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Russia restricts opposition election voting app

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Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#191

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

neonbones wrote: post #189
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Read my grandparent comment again please. I was talking about Telegram, and that we don't have a confirmation if Apple or Google did receive a takedown request for it.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#192

Post by ratsmack »

vbezhenar wrote: post #141
selivanovp wrote: post #72

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.

Russia is a democratic state where people elect their leaders. US is a totalitarian state where people are manipulated by oligarch-controlled mass-media, with non-transparent voting process. Oh, sorry, it's the other way around. I always confuse one with another.

I see very little difference in the two countries. Big money and powerful people control the narrative and social structures of both countries to the point that the average person has little say in the outcomes of elections.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#193

Post by gatronicus »

vbezhenar wrote: post #176
gatronicus wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as the gov required google to remove the app they can also require the big email providers to block all emails with links to it. 99% of the people are on the big email providers. Also, you will quickly find out that sending many emails from random addresses (ie: spamming) doesn't work these days, they will be blocked by existing anti-spamming techniques, as evidenced by multiple posts on HN of people trying to d…

> Just as the gov required google to remove the app they can also require the big email providers to block all emails with links to it. You don't need to mail links, you just need to mail required information. Asking Google to filter out some specific e-mail (which could be somewhat randomized for every recipient) probably will not work. > You need to go through a whitelisted mail service (MailChimp, ...) which is an…

> Russia can't ask US service to deny making business with US citizen (for example). It's completely outside of their territory.

Not sure what US citizens have got to do with this. Russia obviously was able to order Google to block relevant apps and documents for Russian people. Why would they care that US citizens can still access them?

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#194

Post by aasasd »

patrakov wrote: post #183
aasasd wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks!

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#195

Post by sedan_baklazhan »

davesque wrote: post #181
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.

It's a guide, OK, I agree. But there's nothing smart about it.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#196

Post by sedan_baklazhan »

bserge wrote: post #173
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…

Yeah, that's how low the bar is in Russia. Anyone but Putin. Which really won't help much, since his friends are everywhere. The whole structure is rotten. But it could start something at least.

This is how low the bar is for Navalny and his team, specifically. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#197

Post by akho »

thriftwy wrote: post #164
akho wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You either believe that this regulation makes sense, or you don’t. France, apparently, is in a situation where nobody cares enough to enforce, but taking the law off the books is not politically feasible. I do not know whether that’s a good thing. As a Russian: the election has a limited relevance beyond a certain type of signaling. The majority of United Russia is largely guaranteed by the “electoral sultanates”, so…

It could still allow for a few independent-ish senators via single mandate district system. If it is allowed to run fairly at least in some locales. Source: observing one.

Sure. How does this relate to the very late publishing of lists? Or to complying with “silent days”?

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#198

Post by akho »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #174
akho wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You either believe that this regulation makes sense, or you don’t. France, apparently, is in a situation where nobody cares enough to enforce, but taking the law off the books is not politically feasible. I do not know whether that’s a good thing. As a Russian: the election has a limited relevance beyond a certain type of signaling. The majority of United Russia is largely guaranteed by the “electoral sultanates”, so…

> France, apparently, is in a situation where nobody cares enough to enforce It is strictly enforced in France. But Internet knows no borders so the statistics of votes (which is is illegal to provide in France during the voting day) are available outside of France (usually in French speaking Belgian / Swiss online newspapers, or Twitter/FB/...). My point is that a country cannot expect that other countries (and serv…

> It is strictly enforced in France

It’s not strictly enforced. Exit polls published outside France are collected inside France. Those who collect with clear intent to immediately publish are subject to French law, and may be fined. Which, from what you are saying, does not happen.

> I am not sure I understand that point

I am not sure how to explain it better. You should not both demand lawful election and circumvent electoral laws at the same time. You can, and people do, but it’s not a strong position.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#199

Post by akho »

gnull wrote: post #179
akho wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing that before the election (I assume your plan, if you were Putin, is to have all 225 “recommended” candidates withdraw?) is more difficult than subverting the, very optimistically, 30 that will get elected.

There is no dichotomy here. If you know the candidates beforehand, you can bully them before the election, see who wins nevertheless, and bully those again. > to have all 225 “recommended” candidates withdraw? Having some of them withdraw is also useful, it's a numbers game.

The candidates are known beforehand. Putin’s men do not need Navalny to tell them whether there is a popular candidate in an electoral district. Consolidation of “protest” votes does not make someone win an election; it gives a small extra push in contested districts.

Re: Russia restricts opposition election voting app

#200

Post by pronik »

I'd like to give a bit of perspective on what "smart voting" actually does and why there's reason to dislike it even if you dislike current Russian government.

Let's say there is a niche party or organization, which is ineligible to participate in the elections. So they get this bright idea: let's figure out who's the most proficient challenger in every district and recommend people vote for them. Seems like a decent way to shift the scales, but with plain majority voting the plan would not change the winner, only the margin he'd win by.

The key point is though: those challengers are working hard to improve their election results, in many cases they are really nice people who really want to do some good (in many other cases, they want to do some good only to themselves, but that's beyond the point). So they campaign and meet people and talk and generally work hard to get their ideas to the public. On election night they manage to snip another 5 percent points on top of their previous result from the juggernaught which is the local United Russia's candidate. They did good, right?

What happens now is that instead of talking about how they worked hard and tried to do some good and whatever, suddenly people start tweeting and telegramming about a great success for "smart voting", which is deemed the only reason the opposition candidate has improved his percentage. People talk about how the niche party (which has done nothing apart from distributing a list of names) is the actual "people's winner of the elections" as they managed to "kick UR's ass" and "make Putin afraid". They don't talk about the challenger candidates, those become puppets for "smart voting" after the fact and without any option to not participate.

Now imagine you are this hard-working opposition candidate, robbed of your accomplishments in the public eye. What would you think of "smart voting" and people behind it?

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