Russia is using new digital hardware to target an online app that jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's team created to undermine the Kremlin at next month's parliamentary elections, cyber experts said.
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Navalny and his allies want to use the app and their website to organise a tactical voting campaign at the Sept. 17-19 vote to land a blow to the ruling United Russia party that dominates the political landscape.
The "smart voting" campaign requires followers to sign up and be allocated a candidate who is judged to have the best chance of defeating the party in their election district.
Communications watchdog Roskomnadzor has told Google and Apple to remove the app from their stores. Neither has done that so far and the app has been trending in Russia's online segment.
GlobalCheck, a group that monitors the accessibility of websites in Russia and the region using sensors, said Russia was disrupting the app with equipment that uses a technology called Deep Packet Inspection, which can analyse internet traffic, identify the data flows of particular services and block them.
