[UPDATED + Comments] At first they steal, and when you win, they kill you
It may seem to some that this is the beginning of some kind of childish riddle, but in reality it is a reality. The answer to it is the Department of Information Technology.
I say in advance that the article is only a compilation of information. Each of you can draw your own conclusions.
[UPD]: DIT replied in the comments
UPD: DIT sent official response
[UPD]: Sites that indicate a link between Altrix and Tactical Labs have been cleaned, but the Internet remembers everything
Part 2. At first they steal, and when you win, they kill you
EMP is a single mobile platform. The point is to give access to the API of Moscow services (utilities, fines, education)
ILCA - Electronic school diary. Old.
OEZHD - Electronic school diary. New.
My application is an Application that is 1.5 years old (and if you take the old versions, then 3.5).
I am a former schoolboy. Just graduated from the usual Moscow school. Now I entered the university.
')
If you are too lazy to read the whole story, just go to “WHAT? HOW SO? ".
I believe that children can study well and even perfectly. I believe that the only question is motivation.
What is in life? And in life everything is sad. Children are often forgotten by their parents. Teachers also rarely motivate children.
Yes, children are not motivated to learn. And the worst thing - no one says to them that, in principle, they can learn well. Children just do not know about it!
The most common lesson is monotonous reading of information. If your school has at least 1 not such a teacher, then you are incredibly lucky! Maybe your child will know at least 1 subject.
I created an assistant. Every child could get someone who is always there. Someone who always tells you what to do.
The assistant unobtrusively shows the child that he can learn well, that it does not need a lot of effort, but quite a bit. And if something went wrong, then the child will instantly know about it.
Most often we are trying to rectify the situation when the child has already buried himself very deeply and it will be impossible to get out of this pit. Somewhere at the end of the school period, the parent opens the child’s diary and asks: “Well, what will you do?”, And the child answers that everything is bad. Then they together try to get 20 marks in a week (if they try at all), and, of course, they don’t succeed, and the child is postponed in his head that learning is impossible.
That is why tutors are so popular for the USE, when a child tries to master everything that he didn’t teach at all over the past year.
Math Explanation: The final grade is the rounding off of the average grade. Average rating - arithmetic average weighted. The more the child gets the estimates, the harder it is to change the average.
Actually it is very simple. It is only important to be near the child from the very beginning of the journey, and not when it is already late.
The application has the main functionality:
1. Tips - the application says how much you need to get the fives to reach the goal.
2. Tips - each item is highlighted in color. Green - goal achieved, you can relax. Yellow - a controversial assessment. Red - you need to prepare for the subject and get a rating.
3. Push notification - the child can not "oversleep the assessment."
Left is the official diary, and my right
The relationship with the application is something like this:
Beginning of the year. There are not many evaluations yet.
1. The child opens a diary
2. On the main screen immediately tips. They say to him: “Hey, boy, you will have 5 in biology, just get 2 fives!”
3. He remembers it.
4. The child opens a diary for tomorrow and sees that there is a lot of homework. As many as 7 lessons, but from the "red" one biology and begins to do it. Especially for the five.
5. The child is postponed at least something of what he did. Understanding of the subject increases.
6. If the child received an assessment, then he receives a push notification asking him to check. If the grade is good, then the child receives praise in the form of a green color and the realization that learning is good is possible. And if the score is bad, then the child will know about it at the very beginning and will have time to correct it.
As a result, the child has a constant situation of success, any problem is solved from the very beginning, and he is postponed in his head that everything is in his hands.
API was not created to create quality applications.
I had to ask the support for half a year to make the simplest update - not to round the average estimate. In the end, they did not do anything, but only reached the moment when they provided a new API.
The request was December, and the new API at the end of April. One month before the end of the school year.
DIT at some point began to develop OEZHD, and I noticed that its users can not use my application because their login is not suitable.
And then the most unexpected happened - the authorization of a competitor was successful.
After the letter to the support, it turned out that they got access to "testing", but for some reason they cannot give me such access.
I also noticed that the authorization in their diary is going on past the EMP, i.e. don't even ask for the password. To the question why they answered me: “We should not disclose the logic of authorization of your competitor”. Yeah, especially this is not possible when data is received directly from DIT servers.
