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Russian Officials Buy Four Times More iPhones After Ban

posted by hubie on Wednesday October 30 2024, @06:55AM   Printer-friendly

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Despite an official ban on Russian government workers using the iPhone, an unreliable report says that sales have risen dramatically.

It was in 2023 that Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) tried banning government staff from using iPhones. Purportedly, it was because the FSB believed the US was using the iPhone for eavesdropping.

Now according to Reuters, local Russian sources are saying the ban rather failed. While the figures have yet to be confirmed by any other source, the Vedomosti business daily claims that purchases of iPhones from January 2024 to September would four times higher year over year.

[...] That rather dispels any idea that Russian officials are rebelling against the ban en masse. But it also points to how the original ban was seemingly far from a blanket one.

Equally, that destroys the idea that the FSB can be serious in its allegations of iPhone wiretapping. It's always been more likely that any ban is a retaliation for how Apple has ceased directly doing business in Russia since the start of the war with Ukraine.

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  • (Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday October 30 2024, @05:12PM (2 children)

    by Frosty Piss (4971) on Wednesday October 30 2024, @05:12PM (#1379452)

    However, the reporting of sales is not from an official source. The Russian government might not wish the figures to be published. It is from a source that would have access to such information but who knows the reason for it being issued.

    So, the data is reliable, just not official?

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 30 2024, @07:20PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 30 2024, @07:20PM (#1379477)

    I suspect not official government figures.

    I looked it up online and the big private mobile network operators in the free world (now that means Russia, unfortunately) are MTS, Beeline, and Megafon.

    Your guess is as good as mine for who ratted out the internal monitoring data. Presumably they have various technical measures to determine what kind of phone a sim is inserted into.

    Probably a good idea for whomever did it to pretend the government released the figures.

    From what I can tell, MTS is the legacy formerly govt provider likely with interesting connections to the govt even today, Beeline is some foreigners incorporated in Bermuda, Megafon is kind of a startup owned by a local.

    So its probably Megafon who released the data, to make MTS (former govt cooperators) and Beeline (untrustworthy foreigners) look bad. I don't think Megafon will get much out of it, unless they release some "interesting" press releases and advertising to leverage the situation. You'll find out in a couple weeks, most likely.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday October 30 2024, @07:21PM

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 30 2024, @07:21PM (#1379478) Journal

    Are journalists reliable? If we do not know the motive for the report you will have to reach your own conclusions.

    --
    [nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]