China have their own crypto standard OSCCA, which uses the SM4 cipher, SM3 hash function etc instead of using the AES, ECDH, RSA algorithms everyone else does. The OSCCA standard are only approved for use in China.
Eugene Kapersky is a Russian state asset and literally refuses to use the word "war" in regards to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Banning foreign agents from a hostile regime in a time of war is not an attack on free speech. Kapersky is free to speak -- and he has, through public statements from his company. He is not free to do business with the Western world while living in a sanctioned country.
The number of times I've seen HN posters rejoice that people are not allowed to even communicate their political ideas because they are x-ist (it's a private company, bigot!) is too many to count. But the minute there's an actual genocidal war being waged by one of the most wicked nations on earth, people are very concerned about the Constitutional right to commercially sell antivirus software from the enemy's borders. Absurd.
>Eugene Kapersky is a Russian state asset and literally refuses to use the word "war" in regards to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
To be fair, western third parties like Japan refer to the conflict as the "Invasion of Ukraine" (ウクライナ侵攻, ukuraina shinkou) and such.
Personally, I don't view this as a war because there was no formal declaration(s) of war to be seen anywhere before nor after the fact. War is an act of diplomacy, but what Russia has been doing is anything but.
> War is an act of diplomacy, but what Russia has been doing is anything but.
No, this is an unnecessary formalism. Why not define war by what is actually happening (large scale armed conflict between states or other large groups) rather than by mere words uttered by somebody?
> In his study Hostilities without Declaration of War (1883), the British scholar John Frederick Maurice showed that between 1700 and 1870 war was declared in only 10 cases, while in another 107 cases war was waged without such declaration (these figures include only wars waged in Europe and between European states and the United States, not including colonial wars in Africa and Asia).
> The principle of a compulsory declaration of war has now fallen into disuse. In practice and under customary law, a declaration of war is no longer necessary for a state of war to exist; it suffices for one of the parties to make its intentions clear by actually commencing hostilities. Similarly, a formal declaration of war is not necessary for the application of international humanitarian law.
>> In practice and under customary law, a declaration of war is no longer necessary for a state of war to exist
Was it ever? Under customary law, a state of war exists between any two parties by default. What needs to be declared is peace, which is why so many ancient peace treaties survive.
Actually I am convinced that everyone in kremlin have the Diplomacy skill set to ZERO, all of them and their ambassadors, local leaders, duma politicians.
And the regular citizens that I interacted with are similar, for example a guy threaten me " my cousin fought in such and such Ruzzian war, he is not with the mafia and drawn a guy because X, do you want to have my cousin kill you? "
No sane goverment should run Ruzziancontrol software, even if the guy is a saint(we know is a KGB close friend ) the KGB goons will force him to install spuyweare in an update.
"Invasion" is also an acceptable and accurate term. The doublespeak of "special operation" as if it is a police issue in a territory they have right to is what he sticks to.
Regardless, Kapersky has plenty of money. If he doesn't support his nation's mass butchering of its neighbors he could easily buy citizenship in a country like Nevis, which puts it up for sale, denounce Putin, and abandon the Russian state. As it is, he is under the control of the FSB, and every dollar he earns generates demand for the ruble and tax revenue for the Russian state.
An invasion of a sovereign country is a act of war by definition. It's a legal casus belli for the victim to possibly be followed by a official declaration of war but that does not invalidate the war status.
A conflict without formal DoWs issued is not a proper war, FSVO proper. That doesn't detract from the hideous nonsense Russia is engaging in, of course; it's arguably worse than a war because they couldn't even be arsed to say it is one.
As much as diplomacy tends to be derided (and I'm certainly among those detractors), I also want to believe diplomacy still fucking means something for the sake of a civilized world.
> As much as diplomacy tends to be derided (and I'm certainly among those detractors), I also want to believe diplomacy still fucking means something for the sake of a civilized world.
I don't understand what benefit for diplomacy is this insistence that a war without a declaration isn't a war.
