Again, about the all-Russian database of all citizens, everything is predictably rolling along the laid rails. When going to a rally or some other mass “petting”, take care of your smartphone in advance, otherwise it may inadvertently “take care” of you in such a way that it will not seem like a little to you later. A little bit about national roaming in Moscow, it also happens.
Recently I wrote about a project really rolling on rails to create a unified information database for all Russians, everything quickly and according to a given plan is “echoed” in all power and legislative structures, you can read our review here. Read the section “Unified register of information about the population of the Russian Federation”, what is it and why? ”. Soon it will be possible to put everyone under a common hood.
On Tuesday, June 2, 2020, the Federation Council approved a law on the creation of a unified federal information register containing information about the entire population of Russia, and, as far as I understand, now it remains to get the president’s signature. You can read a small note in Interfax here, or take a look at the screenshot above.
There is one subtlety here. If anyone remembers, when discussing a few short publications about this database, many wrote that there is no reason for panic, because all this information is already available in different databases. In my review I wrote that, judging by the impressive list of organizations involved in the development, there should be much more information about citizens in this database. It seems to be so, a small note confirms this. Previously, those few who wrote about this database spoke about the presence of full name, date and place of birth, gender, citizenship, SNILS, TIN, marital status in it. All this information is really available, often even free of charge. But if we return to the last note of Interfax, we will read: “The federal register will include basic data (last name, first name, patronymic, date and place of birth and death, gender, details of the civil registration of birth and death, SNILS , TIN and other) and additional (marital status, family ties and other) information about an individual. “
These “additional” data, including family ties and other information – a very broad formulation. Theoretically, under “and other information” you can fit anything at all, but at least what kind of sauna a person visits and with whom he walks in a nearby park. “Family ties” – OK, how do they fundamentally differ from friendly ties? With colleagues at work or at the party? Etc. What I mean is that the promised database is unlikely to be at the level of a primitive HR department questionnaire. It is not for nothing that we are told about “strictly delimited access” to information in this wonderful product.
About Tele2 and national roaming
Strictly speaking, intranet roaming has been “canceled”, national roaming (with another operator) is alive and well. But what do we want from ordinary people if Mr. Nikiforov, when he was the Minister of Communications, confused these concepts? But here we are not talking about that, something else is interesting.
As you can see, they write that Tele2 regional SIM cards no longer roam in the networks of other operators in the Moscow region, I would like to receive additional confirmation from you in the comments. Generally speaking, I would not be surprised at all if this is the case, it is in accordance with the law on communications. If a cellular operator has a license to operate in a certain region, then roaming in the networks of other operators is prohibited for its subscribers. While Tele2 was not in Moscow, its subscribers roamed in other networks (the so-called national roaming). With the advent of Tele2 in Moscow, nothing has changed for regional subscribers, but such roaming was initially prohibited for Moscow subscribers, which caused numerous complaints from Muscovites. Especially the first years, when the coverage of the Moscow region was, to put it mildly, unimportant. Naturally, Muscovites were outraged by such “discrimination”, why should regional subscribers have such advantages ?! If national roaming was closed for regionals, then this is logical and would still happen sooner or later. In general, it is strange that the scheme lasted so long. Maybe there are few complaints about Tele2 coverage in the Moscow region and the inaccessibility of roaming and all this has been forgotten? And then they remembered and blocked it.
Is my smartphone my enemy?
Optional, but it happens. I have already written more than once that the only way to prevent someone from receiving information about your location is to leave your smartphone on at home. It is precisely to leave the house turned on, and not just turn it off, since the fact that the network is turned off is registered and in itself can cause suspicion if you are being watched.
In addition to the fact that any phone, even the simplest grandmother, “with giblets” will sell your route and location, there is still a lot of interesting things. During the period of mass unrest and pogroms in the United States, Gizmodo became interested in the issue of maintaining anonymity when participating in such events, read the material here. If you are in the mood for thoughtful reading of large text, check out the review here. Indeed, a lot of useful and almost certainly unexpected, even for those who consider themselves quite “in the subject.” For those who do not like “Longreads”, who are not fluent in English or are simply lazy (smiley), I will try to retell the main in relation to our realities. Protests are protests, but in everyday life such knowledge will be useful to many. You can be sure that you have nothing to hide, but there may be those who believe otherwise. And if those who think otherwise are right, then it may be too late for you to do anything.
