On: Revealed: How Russia use mobile ‘super-app’ Max to spy on its citizens

A button, violet-blue, and tens of millions pressed it. The state did not pick a single lock. It did not need to. It asked, and the pockets opened, and the phones were filled with a listener, and the pockets closed again.

They say some were forced. I believe it. But count the enforcers. A few thousand clerks against eighty million phones - the arithmetic does not close unless the many do the carrying themselves. The clerk does not install the app. The owner does, with his own thumb, often gratefully, sometimes proudly, calling it patriotism.

Patriotism. If a neighbor asked to read my letters, hear my room, watch what I pay for bread, I would end the acquaintance. If he insisted, I would bar the door. Yet a stranger with a title asks for all of it at once, through a button, and is welcomed in. Explain the difference to me. I have tried and cannot find it.

The strangest part is not the spying. Spies have always existed; that is their trade, and I expect no honesty from the trade. The strangest part is the installation. A man would not leave his kitchen window open overnight. He installs a window that never shuts, then charges it each night so it can stay awake while he sleeps.

They call it an alternative to other apps. An alternative to what - to the other listener they already obeyed? Swapping one key for another and calling the swap a choice.

I keep asking why, and the only answer I find is habit: they pressed the button the way one says good morning, without ever noticing that good morning is not a law of nature.