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Some Americans continue to use Kaspersky antivirus despite the US government’s ban

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A Kaspersky logo on the top of a building.

In late September, Kaspersky forcibly uninstalled and replaced a brand new antivirus program called UltraAV on the computers of roughly a million Americans, lots of whom were surprised and dismayed that that they had not been asked to consent to the change. The move was the final result of the US government’s ban on all sales of Kaspersky software in the country and – at the very least in theory – spelled the end of Kaspersky in America.

But not everyone in the US has given up on Russian antivirus. TechCrunch has learned that some Americans have found ways to circumvent the ban and continue to use Kaspersky’s antivirus program.

Several people living in the US claimed in Reddit posts that they were claiming to be Kaspersky customers. When TechCrunch asked them about their motivations, their reasons ranged from skepticism about why they were banned or had already paid for the product, to simply preferring the product over competitors.

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“It is widely referred to as the best (antivirus) in the world and has an extended history. There isn’t any actual evidence that that is ‘spyware’ and I am unable to just blindly consider in something that has no evidence of it,” a US-based Reddit user going by the username Blippyz told TechCrunch in a direct message.

Another Reddit user named YouKnowWho_13, who still uses antivirus software from New York-based Kaspersky, said they weren’t concerned about allegations that Kaspersky abused access to some Americans’ computers to send sensitive data back to the Russian government.

“Hey, I’m just a cashier…” they told TechCrunch, suggesting they weren’t an interesting goal for cyber spies. adding that the ban on the sale of Kaspersky products was “a little too harsh” and unnecessary. “(I) have been used to this for 10 years. Force of habit haha. It’s a nice product.”

The way these users circumvent the sales ban is two-fold. First, they purchased a license or key before the ban was implemented, which suggests they didn’t violate the sales ban or sanctions by sending money to the Moscow-based cybersecurity company. Secondly, they’re using a VPN or have manually added a non-US server to the update server list, which suggests that in Kaspersky’s eyes they will not be actually US users.

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Kaspersky didn’t respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

Avi Fleischer, a longtime Kaspersky user who lives in Brooklyn, New York, told TechCrunch that he still uses the software on his home computer. Fleischer explained that after the ban got here into force “Kaspersky Security Network” – service “designed to receive and process complex global cyber threat data” — became unavailable, but was still able to obtain virus definition updates by pointing the update server to a server outside the United States.

“Now it can automatically update virus definitions,” Fleischer said, adding that he doesn’t use a VPN.

YouKnowWho_13 said he purchased a global license key on eBay. Like others, they said they added an update server positioned outside the United States to the Kaspersky app to continue receiving security updates.

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Once the license key expires, YouKnowWho_13 said it might switch to competing antivirus software ESET or Bitdefender.

Another Reddit user, Das1996, told TechCrunch that he uses a VPN to download updates and has a license key that expires in about three or 4 months. Once this happens, they are saying, they may determine what to do next. But “if the VPN option works well, I will continue to use it,” Das1996 said.

Domingothegamer, Reddit user who searched for assistance on the website after they couldn’t update their Kaspersky software, he said he still had a three-year license with two years left, for 10 devices. For them, leaving Kaspersky “seems like a big loss just because of the ban.”

They said they didn’t even need to use a VPN and that apart from adding latest servers to get updates, “it’s just a regular service.”

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This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com

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Benchmarks meta for new AI models are somewhat misleading

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Meta sign

One of the new flagship AI Meta models released on Saturday, Maverick, Second rating at LM ArenaA test during which human rankings compare the outcomes of models and select which they like. But it appears that evidently the Maverick version, that the finish implemented on LM Arena differs from the version that’s widely available to programmers.

How several And researchers He pointed to X, Meta noticed within the announcement that Maverick on LM Arena is a “experimental version of the chat.” Chart on The official website of LlamaMeanwhile, it reveals that the testing of the LM META Arena was carried out using “Llama 4 Maverick optimized for conversation.”

