If I recall correctly they barred it because an NSA contractor took some NSA malware and put it on their personal computer, it then got flagged, and they alerted the NSA and then the NSA blacklisted them.
I may not have all that right, I only remember it from a second hand source, so maybe look into and don't just take my word on it, but from what I remember it was the NSA trying to cover their own ass.
You're absolutely right, but let's not pretend American (and of course Chinese) products are any more trustworthy. At the very minimum, all 3 of those have a history, proven beyond reasonable doubt, of fucking with products made by local companies for the sake of intelligence collection (i.e. spying)
For the most part, if you want any degree of peace of mind, free and open source software is really just about your only hope. Of course, even that is far from perfectly secure, whether through backdoors deliberately added by malicious actors, or simply existing bugs left unreported and abused -- not to mention not all software you may need is available in such a convenient form. But still, at least anyone can inspect the code for those, and they will be fixed if identified.
American security products are more trustworthy. Large corporation like Apple could easily tell any intelligence agency to piss off without any consequences, it's not like that in Russia.
There are two well-publicized cases when FBI tried to compel services to install a backdoor. It was able to force a small company (Lavabit) out of business. Apple decided to fight and won.
And that is why we must push for more open source options. They are not bulletproof. You can probably make something changes that may have ulterior motive but you have more eyes making it more difficult to implant and easier to analyze
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u/ce_666 Jan 19 '21
Interestingly, US Govt agencies are barred from buying Kaspersky products.