Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin • Hacker News Board

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#581

Post by blacktriangle » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #506

blacktriangle wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us?

> Where does the US MSM and social media refusing to cover anything about Hunter Biden put us? I'm not a huge fan of Joe Biden (as you can probably infer from my comments here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28550896 ), but the Hunter Biden stuff was a shameless distraction with no real substance. So to answer your question: if the US MSM and social media was required to run smears of a sitting president against…

A presidential candidates crackhead son laundering payoffs from foreign governments is a distraction?

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#582

Post by varjag » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

Dah00n wrote: post #159

baybal2 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you think you know better what is good for the Russian people and the opposition groups than Russians and the opposition groups themselves? Because if regime's economy collapses, the regime will collapse sooner.

And then we likely have a pure dictatorship with the worlds second biggest nuclear arsenal and thousands of Russians will likely die from things like starvation and being killed by the new regime (or the old while it dies). No-one wins by killing off a regime. That is "let's bomb this country into democracy" thinking.

It is a pure dictatorship for a while now.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#583

Post by Nemerie » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 6:27 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #374

machomaster wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0. Well, it is being done when possible. But it's not a 100% way of reaching people. 1. State terrorism. People are genuinely afraid to give their email addresses, and for a good reason. 2. Email delivery. Email doesn't work as good as you think. In addition to the typical technical email delivery problems, there are also specific to Russia. Many people are using local Russian email services. But those have shown to…

0. if you send an email with a command, 99% of mail services will not spam-filter the reply to it 1. Spare emails, like, lots of them 2. Users of mail.ru and such are their own worst enemy, and it's not like getting gmail address is particularly difficult

> and it's not like getting gmail address is particularly difficult

Last time I checked I couldn't create a new gmail account without a new phone number.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#584

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #409

Veen wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Such PWA is easy to block because the government can block a website with it. They can also block whichever server is hosting the API native apps connect to. Doesn't seem much of a win for native on that front, unless the data is stored permanently on device.

The app in question ("Navalny app") has a blog and voting recommendations. You can distribute information with app updates or use push notifications to transmit data (for example, new API server IP address and public key). For example, when government tried to block Telegram, it used push notifications to send addresses of new (not yet blocked) servers to the app (of course, you can send different addresses to differ…

The government might have only pretended that it really tried to block Telegram. The app was never removed from stores, and since both G and A did comply with such requests before abd after, I suspect that such request was never sent in the first place.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#585

Post by Grustaf » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #390

Grustaf wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you can have terms of use for things you sell, I don't know why you would think otherwise. In this case it IS linked to iCloud though, as you probably know. Images are only scanned on their way to iCloud, and they won't be scanned if you don't use iCloud.

I don't think anyone who is arguing against this capability, myself included, actually believes that it will only ever be used on photos destined for iCloud, especially if state authorities start pressuring Apple to start scanning everything.

That's because people don't understand how technology works.

They think this is some kind of new system that gives Apple new access to things. It's not. They access they have here is nothing compared to what they have always had.

They can and do scan all your messages and photos already, locally, for features such as photo classification and making reminders from emails.

Apple could spy on anything they want, without this system. And this system is an incredibly impractical way to spy on people.

It's also pretty obvious that they wouldn't tell us if they were planning to spy on us, they would just do it.

In short: I have no idea if Apple spies on us, but I can say for certain that they will not use this system for it.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#586

Post by matheusmoreira » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #317

heavyset_go wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With regards to CSAM, I think the same applies. After all the CSAM issue only exists because the US government has decided that invasive monitoring is the only way to counter CSAM. No it hasn't. There is no legislation that the government passed or enforces that says Apple must scan people's private data on their devices for CSAM. Apple decided to do that all on their own.

But I read from that guy mike Hearn , the early Bitcoin dev that it's like a reverse search. They check the csam database and compare to what is in your files, sounds good at first, but, big concern is...what if governments start to add other, unrelated data to get rid of people who cause political friction and other undesired elements as per their government policies?

> what if governments start to add other, unrelated data to get rid of people who cause political friction and other undesired elements as per their government policies?