The diary of my competitors gave access to the diary ONLY for money, and also begged money for the analysis of ratings. THOSE. They not only forced people to pay for the diary, but also stole my idea and began to sell it.
Altarix Company - the creator of public services and EMP. "State Services" is the official application for the diary.
Now let's start to open all covers and build a link altarix.ru - my competitors.
1. Find the site cloud4smartcity.com, which is on the same IP as altarix.ru.
2. This site sells active citizen, public services, product KidRadar
3. KidRadar is one of the Taktik Labs products that are the creators of my competitor’s diary (https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Taktik+Labs)
4. For dessert: devs.hostoasis.net on this server has templates for all sites.
UPD !!! the site was cleaned, but the Internet remembers everything
Now we understand that these companies are closely related.
The goal of their application is to make money on the fact that they also did not create an adequate official competitor. They created the State Services, but did not put the words “MRKO” or “Electronic Diary” in its keys, and nobody could find out about this application.
It turned out that if it were not for me, the person who had googled the IDCO would find only their paid application. Without competition.
And the tender was executed and the money for the paid application was earned. Conveniently!
If you enter “MRKO” in the AppStore, you can see that my application is the first, and the competitors' application is the second. Every time, EMP workers tried to find a reason to block me.
The end of 2016. I then parsed the site, and my audience already had 100,000 users.
My competitor could not get through to the first place, although they tried hard, for example, advertised their application in VK, making target for my group in VK .
At some point, 300 users saw an ad that is almost 18+ (just plain vulgar), and when you clicked on it, UC Browser was opened. Most likely, I nakosyachil with Google Admob filter.
The error was corrected the same evening, but it was not there. The site began to change and spoil the parsing. A day 2-3 times.
It became clear that they were trying to "kill me" and I decided that now I would use the API, it would not be banned.
Of course, I was wrong. As soon as I started using the API, I received a letter:
Pay attention to the sender of the letter.
They found some kind of left reason why they blocked my IPA. I thought, “Well, ok,” and wrote that they can remove all unnecessary users. But they did not do anything, but they blocked not: “in 14 days”, but immediately.
Imagine how convenient? You control the EMP, ban me, and my whole audience goes to you!
After blocking, I was forced to go to some meaningless talks in the DIT, but in reality they just pulled time. (Dragged on until I became the second)
For example:
1. Negotiations were appointed in a few hours.
2. At first I was forced to report that there would be no more such errors. After I gave him that day, they tried to find other reasons
3. Drop us the source code of the application.
4. Make an application that works with API, but we will not give documentation
5. If there are bugs in the application, then we will not allow using the API.
6. For several weeks, transferred the meeting
The apogee of the situation was the moment when I was sitting in the office of DIT, with an application that seems to be working like this. It was developed with some very strange documentation and without access to the test api.
We are sitting in a room that was made in Japanese style. I am sitting in the room and 2 employees (1 of the children, and the second of the EMP). One of them says to me: “Are you really ready? We will now enable you access and if something does not work, then we will close it ”, a mockery was drawn before their eyes, and I understood that there was no way back (Yes, and it was not necessary), I answer them:“ Yes. ”
Access is opened and the fun begins. The application worked perfectly, although it was the first launch, but the data was loaded and displayed correctly. Before their eyes there was bewilderment, and I understood that they would now open access to me and I would post the application.
But they looked at each other and they had such a dialogue:
- Well, open access?
- Well, yes, since there are no mistakes
- Right?
- Well yes
“Mmmm ... Okay, Levan, we are closing access now, but tomorrow we will open it.”
And they left. In short, tomorrow they did not open access, but only after a while. And for how long they wouldn't pull, my application was still the first to search. After this situation, I constantly received threats about locks, and I constantly fought back.
For all this time they have not been able to overcome me. I was on the 1st place and stayed.
They blocked my application, but did not think about children, who now have no place to watch their homework.
They did not specifically make a free alternative. They wanted to make money on it.
At the beginning of the summer of 2017, I asked the EMP: “Will there be any changes in the methods or in the functionality?”, And I was told that as long as they do not know.
