Live data from Hacker News

Russia restricts opposition election voting app

netblocks.org

121–130 of 244 posts

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#121
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Navalny's website is also blocked in Russia, of course, so you won't be able to load that PWA. (Without VPN/)

Make it easily deployable so that it's found in many different places?

How do you make it so people trying to use your app can find the new version faster than the government can squash the new instance?

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#122
post #73
post #10

- Google removes Navalny's team google document with "Smart Vote" instructions. - YouTube blocks videos with Smart Vote instructions. - Telegram blocks a bot with Smart Vote the instructions

I’m a bit surprised by the telegram one - I thought they were uncooperative enough with law enforcement to blow this off. Guess not?

Telegram can't do anything if Google and Apple threaten to remove its app from the stores. On Android they've started promoting sideloading the app for a while already, but that's not an option for Apple devices sadly.

They've restored the bot functionality for accounts that are registered with non-Russian phone numbers though.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#123
post #66
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, that makes sense. The advantage of a web app is that it can be distributed in any number of ways though. It's trivial to take it and re-host it on different servers, as an onion service, or go the full decentralized route with IPFS or similar.

Yes, you can re-host, but propagating the new URL to your users will take days, and the authorities reaction time is, for high profile cases, measured in hours. Another interesting question is how will you propagate the new URL? To do that, you need some way to reach your users when your website is down. And if you have such a way, do you really need a website?

Just e-mail people an update from random address with GPG signature. That should be the more resilient and hard to block way to communicate information. It's fun when the old proven tech proves superior to new shiny tech.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#124
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people really fetishize the blue bubble this much?

What is "the blue bubble"?

Fully automated luxury space segregation.

https://www.houkconsulting.com/2020/07/blue-green-bubbles-im...

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#125
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Navalny's website is also blocked in Russia, of course, so you won't be able to load that PWA. (Without VPN/)

Make it easily deployable so that it's found in many different places?

At some point you have to solve issue of trust. Bad actors will easily deploy it to many different places as well.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#126

I find some comments in this section quite funny. Russia was blamed with USA elections rigging because someone payed for facebook ads to promote one of the candidates. In this case we have every evidence, that a group of people, financed by foreign organizations, created multiple apps, websites and other sources to manipulate people voices. Wake up guys, such activity should and will be banned in every country.

Most people will never wake up. The system's very existence relies on it. Or alternatively, our system arises from humans being basically apes with very strong in-group/out-group instincts.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram had been banned by Russian authorities with a demand to disclose E2E encryption keys previously, then that ban was miraculously lifted last year. What is happening beneath the curtain is anyone’s guess. Setting aside any speculation as to whether they are in fact a state-backed covert operation, last time I checked it appeared to be a tiny company of undisclosed structure, which—while in a way glamorous/roma…

We now see that Apple and Google routinely remove apps by request of Russian government. How come Telegram was never removed? Maybe the russian government never really asked?

Telegram is used widely by many people, including people in government. Removing Telegram will wreak a lot of chaos. It's like cutting of external Internet. Technically possible, but very unpopular measure.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#128
post #70
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is this app using some other protocols that aren't DNS/http(s) that would make it immune to a dns level block? Because a native app that makes http calls is just as easy to block as a pwa

Not really. You can use whatever you like, the possibilities are endless. AFAIU, the most straightforward approach would be to use Android / IOS push notifications (which can't be easily blocked) to regularly push a constantly changing (to avoid censorship) URL of your backend API servers to the mobile apps.

Unless those urls are unique per user, then the response to that is for the blocker (Russia in this case) to install the app and block the URLs as they change

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#129
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me, which alternatives are you considering?

Some alternatives: - optional: keep the current phone and refuse to upgrade it (a few months) - get a pinephone - check compatibility and get a rootable Android phone - dumbphone and pocket camera

Pinephone is nowhere near feature compatible with either Android or iPhone platforms right now.
Post reply on HN