As we wrote earlier, for various reasons LM Arena has never been essentially the most reliable measure of the performance of the AI ​​model. But AI firms generally didn’t adapt or otherwise adapted their models to higher rating at LM Arena-Lub a minimum of didn’t admit it.

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The problem related to adapting the model to the reference point, suspension of it, after which releasing the “vanilla” variant of the identical model, is that programmers are difficult to predict how good it can work in specific contexts. It can be misleading. It is best if the tests tests – miserably inadequate – provide a shutter of strong and weaknesses of 1 model in various tasks.

Indeed, scientists on X have Stark was observed Differences in behavior From publicly to download maverick in comparison with the hosted model on LM Arena. The LM Arena version seems to make use of many emoji and provides extremely long answers.

We arrived at Meta and Chatbot Arena, a company that maintains LM Arena to comment.

(Tagstotransate) benchmark

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Trump delays the ban

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TikTok ban, rednote

Donald Trump has signed a brand new executive order “Save Tiktok”.


Tiktok will live to see the next day – at the least for now. On April 4, President Donald Trump signed a brand new executive order delaying the ban on a preferred social application by one other 75 days. The application was to darken in the USA on April 5.

The application, belonging to the Chinese company Bytedance, is now on the second extension in the first quarter of the 12 months. In 2024, President Biden signed bilateral laws of Ban Tiktok, citing fears about national security. Congress voted in a predominant means. Although Trump has signed the executive order to “save” the application, many questioned the legality of the movement. Like many president’s actions at the starting of his term, they complain that evidently he exceeds the authority of the executive office.

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Trump announced his move to Stop the ban on social truthSaying that his administration remains to be working on the contract.

“My administration worked very hard on the Tiktok saving contract, and we have made great progress,” Trump wrote on April 4. “The contract requires more work to ensure the signing of all necessary approvals, which is why I sign an executive order to continue tiktok for an additional 75 days.”

Trump quoted his newly imposed tariffs to China as a key reason for detained negotiations for the buyer.

“We hope to continue working in good faith with China, which, as I understand, are not very satisfied with our mutual tariffs – necessary for honest and balanced trade between China and the USA,” wrote Trump. “It proves that tariffs are the most powerful economic tool and very important for our national security. We do not want Tiktok to go dark. We are looking forward to cooperation with Tiktok and China to complete the contract.”

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This means a second time Trump entered to delay the ban. On January 2, just a couple of days after returning to the office, he signed the first extension to stop Tiktok, utilized by over 170 million Americans available to users.

The potential sales of Tiktok draws the major attention of the principal players in the business world. According to HillMany private equity firms, the Venture Capital groups and the best technological investors have introduced offers for a preferred application.

Among the firms, apparently in the mix are Blackstone, Oracle, Amazon – led by Jeff Bezos – and the founding father of Onlyfans Tim Stokely. Interest in purchasing Tiktok has increased, how uncertainty about its future in the US is always growing.

The application, utilized by 170 million Americans, is situated at the center of ongoing political and economic negotiations between the United States and China. Along with the upcoming pressure and deadlines, the possibility of selling opened the door to the largest technological and financial names.

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This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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Doge is supposedly planning Hackathon to build a “mega api” for IRS data

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The Department of Government Elon Musk (DOGE) is planning Organize Hackathon next week Focused on creating a “mega API interface”, which is able to provide access to taxpayers, according to Wired.

Wired claims that Hackathon is organized by two Doge employees within the service of the inner rule – Gavin Kliger and Sam Corcos, who’re also the final director at the extent of Healthtech startups. Corcos reportedly said to others in Doge that his goal is to build “one new API to rule them all.”

This would facilitate cloud suppliers access to IRS data, including taxpayers’ names, addresses, social insurance numbers, tax declarations and employment information, which may very well be exported to external systems. According to Wired, the vendor of external parties managed parts of the project, and Palantir “consistently” grew up as a candidate.

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“Basically, they are open door controlled by Musk for the most sensitive information of all Americans without any rules that normally secure this data,” said an anonymous IRS worker said.

(Tagstranslate) dog

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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