On August 1, I received a letter saying that the IPA will no longer be there and asked me to inform my users that they now need to use public services.
And who will motivate the children now?
Part 2. At first they steal, and when you win, they kill you
(forwarded employee Habra):
1. In the letter that was sent to me, you said that you disconnect the API because go to OEZHD, and now say that the reason is in advertising. Where is the truth?
After that incident, you returned the API, although you tried very hard to delay the process and there were no problems for half a year. And what are you taking now? There are reasons? If there is - tell
2. Why did not answer about Altarix?
3. In your answer, you say: “Last year a security vulnerability was discovered in the system.”
What's worse: an advertisement that saw 300 people or a security vulnerability?
Therefore, I want to ask the question: “Who can give guarantees that such“ jambs ”will not be repeated?”
Or does it happen that mistakes happen to everyone?
Part 2. At first they steal, and when you win, they kill you
I say in advance that the article is only a compilation of information. Each of you can draw your own conclusions.
[UPD]: DIT replied in the comments
UPD: DIT sent official response
[UPD]: Sites that indicate a link between Altrix and Tactical Labs have been cleaned, but the Internet remembers everything
Part 2. At first they steal, and when you win, they kill you
Legend
EMP is a single mobile platform. The point is to give access to the API of Moscow services (utilities, fines, education)
ILCA - Electronic school diary. Old.
OEZHD - Electronic school diary. New.
My application is an Application that is 1.5 years old (and if you take the old versions, then 3.5).
I am a former schoolboy. Just graduated from the usual Moscow school. Now I entered the university.
')
If you are too lazy to read the whole story, just go to “WHAT? HOW SO? ".
What i'm fighting for
I believe that children can study well and even perfectly. I believe that the only question is motivation.
What is in life? And in life everything is sad. Children are often forgotten by their parents. Teachers also rarely motivate children.
Yes, children are not motivated to learn. And the worst thing - no one says to them that, in principle, they can learn well. Children just do not know about it!
The most common lesson is monotonous reading of information. If your school has at least 1 not such a teacher, then you are incredibly lucky! Maybe your child will know at least 1 subject.
What i suggest
I created an assistant. Every child could get someone who is always there. Someone who always tells you what to do.
The assistant unobtrusively shows the child that he can learn well, that it does not need a lot of effort, but quite a bit. And if something went wrong, then the child will instantly know about it.
As it usually happens
Most often we are trying to rectify the situation when the child has already buried himself very deeply and it will be impossible to get out of this pit. Somewhere at the end of the school period, the parent opens the child’s diary and asks: “Well, what will you do?”, And the child answers that everything is bad. Then they together try to get 20 marks in a week (if they try at all), and, of course, they don’t succeed, and the child is postponed in his head that learning is impossible.
That is why tutors are so popular for the USE, when a child tries to master everything that he didn’t teach at all over the past year.
People pay attention to the problems of education only at the end, when it is no longer possible to solve them.
Math Explanation: The final grade is the rounding off of the average grade. Average rating - arithmetic average weighted. The more the child gets the estimates, the harder it is to change the average.
How to solve it
Actually it is very simple. It is only important to be near the child from the very beginning of the journey, and not when it is already late.
The application has the main functionality:
1. Tips - the application says how much you need to get the fives to reach the goal.
2. Tips - each item is highlighted in color. Green - goal achieved, you can relax. Yellow - a controversial assessment. Red - you need to prepare for the subject and get a rating.
3. Push notification - the child can not "oversleep the assessment."
Left is the official diary, and my right
The relationship with the application is something like this:
Beginning of the year. There are not many evaluations yet.
1. The child opens a diary
2. On the main screen immediately tips. They say to him: “Hey, boy, you will have 5 in biology, just get 2 fives!”
3. He remembers it.
4. The child opens a diary for tomorrow and sees that there is a lot of homework. As many as 7 lessons, but from the "red" one biology and begins to do it. Especially for the five.
5. The child is postponed at least something of what he did. Understanding of the subject increases.
6. If the child received an assessment, then he receives a push notification asking him to check. If the grade is good, then the child receives praise in the form of a green color and the realization that learning is good is possible. And if the score is bad, then the child will know about it at the very beginning and will have time to correct it.
