Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Russia restricts opposition election voting app

netblocks.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 244 posts

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#181

Post by davesque »

sedan_baklazhan wrote: post #167

To me it is hillarious that the thing called "Smart Vote" (the one that was banned) means actually "vote for whoever you are told to vote for by the Navalny team". I only found it out a few days ago. This doesn't sound really smart to me at all. Quite the opposite. "Mindless vote" would be more correct. It doesn't care about the candidate's person, political agenda, views, biography, anything. It doesn't care about t…

Am I missing something here? It just sounds like a digital voting guide. Political parties in the US publish these all the time.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#182

Post by ookdatnog »

belorn wrote: post #165
ookdatnog wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing that there are megacorporations which wield too much power. I don't believe it's a good thing that Apple can decide what software you can run on the device you bought, and I don't think the often used security argument is sufficient justification. It would be better if there were other legal ways to install software on iDevices. But if there are other ways to install software, I don't really have…

If there is no power relation then there is hard to argue an abuse of power. Since I am neither an iphone user, iphone developer or parler user/developer I can't know if such power relation exist. However could not the same be said about the app in the article? What does the app do that they can't do through the browser? If apple has no power in this relationship then the impact of the decision should be zero. It see…

Censorship is not always an abuse of power. Forum moderation is a form of censorship. The moderators on HN will delete your comment if it violates the community guidelines. But I'm certainly not against that, in fact, that's why I'm here in the first place.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#183

Post by patrakov »

aasasd wrote: post #157
patrakov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app uses the same technology as some trojans: it connects to different pseudorandomly-generated domain names under Cloudflare protection, changing at least several times per day.

Is there a name for this technique, or a thorough description of it somewhere? So that I could put it in my bookmarks & notes.

Domain Generating Algorithm.

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/2016/12/explain...

Although in this case, the generated domains are all under global.ssl.fastly.net and similar CDNs, not traditional TLDs.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#184

Post by gnull »

Sideyon wrote: post #55
gnull wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ensures Putin's government won't have enough time to subvert the recommended candidates in some way.

But there was nothing to hide, everyone knew that it will be basically "vote for Communists".

It's not true. I checked and I see plenty of Yabloko candidates being suggested

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#185

Post by ClumsyPilot »

swayvil wrote: post #133
ookdatnog wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing that there are megacorporations which wield too much power. I don't believe it's a good thing that Apple can decide what software you can run on the device you bought, and I don't think the often used security argument is sufficient justification. It would be better if there were other legal ways to install software on iDevices. But if there are other ways to install software, I don't really have…

If that platform was owned by the government, or in the public domain. Or not owned by anybody, like the space around our planet. Then such shenanigans would definitely be called censorship and a violation. But because it's privately owned, it isn't. The way it hinges on who's name is on the receipt. Which is just a legal artifact. Seems unrealistic. I mean, the more realistic take is : yes, our whole population is d…

"But because it's privately owned, it isn't"

So if the city officials sell public squares into private ownership you loose the right to protest. Its not sensorship!

Very convenient, I am sure it will never be abused.

Lets try a different example - what if oil companies pay twitter to boot off all climate activists, is that cool?

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#186

Post by maccard »

jsn wrote: post #146
maccard wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They don't have to be strictly unique per user. You can send out different sets of URLs to different cohorts of users, then correlate new URL blockings with client IDs to detect rogue app installations and excommunicate them. Telegram did that when Russia tried (unsuccessfully) block it.

Given this is an app for tacical voting over a 2 day period (which has now passed) all the adversary needs to do is block it for a couple of days. Dns blocking cloudflare for 2 days would pretty much stop this in it's tracks.

(You are right about not requiring completely unique urls per user by the way).

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#187

Post by evmt »

sedan_baklazhan wrote: post #167

To me it is hillarious that the thing called "Smart Vote" (the one that was banned) means actually "vote for whoever you are told to vote for by the Navalny team". I only found it out a few days ago. This doesn't sound really smart to me at all. Quite the opposite. "Mindless vote" would be more correct. It doesn't care about the candidate's person, political agenda, views, biography, anything. It doesn't care about t…

It's "smart" when compared to the previously employed strategy that was "vote for anyone, but United Russia candidate". Now the idea is to consolidate opposition votes for a single candidate in every electoral district that has the best chance to win over the main governmental candidate.

The list of candidates has very little to do with ideological support for the actual candidates on it. Most of them I'd say are crooks and shills themselves, but they are not THE crooks and shills the government wants to see in the State Duma.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#188

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ookdatnog wrote: post #156
swayvil wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that platform was owned by the government, or in the public domain. Or not owned by anybody, like the space around our planet. Then such shenanigans would definitely be called censorship and a violation. But because it's privately owned, it isn't. The way it hinges on who's name is on the receipt. Which is just a legal artifact. Seems unrealistic. I mean, the more realistic take is : yes, our whole population is d…

My wording was a bit careless in my previous post: I didn't distinguish between censorship and free speech violations. If YouTube deletes your video for violating ToS, that can be called censorship (in the same way that a forum moderator removing your post can be called censorship), but it's not infringing on your right to free speech. This is because your right to free speech doesn't entail a right to any particular…

If your internet provider, phone operator, advertisement agency, newspaper and TV station all decide to "not help you broadcast your speech" then you have no speech.

Now, i know this is crazy, what if someone 'encourages' them to make the correct decision regarding not helping you? Someone with loads of money and inflience, that doesn't like your speech? Like an oil company, sensoring an activist, is that still legal?

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#189

Post by neonbones »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #152
neonbones wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They asked, but before this situation, there were no serious reasons for that. But a few days ago, the Navalny organization (FBK) was declared by the court to the status of an extremist organization. They just put the opposition on one list with terrorist organizations like ISIS and the Taliban. For now, Google and Apple ban "another dangerous organization," not political opposition. Google and Apple already censor a…

> They asked I actually researched it. All sources that every story about 'they asked' cited in the end pointed to RosKomNadzor press release on their own website. And it is very well known that Russian government never lies. There were no public confirmation from either Google or Apple that they did receive such request and refused to act on it, like they earlier did on LinkedIn.

There was a request from opposition to Apple about that, and they got an official answer. You can read it on Twitter

https://twitter.com/ioannZH/status/1438750081402953728

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#190

Post by jsn »

maccard wrote: post #186
jsn wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have to be strictly unique per user. You can send out different sets of URLs to different cohorts of users, then correlate new URL blockings with client IDs to detect rogue app installations and excommunicate them. Telegram did that when Russia tried (unsuccessfully) block it.

Given this is an app for tacical voting over a 2 day period (which has now passed) all the adversary needs to do is block it for a couple of days. Dns blocking cloudflare for 2 days would pretty much stop this in it's tracks. (You are right about not requiring completely unique urls per user by the way).

No, it (again) doesn't work like this at all. 1) DNS blocking of cloudflare is useless, you can receive IPs, or names in non-cloudflare zones, 2) IP blocking of the whole cloudflare will bring so much collateral damage (unrelated services going down) that it's a non-starter, politically speaking, 3) cloudflare is far from the only mass frontend / cdn available, there are hundreds high-collateral services out there.
Post reply on HN