Russia Blocks Apple's FaceTime Amid Crackdown on Encrypted Apps

[phalseHUD]

The ‘state’ is your enemy, not your friend - and the sooner people realise this, the better.

And don’t think living in a western deMOCKracy will save you. You only have to look at what happened during the plandemic to know how THEY regard us.

Apple talks about courage… This is no time to go missing.

 

[MNGR]

This is not surprising. Why should they trust any apps coming from western countries? I’m sure the US government has backdoors into every messaging app on Apple or Google devices.

They don’t want the US government snooping in on their citizens devices.

This is no different than the US forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok.

do you have any evidence??

 

[ikramerica]

No surprise coming from Russia, I wonder is this will ever happen in “western countries”. Sometimes we take our liberties for granted.

No surprise coming from a country at war.

Look at the USA during WWII. It was similarly paranoid and every telegram was read, phone calls were listened to, the postal service would allow letters to be read.

 

[Happy_John]

The ‘state’ is your enemy, not your friend - and the sooner people realise this, the better.

And don’t think living in a western deMOCKracy will save you. You only have to look at what happened during the plandemic to know how THEY regard us.

Apple talks about courage… This is no time to go missing.

You would be absolutely crazy to side with a corporation, who are only beholden to their shareholders, over the public servants who you ejected to their positions. The clue is in their name; servant of the public. You are their employer.

To put it another way; in a functional democracy, hopefully a republic with a constitution that a government cannot corcumvent, you, the citizen, can make elected officials answerable for their decisions and actions. Because, again, they are answerable to you because you are their employer. You pay their wages.

Unless you are a shareholder, a corporation has no obligation to be answerable to you.

It is insane to choose corporations over democratic goveramce. It’s a truly insane and masochistic version of Stockholm Syndrome.

TLDR- Musk is not your mate (as just one example). He has his interests at heart, not yours.

 

[ikramerica]

What’s old is new again.
Democracy is a mirage.
Weapons just have a larger blast radius.

Generational dynamics.

You just need 2 generations between something bad and the present for the younger generation to not see it as bad, and their children will embrace it.

One main reason the USA wasn’t socialist by 1945 was because the war shook us out of it for a while. When you spend blood, sweat and tears, soldier lives and MONEYon fighting for “freedom” it puts a 2 generation pause on giving up freedoms for security. But it keeps coming back.

Then Vietnam reset it again, but less so.

But it’s 50 years later, 2 generations, with no wars against socialist, communist or marxist foes, and well over 50% of those under 30 are willing to embrace socialist authoritarianism, to preserve “democracy” this time.

 

[mrr]

No surprise. Putin is a dictator and murderer.

 

[Happy_John]

Generational dynamics.

You just need 2 generations between something bad and the present for the younger generation to not see it as bad, and their children will embrace it.

One main reason the USA wasn’t socialist by 1945 was because the war shook us out of it for a while. When you spend blood, sweat and tears, soldier lives and MONEYon fighting for “freedom” it puts a 2 generation pause on giving up freedoms for security. But it keeps coming back.

Then Vietnam reset it again, but less so.

But it’s 50 years later, 2 generations, with no wars against socialist, communist or marxist foes, and well over 50% of those under 30 are willing to embrace socialist authoritarianism, to preserve “democracy” this time.

Meh, you’re right about generational ignorance, but why they hell do you think the “enemy” is socialism/communism?

There is NO socialist / communist threat whatsoever.

There is very much a threat of unfettered oligarchy, where the sillily rich can do what they like at the expense of everyone else.

I’m mean, it really is the plot of the Star Wars prequal trilogy. It is that simplistically stupid.

There is NO “reds under the bed “socialist, cultural Marxist” threat. There’s the reality of a tiny amount of rich people getting richer and everyone else wondering why everything costs so much money.

 

[phalseHUD]

You would be absolutely crazy to side with a corporation, who are only beholden to their shareholders, over the public servants who you ejected to their positions. The clue is in their name; servant of the public. You are their employer.

To put it another way; in a functional democracy, hopefully a republic with a constitution that a government cannot corcumvent, you, the citizen, can make elected officials answerable for their decisions and actions. Because, again, they are answerable to you because you are their employer. You pay their wages.

