Kaspersky CEO: You need an Internet 'passport'

Eugene Kaspersky once told a competitor to his face: "I will eat you."

Eugene Kaspersky

(Credit: Kaspersky Lab)

The co-founder and CEO of Kaspersky Lab was certainly not into cannibalism, but was hell-bent on winning over the majority market share his competitor had in the company's base in Russia.

That was in 1995, the year Windows 95 was launched. Contrary to Kaspersky's strategy to develop new software optimized for the Microsoft operating system, its domestic rival saw no need to do so. Today, Kaspersky has the pleasure of saying he had the last laugh since his company is now the market leader in Russia while its competitor has less than 1 percent share.

In Singapore this week for an Interpol conference and customer and media meetings, the 44-year-old Russian spoke candidly in an interview with ZDNet Asia about the security strategy of Microsoft, how cybercrime should be combated, and why an Internet "passport" would be a good idea.

Read more in a Q&A with Kaspersky at "Microsoft OneCare was 'good enough'" on ZDNet Asia.

[n3td3v]

My proposal is a security industry software licence, this will allow the government to control who uses software intended for legal penetration testing under the Computer Misuse Act.

[protagonistic--2008]

Great, all we need is the government controlling yet another segment of our daily lives. How about we start letting people suffer the consequences of their stupidity instead of trying to protect them from it? You don't want to run malware software or use a little common sense? Hey, tough luck.

[4score20]

I'm not in agreement with n3td3v regarding government control but "..letting people suffer the consequences of their stupidity instead of trying to protect them from it.." doesn't work in the cyberworld because like drunk driving, stupid decisions online have a cascading effect which unfortunately results in more than just that person experiencing "tough luck."

[terminalblue]

My proposal is that CNet stop running click through stories. its stupid and annoying.

[Mergatroid Mania]

I agree 100% once again.

If you can't be bothered to write your opinion and a full story, then get some other job. Perhaps something in the wonderful world of fast foods would be more to your liking?

From this point on, if I click on a CNET story and I don't see a full length article I will just hit the back button.

I do a good job where I work, I would expect the people writing for CNET to do the same.

[karpenterskids]

Agreed.

[mbenedict]

@Mergatroid:

These stories aren't written by anyone at CNET. They are simply excerpts to sister-company ZDNet.

You can tell because the byline is attributed to ZDNet writers (such as Vivian Yeo from ZDNet Asia in this case).

I'm not sure why they don't simply run the ZDNet story in full here as well like they do with some of the NYT articles.

[tyshockner]

Kaspersky is a great Anti-virus. I use it on all my computers and I love it.

[system001]

MORON. no one is disputing that. i have used their beta internet suite for the win 7 beta, rc, and rtm. it is one of three that i would really consider good. the issue here is the FOOL would have us give up any anonymity we have. we would bring up our browser / email client to a logon screen, type our username, type our password, a token / tag would be created and attached to everything we do online. NO WAY IN HELL.

[terikub]

I also use Kaspersky Internet Security.....100% better than Norton or McAfee. I love it!!!!

[karpenterskids]

How does it compare to AVG, though?

[odubtaig]

The internet wasn't nearly as heavily used in the Iranian protests as the media would have us believe, but it was important in informing the rest of the world as to what was happening. This would not have been possible without the anonymity of the internet and is something Kapersky's 'passports' would kill. I would have though, coming from Russia, he would have appreciated the importance of such anonymous freedom of speech.

As many annoyances as it brings with it, the anonymity the internet has brought is also important for free discussion under difficult circumstances. It's also important to remember that such heavy monitoring is unwelcome because it is so easily abused. Those who would 'police' the internet would be just as human as everyone else and just as likely to abuse such power. After all, it wasn't a perceived lack of need that abolished identity papers in the UK after WWII, but a prominent abuse of power when a policeman arrested someone who he knew very well, whose papers he had seen before on many occassions, just because she forgot them on one occasion.

There comes a point when security becomes so restrictive that its benefits are outweighed by the burden it places upon us.

[winstein]

I think anonymity is important for the users. But for servers and hosting companies, especially companies with e-mail servers, I think a "passport" or a "license", could work. It doesn't need to be expensive. $20 per domain name per e-mail server will increase the cost for spammers. A "license" would also help to identify a compromised server.

[rdupuy11]

?????? ?????, ? ??? ??? ? ?? ??????? hahaha, lets see if that even posts correctly. budding linguist here, move along, nothing to see.

[rdupuy11]

obviously it didn't post.....oh well, in that case, wow was that funny....too bad for you. (looks like cnet is in the latin-only dark ages).

[dbagpiper]

Two things:
I agree with many of the sentiments on this page... CNET writers need to write a story, not a headline. "Stories" like this are akin to half of a statement.

As far as Kaspersky's "Internet Passport" goes: That is the opinion of someone who lives with and is clearly comfortable with a Marxist society. It seems to be; it was the creation of a nation completely unencumbered by draconian laws that "bootstrapped" the rest of the world into this modern age. That is the result of freedom. You have to take the good with the bad, but freedom is the key ingredient to progress.

How about Kaspersky try his little experiment there in Russia first and lets see how it works? If he's right, then there will be peace and harmony in cyber-Russia and we will all clamor to follow.

[Lehrlize]

Old news. He said that almost one year ago (November 24, 2008) to ebizLatam. You can read the interview (in spanish) at http://www.ebizlatam.com/news/126/ARTICLE/8099/3/2008-11-24.html or you can translate it with Google.