Russia’s Max: The unencrypted super-app being forced on citizens

Warsaw: Russia is pushing its Max messenger — a social media platform without encryption — onto its citizens with a massive promotion campaign and the simultaneous blocking of Whatsapp and Telegram, the country’s two most popular messenger apps.
The rollout has raised concerns among critics and digital rights groups that Moscow will use Max to surveil its citizens and further cut digital links to the West.

“Any data that passes through this application can be considered to be in the hands of its owner, and in this case, the hands of the Russian state,” cybersecurity researcher Baptiste Robert, CEO of the French company Predicta Lab, told AFP.