Unless you are a shareholder, a corporation has no obligation to be answerable to you.

It is insane to choose corporations over democratic goveramce. It’s a truly insane and masochistic version of Stockholm Syndrome.

TLDR- Musk is not your mate (as just one example). He has his interests at heart, not yours.

I’m not advocating choosing a corp over “democratic governance”. I’m also not saying Apple is your friend - I agree that Apple is interested in its shareholders, bottom line and image. Apple talks about courage though, doesn’t it? How many examples do we have of Apple displaying REAL courage?

Govern me harder - that’s the insane and masochistic version of Stockholm Syndrome (IMO).

It’s interesting you mention Mr Musk, I’ve no time for him or any other technocrat.

Sorry to just come back on points, my cynicism is off the charts and has been a while. Think I need a sleep… 👍🏻

 

[Happy_John]

I’m not advocating choosing a corp over “democratic governance”. I’m also not saying Apple is your friend - I agree that Apple is interested in its shareholders, bottom line and image. Apple talks about courage though, doesn’t it? How many examples do we have of Apple displaying REAL courage?

Govern me harder - that’s the insane and masochistic version of Stockholm Syndrome (IMO).

It’s interesting you mention Mr Musk, I’ve no time for him or any other technocrat.

Sorry to just come back on points, my cynicism is off the charts and has been a while. Think I need a sleep… 👍🏻

So what you advocating here? What point are you trying to make?

Anarchy? Anarchism? Or are you just being an „edgy edgelord” with your profile pic and binary sig, but no substance behind it? Is it just a fashion choice?

Anarchsm is great in small communities, but anarchizm is simply not scalable beyond about 30-50 individuals.

 

[JosephAW]

Privacy is an illusion in 2025, even for US citizens, there are government server farms that can break Apple’s Secure Enclave and encryption.
There’s probably NDA‘s that Apple was forced to sign with various countries that they can’t even alert us that they’ve already been compromised and this back-and-forth is just an illusion to make people think that they’re secure.
The general rule is when in doubt, don’t.
Snail mail is probably the most secure way to send communications in 2025. My 2¢

 

[whatnot]

Govern me harder - that’s the insane and masochistic version of Stockholm Syndrome (IMO).

you think THEY can't see behind your mask? that whole pizza basement is abuzz!

 

[Yrmmont]

I use Nordvpn (primarily for unsecured networks and banking) and have used Jetico’s Bestcrypt for secure communication. I just do not trust the current administration in Washington as the Supreme Court appears to be in his back pocket.

 

[Jetscreamer]

In my opinion, all Western tech (and other) companies should stop providing ANY services to rogue, aggressively hostile dictatorships, among which russia currently is one of the worst and most reprehensible.

Uh oh, that means the United States as well.

 

[HazeAndHahmahneez]

No FaceTime plus -800 degree weather summer or fall?

yeah…Russia…let’s move there and never look back!

Vacation??? Staycation!

 

[lfaa]

Meta has clearly given Russia a backdoor into WhatsApp communications.

Then why has been WhatsApp banned too?

 

[Schnegg]

The West is headed in the same direction with Digital ID, Chat Control, big tech plugging into Palantir etc.

 

[UliBaer]

This is just helpless shenanigans...

 

[chmania]

You need two to tango. Sanctions go both ways.

 

[Regulus67]

Your friend must know something about VPN living in russia.
...

It is true that they use VPNs. And I thought it was a good idea to give a ProtonVPN 2 year sub, as I use it as well. With ProtonMail included. But the service provider seems to block it. And she was upset I wasted money for nothing 😆 But she is using a VPN that her nephew set up.
I met him when he was still a kid, back in 2008. Now he is a grown man

I did talk to her yesterday, so yes. It is still working. Just worried if it will be cut off.

edit:
Several years ago we used Skype. But it was unstable, dropping calls often. FaceTime has been very stable. Rarely any issues at all 👍

 

[wanha]

Incidentally, I've been re-watching "Chernobyl" (2016) this past week. Based on how things have unfolded since that incident, it doesn't look like the Russian people are gonna rise up any time soon.