Aren’t wars (in the traditional sense) effectively banned by the UN? If war is illegal under modern intentions law what’s the point of declaring one besides self-incrimination? If you invade a country and just call that a “special operation” you can at least maintain some pretense of legitimacy.
What is happening currently in Syria? The USA hast still some forces there taking control of oil fields in a sovereign country. Can we count that as war?
Yes of course, and I'm not defending it, but it's still totally different in both scale and nature from what Russia is doing in Ukraine.
At least on surface appearances the US isn't taking control of the oil and selling it on the market (the oil is owned and marketed by the autonomous Kurdish government which runs the region).
And unlike Russia, the US certainly isn't seeking to permanent annex the region.
> but it's still totally different in both scale and nature from what Russia is doing in Ukraine.
Because if Americans kill people, it is an act of justice, of spreading democracy (see also Irak, Afganistan, Yemen, various Latin American and African countries) not a killing. /s
A conflict without formal DoWs issued is not a proper war,
If it helps clarify things for you: most wars are deeply psychological in nature; and part of how they operate is by telling people (both the perpetrators and victims) that it's not really a "war". But rather a "special operation". They will even lie right to your face, and tell you that they are there to "demilitarize" the area and to bring peace. And that to the extent that it might look like a war -- that will insist that they had no choice; it was forced on them; the other side could stop it at any time if they wanted to.
Proper declarations do have significance of course; but they are always secondary to the basic facts of what's happening on the ground.
In case it wasn't obvious, no I don't buy Russia's "mUh SpEcIaL oPeRaTiOn!" bullshit. It's not a war either, for already stated reasons.
No, what's going on in Ukraine is even worse; it's unadulterated, uncivilized baboonery that should be an embarassment to all of humanity. Russia for doing it, and the rest of us all for failing to stop it (and so far putting an end to it).
It's the 21st motherfucking century and we can't even try to be civilized about brutally murdering each other en masse. Fucking hell, man.
But I see the overall point you're making, and I've also taken the "Can we even call it a war?" perspective at times, not because of the lack of a proper declaration (which I see as insignificant), but from the sheer pointless, murderous insanity of it all.
A side note: It just so happens that the romanized version of the Russian acronym for SMO is SVO (that is, SVO = СВО and perhaps F meant "full"?) so I was temporarily confused by what you meant with that acronym. I now do see what you meant by it. But at the moment my mind was focused on the pointless insanity that we both agree is the situation in Ukraine, not math.
True of most armies -- even the worst we can think of. The architects of war know this, of course. That's why most the killing is usually done at a distance, out of sight and out of mind.
Which was done (and, judging by the choice of ordinance, signed off on at the highest levels) not despite the fact that they knew there were children present at the carefully selected target; but because of it.
Is that a method anyone has ever used to distribute paid, multi-GB software (or ever will for that matter)? I’m pretty sure Kaspersky is fully closed source anyways. This argument seems really roundabout and ineffective.
The problem is that the company in question can act freely from the US government. Should I remind you what triggered this animosity toward Kaspersky in the first place? https://www.wired.com/story/nsa-leak-kaspersky-labs/
The US is currently indirectly at war with Russia... I don't understand why you think it makes sense to let someone you are basically at war with operate on your computers
Articles and headlines themselves do not constitute evidence. All we get from your Reuters article is an allegation from the US Government (of Iraq WMD fame), and a denial from the Chinese Government. It's hearsay not evidence. Where is the evidence?
I have always had the same with the sound of lawnmowers, since I was a kid. There was no difference before or after the time in my life that I tried hallucinogens.
I did and my affliction makes the effect so much better than I hear from friends. A glass of shroom tea taken outside has me see full armadas with theatrical music marching through the skies. LSD well, I haven’t taken it for 30 years because I have with shrooms what others have with lsd, just a lot shorter.
This is not a great argument given that Apple is in the business of selling Apple devices.
My original incentive for spending the last 15 years and thousands of dollars in the Apple ecosystem is that their products would "just work" for my family.
Nowadays I'm spending hours on the phone with our daughter who's in tears because Apple keeps locking her out of her iPad or laptop.
