Hey.

The topic of pre-installation of Russian applications will remain relevant for a long time, since officials did not bother to find out how smartphones work, how applications for them are arranged, and most importantly, how the market works. Starting from April 1, all manufacturers of smartphones and tablets have to install Russian software on their devices, but so far everything is not going very smoothly. For example, Samsung began rolling out updates to already sold devices, and made Yandex’s applications indelible.

But in this orgy I am amazed at how the officials got into a puddle and showed their unprofessionalism, they do not understand and do not realize what they are doing. This approach can only be characterized by the phrase “they did it without regaining consciousness.” Let’s look at the pitfalls that “unexpectedly” appeared in the pre-installation law, and let’s talk about the fact that officials do not see any problems. In order not to lose the thread of presentation, I advise you to read the previous material on this topic.

They are in the app store, which means they can be installed!

From several participants in the negotiations with the Ministry of Digital Science I heard a phrase that annoyed me every time. Officials sincerely believed that if an application is present in the Play Store on Android, then the manufacturer just needs to take it from there and put it on their smartphones, the trick is in the bag. Someone painted that they were even shown it clearly and poked at the smartphone screen so that there was no doubt – here they, dear ones, are in the store, and they need to be taken from there.

Initially, it causes laughter, then the time comes to be sad. People sincerely do not understand and do not know how the market works, how the application store works. Legally, there are two sides – the software manufacturer and the owner of the app store, in this case it’s Google. To install an application into the device’s memory, the hardware manufacturer must obtain it from the owner; he cannot take it from third parties, since they do not have the rights to the application. It cannot be taken from the APK file mirror, it cannot be taken from the Play Store, only from the person who created it. The maximum that is possible is a dialog box that directs you to download applications from the Play Store, but does not put them or their icons in the device’s memory in any way.

And here the first problem arises, the law obliges hardware manufacturers to install software, but it has nothing to do with Google, it is not a party to this deal. In exactly the same way, the law does not impose any obligations on the manufacturers of Russian software, officials think that it is beneficial for them to be in the presets and therefore they themselves should happily run in this direction.

In fact, no one, except Yandex, ran, as they did not manage to provide their applications before April 1. It’s like with the onset of winter in our latitudes, it always happens unexpectedly, and a collapse occurs. Some didn’t have time to change their shoes into winter tires, someone didn’t have time to take out snow removal equipment, the usual mess of the first weeks of winter. The situation is exactly the same with applications, their creators are in no hurry to provide APK files to manufacturers, since the law does not say anything about them. They may not provide, by and large, since no one can force them to do it. Of all the software providers, only Yandex was the first to provide its applications and managed to do it on time, the rest were stuck in this complex process.

The fact that the officials did not foresee any obligations for software suppliers follows from the fact that they were the ones who lobbied for this entire law. And nobody began to bother those who pushed through the law with any unnecessary regulations. It looks at least strange. But the absence of any responsibility for software manufacturers leads to another, no less interesting point.

Russian officials promote Western surveillance programs

Very often, unprofessionalism leads to unexpected consequences when people first do something, and then think about what they did. This is exactly what happened with the pre-installation of Russian applications, since Russian officials did not make any demands on them. None at all!

Almost all applications of Russian companies contain advertising trackers that collect as much information as possible about you, your device and what you do on it. Ivan Begtin wrote about this in detail.

Let’s take a look at Yandex.Maps, what trackers this application uses:

Version 10.3 for March 20, 2021 includes the following trackers:

• AppMetrica (Yandex, Russia)
• Facebook Analytics (Facebook, USA)
• Facebook Login (Facebook, USA)
• Facebook Places (Facebook, USA)
• Facebook Share (Facebook, USA)
• Google Crashlytics (Google, USA)
• Schibsted (Schibsted, Norway)

And here is how mail from Mail.ru looks like:

Version @ 7F1100DD as of March 12, 2021 includes the following trackers:

• AppsFlyer (AppsFlyer, Israel)
• Facebook Ads (Facebook, USA)
• Facebook Analytics (Facebook, USA)
• Facebook Login (Facebook, USA)
• Facebook Places (Facebook, USA)
• Facebook Share (Facebook, USA)
• Flurry (Yahoo, USA)
• Google AdMob (Google, USA)
• Google Analytics (Google, USA)
• Google CrashLytics (Google, USA)
• Google Firebase Analytics (Google, USA)
• Google Tag Manager (Google, USA)
• HockeyApp (Microsoft / Bit Stadium, USA / Germany)
• InMobi (InMobi, India)
• Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Analytics (Microsoft, USA)
• Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Crashes (Microsoft, USA)
• Millennial Media (AOL, USA)
• myTarget (Mail.ru, Russia)
• myTracker (Mail.ru, Russia)
• VKontakte SDK (Mail.ru, Russia)

The only application that does not have any built-in trackers is MirPay, the application of the Mir payment system.

