Apple, Google yank opposition voting strategy app from Russian software stores A tactical-voting app built by allies of Vladimir Putin’s jailed political opponent Alexei Navalny is now unavailable in Russian Apple and Google app stores following threats from the Kremlin. According to state-owned news agency TASS, Russian lawmaker Andrei Klimov told reporters on Thursday that the Russian Prosecutor …
https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/17/google_app_permissions_android/
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A KGB officer at the helm, jackboots in the streets ensuring order and thugs in the shadows silencing opposition.
It sounds a lot like what Solzhenitsyn wrote in the The Gulag Archipelago. Stalin is dead, but his legacy lives on.
It's going to take a long time for Russia to get out of that hell.
Depends on what you see hell as. The some Brits see Brexit as hell some love it.
Trump, wow, and I mean that in both senses. His tenure was just wow.
Russia is a very young democracy and, as one article said, voters won't pay much attention to to the power struggles as long as they are comfortable in their own houses. This is a country that still remembers the basic living style of communism.
Another generation and things might be totally different.
Just be careful who pours your cup of tea....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
"Russia is a very young democracy"
Russia is not, and never has been, a democracy. Its political culture has not significantly changed since the forcible unification of the principalities by Ivan Grozny. The vocabulary of the cadres changes but the nomenclatura still aims to stay in power regardless of most other considerations. Despite the changing polemics of the moment, it's always been primarily a power struggle among the political elite rather than a concerted attempt to impose a stable objective social order, hence Lenin's famous comment "first we take power, then we decide what to do with it".
> Russia is a very young democracy [ ... ]
Russia has been a very young democracy for the past 110+ years.
Russian democracy seems to have found the secret to eternal babyhood. They never seem to grow up past the age of 2. Not even a toddler.
It was no different during the Romanovs. Just different kind of Czars. Nikolai II was more photogenic. Slightly - not by much - different kind of secret police.
The post-revolutionary secret police don't appear to all that different from the per-revolutionary version. The only difference in the Gulag system seems to be that post-revolution it got scandalously close to being a major private enterprise (all that forced labour....keeps costs low.....). People in the UK were aware of this and there was a campaign to boycott their products.
Incidentally, before we British got all hot and bothered about the Kaiser's nascent empire Nicholas II was regarded as "The Bad Boy of Europe". There was even a credible fear that he'd reach into India through Afghanistan (....or whatever it was called in those days, the names have been updated to reflect modern geography). The popular 'invasion literature' genre of the late Victorian / early Edwardian period even had one book giving a fictionalized account of the Russian invasion of Britain.
"Trump, wow, and I mean that in both senses. His tenure was just wow."
He's probably following the news from Russia, fuming and ranting that he just didn't manage to get that level of power over the opposition. He just sooooo would have loved to be able to just lock up the opposition :-)
<innocent look>
I wonder why the downvotes? "Lock her up" and later "Lock them up" was the rallying cries he started and encouraged throughout his election campaign and on into his presidency, surely even the most ardent Trumpers must remember that?
</innocent look>
If phones weren't such walled gardens, Putin would have to target the spp rather thsn the store it was sold through. Still, I cannot really argue against the idea that local laws apply. If Russians don't like it, they need to change it. In a civilised country, you'd do that by voting but, alas, such countries are so rare.
Currently, there's nothing preventing them from doing that, although in both cases it's a bit of a mess if you've installed apps in your real region which you want to keep while set to another one. However, that's a pretty easy regulation to institute: "All devices sold inside the Russian Federation must have the region locked to Russia if applicable with an unlock code to be issued by the manufacturer or service provider in the case of verifiable international sale. This regulation is intended to prevent phone theft, because we have an objection to writing laws that state their real purpose."
Whereas allowing sideloading for Apple and reducing the power of Google's store would be much harder to criminalize.
If they can make a law like you suggest "must be locked to Russia - conditions which can be undone if sold outside Russia" they can just as easily make a law "must not allow sideloading, or alternative app stores other than government approved ones - conditions which can be undone if sold outside Russia".
I wouldn't be surprised if that's their next step, and once Russia has a home grown non-Google Android they feel is good enough, they may simply ban the sale of all other phones.
Though if they do that, they'll probably leave out the ability to undo those conditions for sale outside of Russia. What does Putin care if a phone once inside Russia is useless if sold outside of Russia? That's Apple's / Samsung's / etc. problem not his!
Remember Apple's claim "oh we'll only implement AI from 2 databases and this and that and do this and do that"....
They pretended it would be their choice not to extend the backdoor local scanning and reacharound of their encryption.
Here Putin says "yank Navalny's app" and they scurry to remove it. So much for "Apple having free choices".
Each backdoor the surveillance guys put in, gets repurposed as a surveilance tool by their enemies, used against them.
And the TLS certificate problem. Suppose companies (or political groups) started putting their APKs on their websites too. So now people can download the APK directly and install it.
Except the TLS certs are backdoored, *any* certificate issuer can certify *any* website, and Putin certainly has control of at least one certification company. Rendering the website encryption worthless. That APK cannot be delivered securely because certificates cannot be trusted.
And Google has implemented on the fly app-signing, which means Putin will have the keys to every app that is provided inside Russia soon enough. So their spooks will soon have everything they need to backdoor every one of those apps worldwide.
Google can pretend they won't hand over the keys, but they will, just like they rush to remove Navalnys app here.
Backdoors for you, suddenly for everyone!
That's why Google and (especially) Apple could operate for so long without allowing or making it very difficult for average person to install apps off the store or offer an easy way to install alternative stores.
