This article is worth reading, imo. There’s more going on here than the introduction of the “Max” ‘super-app’. I wasn’t aware of this but Russia has also been subjecting its population to a “digital detox” where Internet blackouts are becoming increasingly common. In some areas the Internet is down most of the time, in others service has returned but is extremely poor compared to before the blackout. Mobile Internet blackouts have been performed claiming without evidence that it’s to disrupt drones coming from Ukraine.
In some areas this Max ‘super-app’ (which handles banking, communication, and more–and is a direct line for government surveillance) is the only option to do banking or communicate with anybody by phone. This practice is sweeping the country after declaring Meta a terrorist organization, and swiftly eliminating any Meta apps from Russian access including Instagram, Facebook, and the most popular app for communication in Russia: WhatsApp.
This is fucked on another level and i think we should be paying attention because this is presumably where Trump gets his inspiration and/or his marching orders, so i have a suspicion we’ll see something similar wash up on our shores soon enough.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now–a mass, extended Internet disruption would not only screw up communication on a grand scale here, but business would also be tremendously impacted. It’s the next ‘privilege’ for us to have taken away and replaced with an enshittified surrogate, forcing large swaths of people to sign over even more of their autonomy to big brother in exchange to have all the things the Internet has now made possible. Want to be able to easily get navigation on gps? Talk to your friends or family? Pay bills using your bank account? Imagine there was only 1 app that will allow you to do that from now on. I can only imagine how shitty the user experience is on “Max” but i suppose in time i won’t need to–I’ll have a front row seat to try it out here in the comfort of my home one of these days, seeing the direction things appear to be heading in. I mean shit, we’re probably already nearly there and i just don’t realize it yet 🫠
Declaring Meta a terrorist organisation is a rare win for Russia.
Doesn’t work, though. Every other business in Russia is still asking for WA for contact. I’ve been using extremist excuse for the past year as for why I’m not in it, because I can’t be too arsed to explain that I’m not using an aggressively proprietary phone-only garbage from a privacy-violating corporation. They’re still asking, even after the recent ban. Honestly, I should just straight up report them to the police at this point.
It is indeed total ass. Reporting from the ground here, mobile internet is effectively dead - cloudflare is banned and most vpn protocols are cut after 20kb. There are still ways, like ssh forwarding, amnezia and zapret, but the trend is towards blocking all encrypted traffic going abroad. Complete outages are also common as well.
Wired is a bit better, I see disruptions frequently between my ru and non-ru nodes, but it’s usually between two hosts and relayable, no complete ban like on mobile.
Max is on track of becoming mandatory. It already is for school students and their parents. Gosuslugi (gov services) already show an option to use it for auth, there are alrwady deeper integrations on the way that would make it a requirement.
It is pretty openly spied upon. I’m not touching that shit with a six foot pole, but there were already arrests over things said in voice-calls and I’ve even heard reports of FSB agents interjecting right in the middle of the call, saying they’re being too annoying and force-hanging the call.
I wonder how much this will impact the economy in Russia? It seems they’re is not much point having a smart phone if all you are allowed to access is government controlled services.
Do the major phones get sold in Russia or are they all locally produced?
Also if there is constant outages as well, it’s not just about Internet connection. The impact is much larger on everything.
Honestly there needs to be an open source WhstsApp replacement.
And if you don’t want Signal because its “too centralized” for whatever reason, there’s DeltaChat, SimpleX, and good ol’ XMPP.
Freest, strongest, most glorious Russia!
You would have to be a complete lib dummy not to “target” whatsapp.
- WhatsApp security questioned as Israel remains the only known actor to “hack” it
- Israel’s attempt to sway WhatsApp case casts doubt on its ability to deal with NSO spyware cases
- This Undisclosed WhatsApp Vulnerability Lets Governments See Who You Message
- Messaging apps as covert weapons: Was WhatsApp used in Israeli strikes on Iran?
And likewise you would have to be a complete tankie dummy to trust some putin app.
Yet another example of libs and tankies being the same thing with different imperial branding.