Ad trackers exist in millions of apps and this has become the norm in the market. Every software manufacturer tries to keep track of its users, turn our data into a product that he then sells. All companies declare that this is anonymized data that cannot be used to find a specific person. This is a straightforward and blatant lie that benefits many.

As proof that we are being lied to, here is an article in the New York Times that sheds light on how such data is used. You can find the article here.

In the United States, there is a ban on obtaining data from operators to track specific residents of the country (such a ban for surveillance outside the United States and not for citizens of the country does not exist in principle, it is even encouraged). The Ministry of Defense bypassed the ban by buying data from data brokers who received it from trackers hosted in mobile applications. Such data made it possible to reconstruct the routes of people around the world, as well as get a picture of what they were doing on their devices. The fact that this is not personal data is out of the question, you can easily find out who is hiding behind a particular set of data. In the United States, they plan to introduce additional bans on the collection and processing of such data for American citizens, but for residents of other countries they can be used by the same Pentagon, and systems are being created that easily allow you to search for specific people or groups of people, evaluate social events and do much more. … This is not some kind of horror story, this is the reality in which we all live, but not everyone knows about this, including Russian officials.

If Russian officials knew how the applications that data brokers collect, to whom they sell data, and why it is harmful to the state, they might have taken some protective measures. For example, they would require software suppliers to remove advertising trackers during preinstallation and not transmit any information outside. In my opinion, this is a fair deal – the government promotes your software and provides presets, you make versions of applications without built-in spyware. But this did not happen, since the officials did not think about it, as, indeed, about many other things.

Do you know what the Ministry of Finance answered these questions? Enjoy.

“The RIA Novosti Ministry of Digital Science said that they exclude the possibility of transferring personal data by pre-installed applications.

On equipment manufactured after April 1, standard versions of applications are preinstalled, they are used by tens of millions of Russians, the department noted. The software is downloaded from app stores and meets their security and data protection requirements. “

Source: RIA Novosti

Officials have once again publicly admitted that they do not understand how everything works, moreover, another thing is scary – they do not see this as a problem. They do not know that there is such a problem, and they have damaged national security by their actions. It just doesn’t occur to them. A poll on our Telegram channel shows well what ordinary people think about it.

All this puzzles me. Why was it impossible to do well, who was stopping to think, to meet with all the players, to find out how the applications and the market itself are arranged? Why was it necessary to create all this, and with negative consequences for everyone without exception.

I often hear the phrase that there is no need to dramatize, applications have been collecting information all their lives, and no one died from this. So this is wrong, they should not turn our data into a product, and at the same time we do not even know what exactly is transmitted and how, for us this is a black box. Just because bad practice exists in the market does not mean that it needs to be supported, as officials do.

Another aspect that shows the attitude of people, and our officials did not think about them, we, apparently, are assigned the role of extras in this law. Remember that WhatsApp, under pressure from US senators, changed its license agreement to be able to transfer user data to its parent company, Facebook? They did so before, but the general public did not know about it. When people found out about this, they simply began to massively switch from WhatsApp to other messengers, and Facebook suffered a lot from this, they even had to postpone the introduction of this rule for a couple of months, but it still worked in the end. People do not like being a product for corporations, and this needs to be understood, especially if you are in the public service and must respect the interests of the country’s residents (so far, exactly the opposite, the interests of big business are the interests of officials).

Against this background, the catalog of Russian applications, the AppList program, which simply contains applications that are considered ours, looks like an innocent prank.

Reviews about the application show its “usefulness”.

Our money was also spent on this, the Ministry of Digital Development created the application at the expense of taxes, there is a suspicion that this ingenious development, created in a short time, was not so cheap.

Officials of the Ministry of Digital Industry are in a very uncomfortable position, because there are several scandals ahead with leaks of user data, so that they turn out to be personal. This is already known, but there will be more and more such news. And then a simple question will arise, why those whose professionalism and knowledge of the topic are trying to manage the market not only raise questions, but want to shout out loud from the outrageous actions and the harm that these people do to the state. I don’t know whether this is the deliberate delivery of data from Russian residents to other countries, or simply stupidity. The fact is, it doesn’t have to be that way. The situation will soon clearly reach a new level, the only question is, under the influence of external factors, or will the awareness of what has been done wake up, and there will be attempts to correct this situation.

Related Links

Share: 

we are in social networks:

Anything to add ?! Write … eldar@mobile-review.com