During the online voting for State Duma deputies, Muscovites are being checked for VPN use
In Moscow, the Remote Electronic Voting system has begun checking voters for the use of VPNs. This was reported by programmer Petro Zhizhin, who had previously analyzed and described in detail the scheme of fraud in the REMV during the 2021 State Duma elections.
The programmer discovered that the website elec.mos.ru forces the user’s browser to load an image from YouTube, which is blocked in Russia. The result of the check is sent to the voting server. Only after that is the voter authorized via mos.ru.
According to Zhizhin, the voting operator thus receives an answer to the question of whether a specific voter is using a VPN and, at the same time, learns the voter’s identity.
“This doesn’t require any hacking: the two requests are right next to each other in the same log. It’s not clear from the website’s code why the log is needed or how long it’s stored,” he writes.
The programmer emphasizes that the result of the check does not prevent a voter from casting a ballot.
It’s worth recalling that the blocking of Signal in Russia revealed an important fact: even strong encryption does not guarantee that a messaging app will remain accessible.
The YouTube administration has blocked several dozen regional channels of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VDRTK), including channels from the editorial offices in Rostov-on-Don, Murmansk, Pskov, Vologda, and Ivanovo.
