Georgia Learns Why Open Source is Better

Georgia has some concerns about closed-source code:

Kaspersky anti-virus, one of the most popular software programmes worldwide, has unofficially been declared a spy programme in Georgia. State organizations are avoiding installing Kaspersky, afraid of information leaks.

“The reason is that Kaspersky anti-virus is projected by Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab, who is of Russian origin. Officials from the Ministry of Defence are afraid that with the help of Kaspersky software it will be possible for the leak of confidential news to occur,” George Kofenlu, Product Manager of UGT, told The FINANCIAL.

Maybe they'd like to start using ClamWin: free and open to scrutiny.

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Security Vendors Will Log the Police Keyloggers

Kudos to Kaspersky Labs and Sophos: they understand that once you compromise a computer's security, there *is* no security:

The Home Office on Friday said it was working with the European Parliament on plans to extend police powers to conduct remote searches of computers. UK police already have the power to hack into suspect systems without a warrant, due to an amendment to the Computer Misuse Act, which came into force in 1995.

However, security vendors Kaspersky Labs and Sophos told ZDNet UK that they would not make any concession in their protective software for the police hack.

...

Em said that while police could provide details of the software it used so Kaspersky could avoid blocking it, the police software could also be used by cybercriminals. "While we wouldn't want to scupper police attempts to catch bad guys, police [hacking] software could end up in the wrong hands," Em said.

Kaspersky would not put a backdoor in its software to enable the police to bypass its protections, Em added. "If we provided a backdoor, it could be used by malware authors," Em said. "People would be able to drive a coach and horses through our security."

Once again, the experts have spoken: will the politicians listen? (Will they, heck....)