>whether Kaspersky cooperates (maybe under some gag order) with Russian agencies or not
no offense, it is just very entertaining(and educational) to observe how people from one culture try to apply their mental frameworks to completely different mentality. There is no "whether", "or not", "gag order" (in the sense as if explicit one was necessary) in the Russian reality in the context of private company cooperating with FSB. Hell, there is no even much of "cooperating". An FSB guy just says what he wants to get, and he gets it pronto. And in cases like Kaspersky it is even more straightforward as Kaspersky and the others there are FSB guys.
I mean it is like a joke among Russians here:
"Did you hear? The NSA thinks about stopping to use Kaspersky on their computers!"
"Wow! How did they discovered (the ploy)? Was it the parachute?"
(the parachute is a reference to a very well known joke about a USSR spy in Nazi Germany from very popular TV movie - the spy was so good and invincible that only the deployed parachute he was dragging behind him in the open daylight on the streets of Berlin was the only possible clue for the Nazis)
Again, it is different reality. In US law protects from and punishes for illegal cooperation, whereis in Russia the system protects for cooperation and punishes for refusal to do so.
> In US law protects from and punishes for illegal cooperation
Then they can insist on legal cooperation. I remember how Pavel Durov (founder of Telegram) wrote that US secret service agents were stalking him in US and tried to bribe one of his developers.
no offense, it is just very entertaining(and educational) to observe how people from one culture try to apply their mental frameworks to completely different mentality. There is no "whether", "or not", "gag order" (in the sense as if explicit one was necessary) in the Russian reality in the context of private company cooperating with FSB. Hell, there is no even much of "cooperating". An FSB guy just says what he wants to get, and he gets it pronto. And in cases like Kaspersky it is even more straightforward as Kaspersky and the others there are FSB guys.
I mean it is like a joke among Russians here:
"Did you hear? The NSA thinks about stopping to use Kaspersky on their computers!"
"Wow! How did they discovered (the ploy)? Was it the parachute?"
(the parachute is a reference to a very well known joke about a USSR spy in Nazi Germany from very popular TV movie - the spy was so good and invincible that only the deployed parachute he was dragging behind him in the open daylight on the streets of Berlin was the only possible clue for the Nazis)
Again, it is different reality. In US law protects from and punishes for illegal cooperation, whereis in Russia the system protects for cooperation and punishes for refusal to do so.