This is exactly what's going to happen, especially in countries like Russia and China. Children are just the perfect political weapon to make people accept the system.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#587

Post by anticodon » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #430

anticodon wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine is by no means "destroyed," it is reinvigorated, it's renewed. In all areas of life, it's position severly declined since 1991 and especially after coup of 2014. Population is rapidly declining. Industry is destroyed. Shipbuilding, aviation construction is dead. As almost all other industry areas. Corruption is all time high (even EU leaders openly say this). What is reinvigorated, renewed? The next step is s…

>> Are you perhaps a Putinist? > I'm and I don't see anything wrong with it. He saved Russia from the eventual collapse where it was led by Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their western puppeteers. I'm very grateful to him for that. This is so wrong. Putinism is a absurd, pernicious ideology. Your ideological upbringing been bad. To call a mafia-state, a freedom is delusional. It's like slaves fighting for the right to be ens…

To call a mafia-state, a freedom is delusional.

I didn't use the word "freedom". There's no ideology in the current Russia, unfortunately. Neithr good, nor bad.

I guess you're from Ukraine (sorry, if I'm wrong). If anything, Ukraine is much closer to mafia-state than Russia. Corruption in Ukraine is so high now, that even presidents of EU country alert their citizens to avoid doing any business with Ukraine.

It's like slaves fighting for the right to be enslaved.

Why are we slaves? I'm free to go anywhere. I'm free to say anything in my country. I can say that Putin is bad. I can say that Putin is good. There will be no repercussions in both cases. Unlike in "free" Ukraine, where it is forbidden by law to speak Russian, for example.

Also, you fail to see how US and EU betrayed Ukraine. They don't need "free" Ukraine, although elections are a perfect way to control their puppets: if a puppet attempts to do something unpleasant, there's easy way for US, controlling all the media, to choose another, more conformable, puppet. This is why "democracy" and "elections" are of utmost importance to US in the third-world countries. Easy way to install comprador puppets.

They need Ukraine which they can plunder (via e.g. Burisma Holdings). They need Ukraine that doesn't compete on the global markets with EU and USA, so they destroyed all the industry in Ukraine (it's impossible to deny that). They need a source cheap labour - hence tens of millions of Ukrainians are doing poorly paid jobs in Europe.

That's the freedom I should wish for? No, thanks, take it back, please.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#588

Post by Nemerie » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #424

oliwarner wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that by this point, all this is expected behaviour. If companies don't want to be complicit in these crimes, they need to extricate themselves from the country and cut all ties. If they do want to put profit ahead of everything else, then whatever, but you don't get to defend them as doing the right thing for their employees. They're enabling the whole situation. [Edit to bring in a sister question] "Why don't…

This is the kind of moral framework that creates cancel culture. Pulling out from Russia will decrease many Russian's standard of living, but will have zero impact in stopping them from rigging elections. If everyone cuts trade for moral reasons, then there's no incentive for us not to point nukes at each other again.

It would have a negative impact. The Russian government would be very glad to ban platforms like Google even though Google cooperates with them because it would help to control the population even more. Google discloses emails after request? A local social network will monitor every message for them. Youtube removes a video when it's already viral? A local video platform will ban the channel before it gets views.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#589

Post by ansible » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #524

sershe wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, one party has gone dumb, and the other party is obviously going evil (I am from Russia so you can guess what I think of leftism). The question is whether you prefer your government dumb or evil; I think dumb is... the lesser of two evils. But I can agree on the timing aspect, I'd vote for Obama OR Romney over literally any politician prominent in 2021.

If you're from Russia, what part of the Democratic party looks like "leftism" to you?

The "left wing" in the USA is the "center-right" in other parts of the world. We're still a ways away from basic stuff like universal health care that every other developed country has.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#590

Post by Andrew_nenakhov » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

Nemerie wrote: post #583

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0. if you send an email with a command, 99% of mail services will not spam-filter the reply to it 1. Spare emails, like, lots of them 2. Users of mail.ru and such are their own worst enemy, and it's not like getting gmail address is particularly difficult

> and it's not like getting gmail address is particularly difficult Last time I checked I couldn't create a new gmail account without a new phone number.

For Russians, Gmail accounts aren't filtered on the orders of censorship agencies. It's only national mail services like mail.ru that belong to Putin's oligarchs that do such things