about Microsoft letting Chinese experts access the
source code of Windows 7:
http://www.informationweek.com/software/operating-systems/china-gets-a-peek-at-microsoft-source-code/d/d-id/1089702
.


If Kaspersky cares about getting the US government as a customer, they
can do something similar -- let US experts inspect their source code,
maybe add some customization. Of course, there is a tension between
"keeping the customer happy" and "spending lots of resource to care for
a specific customer." But businesses manage that tension all the time.

--
Christian Huitema



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