If I'm Xi Xinping I'm looking at Russia, licking my chops and thinking "They're out-funded, out-gunned, and out-numbered ten-to-one. (Too bad the translation probably doesn't rhyme)

I bet China is exploring every avenue to neutralize potential nuclear retaliation. Then they slowly creep into Russian territory and, when questioned, give the old "whoa, hey, no, this is our land. always been that way. see this map? yup. ours." You know, like Russia did with Ukraine.

there's just the small problem of Russian nuclear weapons, which is why Nato has chickened out of any and all armed conflict with Russia so far

 

[wanha]

So, India wants its "Government app", EU & UK want more control, China is already in control... lol

What was that commercial again about how 1984 won't be like 1984?
Well, 2034 could be a lot like 1984...

1984 is often reduced to clichés like “Big Brother,” “thoughtcrime,” “doublethink” — but its central point is actually a warning about how authoritarian power deforms truth, language, and even the individual’s inner life.

It's 2025 and we're there already in many parts of the world.

 

[iPadified]

Not surprising. What has Russia to offer as a country? Cultural leaders - no. Scientific leaders - No. Societal leader-no. Russia offers oppression and war - old feudal virtues. Very sad development for a country. Declining population and switch to renewable energy indicate bleak prospects. How to stay relevant? War and plunder... We have seen too much of this in Europe.

 

[chmania]

there's just the small problem of Russian nuclear weapons, which is why Nato has chickened out of any and all armed conflict with Russia so far

And there's the other "small" problem of the US needing to buy nuclear fuel from Russia to maintain its nuclear power generation all this time. It appears that the US imports around 25% of that fuel from Russia. We might be using that Russian-powered electricity in our homes.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

I don't mean any disrespect, but were the parts of Moscow you were in last year really representative of daily life in the Russian federation as a whole?

Moscow and St.Petersburg as a whole are very different from the rest of the country. Those are very wealthy cities with very high living standards. People are surprised when I told them that Moscow now has more skyscrapers than Singapore. They have very impressive shopping malls and one of the best metro networks in the world. It seems that Russia puts a lot of resources into those to cities. Poor people can't afford those cities anyway.

In western countries you see a similar trend though. London and Paris are so much richer than the rest of the UK and France. New York City also is far more expensive than the rest of the US.

No, the UK is not trying to ban end-to-end encryption entirely, but it is pushing for access to encrypted data, particularly to combat child sexual abuse

Accessing the unencrypted version of encrypted data is not compatible with end-to-end encryption though. It would mean that unencrypted data leaves the device, so that authorities can access it.

 

[Beligerent]

Russia has blocked Apple's FaceTime video calling app in an ongoing effort to eliminate private communication methods, reports Reuters. Russia claims FaceTime is being used for criminal activity, and that blocking the app is a legitimate law enforcement measure. Social network Snapchat and multiplayer gaming platform Roblox were also banned this week.

Multiple other apps and services have been blocked in Russia previously. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Discord, and LinkedIn are unavailable and can't be accessed without a VPN. Russia throttles YouTube heavily to make it almost unusable, and since 2022, TikTok has had a Russia-only feed that does not include content from other countries.

Viber and Signal are banned in the country, and Russians are not able to make calls through WhatsApp or Telegram as of earlier this year. Messaging on those apps is also restricted.

In a statement to Reuters, Russia's media regulator Roskomnadzor said the following:

FaceTime is now restricted nationwide, and has likely been blocked at the network level, so it may still be accessible through a VPN. Moscow residents are seeing a "User unavailable" message when attempting to use FaceTime, which is the error displayed when a FaceTime call is unable to connect. The app still opens and activates, so Apple hasn't removed it.

Russia claims that the app is used for coordinating illegal activity, with no option for the Federal Security Service (FSB) to monitor calls. Apple has declined to allow the FSB to access FaceTime traffic, and the company has not budged on end-to-end encryption.

FaceTime likely wasn't banned earlier because Russia initially focused on more widely used apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. When voice and video calling were banned in those apps, Russians transitioned to FaceTime as an alternative, making it a government target.

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Article Link: Russia Blocks Apple's FaceTime Amid Crackdown on Encrypted Ap

Couldn’t literally any app be used in a criminal way?