I'm also not going to get into my mom having a lifetime's worth of photographs locked up in her iMac that we're literally only going to be able to get hold of if I take an overseas trip to England to do it myself. (btw, if anyone can recommend an Apple shop in the south of England who actually know what they're doing…)
I mean, this is the obvious end state for a lot of us. I've been an Apple fanboy and Mac owner for over 10 years, and Apple is slowly but surely losing me as a customer due to all these ideas that nerf their computers "for my own sake". I don't need protection from my computer and applications, and my computer does not need protection from me. The user should be the final authority on what gets run on the computer, and Apple has been steadily drifting from this principle.
My next computer will sadly probably not be a Mac. Who knows what I won't be allowed to do with it by the time it comes to refresh mine.
That's the decision I came to a couple of years ago after 18 years as an Apple hardware user. Having said that, I still use an iPhone because the use and risk profiles are so different. The phone is literally the "keys to my kingdom".
How would you provide this type of locking system without giving users access to their own private keys, then having a much worse problem where dozens of users lose their private keys and forever brick their device?
A system where users can recover their devices if they successfully hold onto their private keys is much better than a system where they can't recover their devices at all without Apple's reluctant help.
Maybe for power users, sure. But for regular people (Apple’s biggest market) it’s not an issue: they just register their devices and don’t have to worry about it.
Isn’t the issue in this case that the use didn’t enable “find my mac” in the first place, the thief was able to tie the device to their account and then brick it?
I assume he would’ve been able to recover it if he had “held on to his private key” (having the device be linked to his account being the current equivalent)?
I wouldn't. It's unethical and frankly evil. Physical access should always trump any remotely installed policies, otherwise you can never truly own something.
This, and remote attestation, are tools to enforce DRM. The anti theft stuff is just a marketing strategy you fell for.
>Physical access should always trump any remotely installed policies
so if you steal something and therefore have physical access to it, that should trump the original owner who no longer has it because you stole it even if they have the receipt with the serial number on it?
> It's unethical and frankly evil. Physical access should always trump any remotely installed policies,
Isn’t that what happened here? The thief and not the owner reported it as “stolen” and thus bricked. The thief could’ve as well just thrown an actual brick on it with similar effects
> The anti theft stuff is just a marketing strategy you fell for.
Also it works. Both for deincentivizing theft and allows you to recover the device had you actually enabled the feature (so not this case)
> Isn’t that what happened here? The thief and not the owner reported it as “stolen” and thus bricked. The thief could’ve as well just thrown an actual brick on it with similar effects
I see your point, but if it were me in OP’s shoes, I’d be annoyed by the fact that even though I chose not to enable the anti-theft stuff, Apple presumes that the laptop is “unowned” and can still be enrolled into the anti-theft service. I would much rather have the laptop ship with a physical copy of the private key that will unlock the device (paper with a QR code on it would be sufficient), that way I retain ownership of the device regardless of what the thief does. Everything else could stay the same.
Edit: also, reporting as stolen is not the same as a thief smashing the laptop with a brick — the crucial difference is that by reporting as stolen, the thief retains access to the device while locking out anyone else. The post even speculates that the shop involved used this technique to extort the person who brought the laptop to them.
> without giving users access to their own private keys
I wouldn't. If someone has a device that is unusable without keys they don't have, they don't actually own that device. Far be it from me to quote the crypto crowd but "not your keys...."
That doesn't make sense. First of all, "this type of locking system" is clearly a failure because it allowed an unauthorized random person to report a computer as "lost" when he didn't own it. So the answer to your first question is: You wouldn't.
Second, what does this even mean: "without giving users access to their own private keys, then having a much worse problem where dozens of users lose their private keys and forever brick their device?" What scenario exactly does that refer to?
By the thief/shop who linked it to their account? IIRC you can still wipe macs without having the password as long as all the theft protection stuff isn’t enabled.
Sell an HSM (free when you buy a Mac > $2000? discounted in conjunction with AppleCare?) that will remove activation lock on the Mac it's purchased with.
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