Given that everyone has at least one phone, governments need a way to limit spread of "harmful" apps or other content.
I think if it was as easy to run an application on the phone as it is on Windows or Linux, it would quickly become illegal.
Unfortunately the population sleepwalked into this totalitarian reality.
Companies like Facebook also work with governments to ensure only favourable propaganda is allowed to spread, so even if you wanted
to campaign for ability to load whatever you want onto "your" phone, you will be out of luck.
Social media will ban you. If you set up your own service, you won't be able to advertise it. Even if somehow you get heard through word of mouth, eventually a hosting company would shut you down anyway.
No, not necessarily. They can change the votes and still want to restrict any opposition tactics. Having an app which tells you that Putin is bad and suggests a path to getting rid of him is an advertisement against him, so he may want to have it taken down even if it can't work. As long as he keeps the wealthy and the military on his side, he could do many damaging things to the country and his own image, but he isn't going to change the policy of praise he has going on now even though he and his power would survive it.
I'm sure he has the ability to alter the REPORTED vote count even if they are counted correctly. He just doesn't want to need to use that ability unless he's left with no choice.
Without the ability to "vote against Putin" in an organized way, the anti-Putin vote is split a dozen ways and anyone doing polling before or exit polling after would be able to corroborate that. If the opposition was able to get organized then polling and exit polling would reflect that fact, and if the reported vote totals don't look anything like that then it is obvious he cheated.
Having to fudge the vote totals wouldn't bring him down, but that's a bigger step than simply relying on the way Russia's political system works to split the opposition automatically.
This has happened in the US here and there, usually in state level races. AFAIK no one has ever tried it in a House/Senate race, let alone president.
I remember hearing about some guy with the same name as a democrat candidate running as an independent in a Florida state congressional race either 2020 or 2018, and he accused his republican opponent of recruiting the imposter for reasons similar to why Putin does it. If it was going to be a tight race, a few thousand vote going to the wrong John Smith might be enough to turn it. I never heard any follow up about that (nor can I remember the name) so I have no idea if it the scheme worked or not.
It probably works best in states that list candidates in random or alphabetical order. If they list the democrat and republican on top, most voters won't get down to the imposter unless they are looking for a non-D / non-R candidate in the first place.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/us/florida-senate-race-fraud.html
A Republican former state senator in Florida asked a friend with the same surname as a prominent Democrat to stand in 2020. The Democrat was defeated by 32 votes, while the other man polled over 6,000. As the link suggests, they were arrested in March 2021 for fraud. Anyone know if there is any further information on the case?
If google and Apple throw things under a bus every time an autocratic regime says do this now
Then democracy is dead, or is it only open to westerners ?
Stop chasing the $$$ and grow some morals
Remember do no evil ?
When you capitulate like this then it reminds me of the PM chamberlain and the Nazis
Westerners, democracy ? Is it a democratic country that democratically votes to restrict voters rights ? 14.4 billions spent for elections ? I'm sure you can't get more democratic that that, I know, it's all for the sake of democracy.
As for exporting democracy, can US give it another try in Afghanistan before moving to other more established countries ? You know, Russian people managed to topple a regime and execute its ruler and I'm sure they could pull another revolution anytime if they feel the need.
14 hours to hit Godwins Law.
Are you saying that big tech should ignore local laws? What about small tech, businesses and people generally? Can they also ignore local laws, or is that privilege reserved for the big boys?
Or, are you saying they shouldn't do business in Russia? Which would leave dodgy imports, grey markets, black markets and State-sanctioned models as the only options, severely curtailing customer choice, reducing chances for the locals to look beyond the propaganda, and increasing the State's ability to spy on their citizens.
Neither seems a good option, and neither will happen. Big tech will continue to to business in Russia, and, surprise, will obey local laws whether they, you, or I, like them or not.
... considering how cracked APKs show up on various sites within hours of the "official" release on Google Play, I'm betting that there's several dozen places you can go to download and sideload this app now.
And taking into account Russia's reputation for hacking apps etc., this coule be very interesting to watch - on Android at least, it may well be that the genie is already out of the bottle. Popcorn time!
We are considering filing lawsuits [against] Google and Apple in different jurisdictions.
While I understand his frustration, what were Google & Apple supposed to do? They have been told the app is illegal in Russia and is being distributed by an extremist organisation. Regardless of what Apple & Google (or we) think of the app & the organisation behind it, Russia has declared it illegal and it has to be removed - or Apple & Google employees will be arrested...
I don't see what a lawsuit will accomplish, other than proving that Apple & Google we given a legal document telling them to remove the app from the Russian stores, because the app was illegal in Russia.
It is a dark day for democracy, when a government does something like this, but, under the circumstances, I don't see what else the companies could have done under the circumstances.
If they are told to remove "terrorist" or misleading apps in the USA or Europe, they comply there as well. Whilst we might not like the political motivations behind the move, we can't really say they should remove unlawful apps in our country, but ignore the same sort of legal takedown notices in other countries.
Outside of apps, this goes on every day with physical goods. Goods don't meet legal standards for safety, hygiene etc. and are banned. Apps that fail to meet legal standards are no different, even if we disagree with those legal standards.
Heck, I've have been speaking out for years that Big Tech simply ignored local laws. Over the last few years, they've started complying with those laws (E.g. GDPR), or at least taking them more seriously. We can't now turn around and tell them they should be ignoring laws, again.
It is a moral outrage, but this time, I actually feel that Big Tech is being wrongly chastised. It is the Russian government that should be feeling the wrath of public outrage.
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