As a result, the child has a constant situation of success, any problem is solved from the very beginning, and he is postponed in his head that everything is in his hands.
I call it wrestling
API was not created to create quality applications.
I had to ask the support for half a year to make the simplest update - not to round the average estimate. In the end, they did not do anything, but only reached the moment when they provided a new API.
The request was December, and the new API at the end of April. One month before the end of the school year.
What kind of new API?
DIT at some point began to develop OEZHD, and I noticed that its users can not use my application because their login is not suitable.
And then the most unexpected happened - the authorization of a competitor was successful.
After the letter to the support, it turned out that they got access to "testing", but for some reason they cannot give me such access.
I also noticed that the authorization in their diary is going on past the EMP, i.e. don't even ask for the password. To the question why they answered me: “We should not disclose the logic of authorization of your competitor”. Yeah, especially this is not possible when data is received directly from DIT servers.
WHAT? HOW SO?
The diary of my competitors gave access to the diary ONLY for money, and also begged money for the analysis of ratings. THOSE. They not only forced people to pay for the diary, but also stole my idea and began to sell it.
Altarix Company - the creator of public services and EMP. "State Services" is the official application for the diary.
Now let's start to open all covers and build a link altarix.ru - my competitors.
1. Find the site cloud4smartcity.com, which is on the same IP as altarix.ru.
2. This site sells active citizen, public services, product KidRadar
3. KidRadar is one of the Taktik Labs products that are the creators of my competitor’s diary (https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Taktik+Labs)
4. For dessert: devs.hostoasis.net on this server has templates for all sites.
UPD !!! the site was cleaned, but the Internet remembers everything
Now we understand that these companies are closely related.
The goal of their application is to make money on the fact that they also did not create an adequate official competitor. They created the State Services, but did not put the words “MRKO” or “Electronic Diary” in its keys, and nobody could find out about this application.
It turned out that if it were not for me, the person who had googled the IDCO would find only their paid application. Without competition.
And the tender was executed and the money for the paid application was earned. Conveniently!
Cat and mouse
If you enter “MRKO” in the AppStore, you can see that my application is the first, and the competitors' application is the second. Every time, EMP workers tried to find a reason to block me.
The end of 2016. I then parsed the site, and my audience already had 100,000 users.
My competitor could not get through to the first place, although they tried hard, for example, advertised their application in VK, making target for my group in VK .
At some point, 300 users saw an ad that is almost 18+ (just plain vulgar), and when you clicked on it, UC Browser was opened. Most likely, I nakosyachil with Google Admob filter.
The error was corrected the same evening, but it was not there. The site began to change and spoil the parsing. A day 2-3 times.
It became clear that they were trying to "kill me" and I decided that now I would use the API, it would not be banned.
Of course, I was wrong. As soon as I started using the API, I received a letter:
Pay attention to the sender of the letter.
They found some kind of left reason why they blocked my IPA. I thought, “Well, ok,” and wrote that they can remove all unnecessary users. But they did not do anything, but they blocked not: “in 14 days”, but immediately.
Imagine how convenient? You control the EMP, ban me, and my whole audience goes to you!
After blocking, I was forced to go to some meaningless talks in the DIT, but in reality they just pulled time. (Dragged on until I became the second)
For example:
1. Negotiations were appointed in a few hours.
2. At first I was forced to report that there would be no more such errors. After I gave him that day, they tried to find other reasons
3. Drop us the source code of the application.
4. Make an application that works with API, but we will not give documentation
5. If there are bugs in the application, then we will not allow using the API.
6. For several weeks, transferred the meeting
The apogee of the situation was the moment when I was sitting in the office of DIT, with an application that seems to be working like this. It was developed with some very strange documentation and without access to the test api.
We are sitting in a room that was made in Japanese style. I am sitting in the room and 2 employees (1 of the children, and the second of the EMP). One of them says to me: “Are you really ready? We will now enable you access and if something does not work, then we will close it ”, a mockery was drawn before their eyes, and I understood that there was no way back (Yes, and it was not necessary), I answer them:“ Yes. ”
Access is opened and the fun begins. The application worked perfectly, although it was the first launch, but the data was loaded and displayed correctly. Before their eyes there was bewilderment, and I understood that they would now open access to me and I would post the application.
