“Get rid of all bourgeois cleaners, speakers and start living like normal people”: an expert assessed how Kremlin bans are pushing Russia backward

He spoke about this on his blog.

In Russia, the expert notes, almost no social networks function without a VPN anymore, so everyone secretly installs one, but avoids calling it directly—instead they write “KVN,” a kind of Newspeak reminiscent of the USSR. During protests against the blocking of Telegram, he continues, there were more riot police than protesters, and, as the cherry on top, the chairman of the Presidential Human Rights Council explained how to live in Russia to avoid scammers. It turns out, the expert says, that Russians should avoid using smart speakers for music, and instead of vacuum cleaners—which could be used for surveillance—it’s better to buy a broom and a mop.

“Well, basically: barrel organs, washboards, abacuses, semaphore flags. I think that’s really the most reliable option. And most importantly—messenger Max won’t help. They thought: ‘We’ll get rid of all bourgeois vacuum cleaners, speakers, and messengers and start living like normal people.’ But no. It was reported that in Ust-Luga, drones (this isn’t me saying it, this is what Russians believe) were controlled using the Max messenger,” comments Mikhail Sheitelman.

That is, he explains, the idea is that Ukrainian programmers supposedly embedded backdoors into Max and therefore have unofficial access. Technically, the expert argues, this is possible—after all, Chinese companies often build surveillance tools into their software, which is why Trump imposed sanctions on Huawei during his first term, so that your phone wouldn’t transmit data to the Chinese Communist Party.

“This is the Russian version of what’s happening in Ust-Luga, and it’s most likely not true. But the fact that they think this, that they already suspect it—that works in our favor. It means that soon they might even shut down the Max messenger for cooperating with Ukraine, or give it a life sentence. They’ll give 18 years to the Max messenger—or better yet, 18 years to Kiriyenko’s son for the Max messenger—because it supposedly transmits information to us about the movement of our drones,” Mikhail Sheitelman concludes.