Disabling the geolocation service is good, but little. It can be said that the shutdown is more harmful, creating for you the illusion of your invisibility. Gizmodo predictably advises to leave your smartphone at home before going to an event, or in extreme cases, replace it with a primitive dialer. On the other hand, you may not only need to call someone, but also take pictures or record a conversation. Gone are the days when dictaphones and cameras were carried around. Airplane mode? Yes, he is, darling. However, I read that you still need to remember to turn off Wi-Fi altogether. And one of the authors openly sneers at the “genius life hack” in the form of disabling geolocation, asking the question: “If even with disabled geolocation advertisers know about your location and send advertising accordingly, then are the law enforcement agencies really in the dark and confused?”.
Biometrics or Password? The “good old” password is better. Unless, of course, he is “1234”. It is easier and faster to show your face to your smartphone or to press your finger against it than to arrange for you to be interrogated with addiction in front of strangers. In the United States, it turns out, there is also a legal subtlety. You have the right to refuse to provide the password, citing the constitutional right not to incriminate yourself, even if the police have a warrant for your arrest. With biometrics, this trick will not work – oh, how! I suspect that a similar phenomenon in legislation may appear in Russia.
Turn off all Siri, Alexa and other Cortana in advance, there’s no need to let them spy on you in such an environment. And Gizmodo generally advises to demolish these voice assistants, potentially more harm than good from them. I am inclined to agree, having read some publications about conversations recorded and saved without the knowledge of the owners, there were many scandals. Here, after all, as in the famous joke: “Our voice assistant Vasya is absolutely safe! He does not listen to anything and does not record! Only if you command “Okay, Vasya!” – Stop-stop, if he doesn’t listen and doesn’t write, how does he know that he was told “Okay, Vasya!”? – Oops … ((“.
Activity time. Usually, password entry is configured so that the smartphone itself is blocked after 5-10 minutes of inactivity. You can change the settings and lock the device manually, but in a rapidly changing environment, you simply may not have time for this. Restart your smartphone, it’s easier and faster. If the situation is very tense, then on a modern iPhone it is even faster to hold down the shutdown button and any volume button for a few seconds. And if you press the shutdown and volume button 5 times in a row, a call to the rescue service will start. With “Android” it is more difficult, you will have to configure in advance the appearance of the lock option in the menu by long pressing the volume button.
Gizmodo reminds of the importance of backups, it’s hard to disagree with this. Naturally, the backup is somewhere in the cloud, and not on an SD card inserted into the same device. And do not leave a backup at the last moment. I remember that once I wanted to back up bookmarks in FireFox to transfer them to another computer, I was busy for about 15 minutes. I got angry and became a matter of principle, there are not so many items in this damn menu, can I really not find it? It turned out that in the “Bookmarks” menu you need to click “Show all bookmarks” and already there, among other things, there is “Back up / restore”.
The Guided Access feature is useful if you need to display some information on the screen (barcode, ID card, etc.) without giving the viewer access to the contents of the device. Otherwise, the person who picks up your device does not necessarily differ in modesty and will immediately return it to you, the Surprise! Screen Pinning on Android or Guided Access on iOS. In this mode, you can view one current application or file (depending on the settings), everything else remains password protected.
The author of Gizmodo also recalls that most modern smartphones allow you to take pictures without unlocking the device, and the included sound recording continues to work even after the smartphone is locked. Therefore, just in case, it is harmless to have enough free space to record sound / photo / video. And the publication also warns that, in general, society cannot trust the police and responsible people must themselves take care of protecting themselves and their loved ones. Well, this refers to the Americans, we have a trusting relationship with the police in Russia and, I would say, even friendly, right?
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