But they looked at each other and they had such a dialogue:
- Well, open access?
- Well, yes, since there are no mistakes
- Right?
- Well yes
“Mmmm ... Okay, Levan, we are closing access now, but tomorrow we will open it.”
And they left. In short, tomorrow they did not open access, but only after a while. And for how long they wouldn't pull, my application was still the first to search. After this situation, I constantly received threats about locks, and I constantly fought back.
Results
For all this time they have not been able to overcome me. I was on the 1st place and stayed.
They blocked my application, but did not think about children, who now have no place to watch their homework.
They did not specifically make a free alternative. They wanted to make money on it.
At the beginning of the summer of 2017, I asked the EMP: “Will there be any changes in the methods or in the functionality?”, And I was told that as long as they do not know.
On August 1, I received a letter saying that the IPA will no longer be there and asked me to inform my users that they now need to use public services.
And who will motivate the children now?
Part 2. At first they steal, and when you win, they kill you
UPD. Official answer DIT
(forwarded employee Habra):
Artyom Yermolaev: "From September 1, 2017, third-party developer access to the E-Diary API is terminated"
Yesterday, in the public space with the filing of developers, information appeared that the Department of Information Technology is blocking access to the Electronic Diary API for third-party structures. We want to clarify the position - we really closed access to all third-party developers, to all without exception, and did it consciously.
The reasons for this decision are cases of violation of ethical standards by third-party mobile diary application developers, as well as our plans, including in connection with such cases, to significantly raise the level of information security of students when working with the diary. Last year, a security vulnerability was discovered in the system, in particular, in the API, so we decided to transfer the diary to a single authorization system and receive information on a city free resource - on the official website of the Moscow Mayor mos.ru. This process takes time.
What do changes mean? Firstly, only a person who has passed full authorization on the official resource can enter the diary (that is, correctly and reliably indicated his phone number and e-mail, and we were able to identify him uniquely in the databases). Secondly, to protect information about the child, as well as to protect the child from unethical, unauthorized information, we will use the same levels of protection that we use when providing other public services and services.
It is believed that the estimates in the diary and homework - this is not confidential, not critical information. However, not many people take into account the fact that the diary also stores contact information of the child and his parent, and that the diary is an additional platform for showing content to the child. The negligence or inexperience of some third-party developers, their unwillingness to deeply analyze the consequences of their work, have caused pornographic materials to be posted in one of the most massive unofficial mobile diary applications at the height of the past academic year. This incident has created a serious resonance among the parents. Complaints were filed on DIT, in some cases - lawsuits. Because of this story, we almost buried the Electronic Diary, because the public destroyed us. At the same time, a respected developer of this application to the question of how this could happen, he himself answers in his post “most likely, I messed up with Google Admob filter”. He refers to this occasion as just an error, which, meanwhile, led to the fact that thousands of children saw content that they should not have seen. Who can guarantee that such “shoals” will not be repeated?
DIT can give such a guarantee only in official diary applications. That is why it was decided to close access to the diary for unofficial resources.
At the same time, we are aware that popular applications have become popular because they provided residents with a demanded service, had certain functional advantages in comparison with the official diary. We are ready to adopt a positive experience, developments, discuss possible formats of work with third-party developers, so that efforts aimed at the implementation of a convenient product for residents will not be wasted. Therefore, I would like to publicly invite Levan to a meeting to discuss the details of further work. ”
UPD. DIT answer from author
1. In the letter that was sent to me, you said that you disconnect the API because go to OEZHD, and now say that the reason is in advertising. Where is the truth?
After that incident, you returned the API, although you tried very hard to delay the process and there were no problems for half a year. And what are you taking now? There are reasons? If there is - tell
2. Why did not answer about Altarix?
3. In your answer, you say: “Last year a security vulnerability was discovered in the system.”
What's worse: an advertisement that saw 300 people or a security vulnerability?
Therefore, I want to ask the question: “Who can give guarantees that such“ jambs ”will not be repeated?”
Or does it happen that mistakes happen to everyone?
Part 2. At first they steal, and when you win, they kill you
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/335010/
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