[HN Gopher] Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes i...
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Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France
Author : NayamAmarshe
Score : 70 points
Date : 2024-08-29 04:50 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| Arnt wrote:
| https://archive.is/wDlpb
|
| I found it a little low on detail, though.
| sofixa wrote:
| From the horse's mouth, in French and English, the official
| press statement from the Prosecutor's office (it's a PDF):
|
| https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files...
|
| It's a laundry list of accessory to commit crimes + a few
| interesting associated ones like organising to commit crimes,
| and laundering the proceeds of crimes.
| Arnt wrote:
| Thanks. So they're fairly confident about most of it, them.
|
| I wonder about this: <<Fourniture d'un moyen de cryptologie
| n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification
| ou de controle d'integrite sans declaration prealable,>> Do
| you happen to know what making that declaration involves?
| sofixa wrote:
| Disclaimer: not a lawyer, just did some law courses in a
| couple of countries, including France.
|
| From the law 2004-575 [1], section 1, article 30:
|
| > I. - L'utilisation des moyens de cryptologie est libre.
|
| > II. - La fourniture, le transfert depuis ou vers un Etat
| membre de la Communaute europeenne, l'importation et
| l'exportation des moyens de cryptologie assurant
| exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de
| controle d'integrite sont libres.
|
| > III. - La fourniture, le transfert depuis un Etat membre
| de la Communaute europeenne ou l'importation d'un moyen de
| cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions
| d'authentification ou de controle d'integrite sont soumis a
| une declaration prealable aupres du Premier ministre, sauf
| dans les cas prevus au b du present III. Le fournisseur ou
| la personne procedant au transfert ou a l'importation
| tiennent a la disposition du Premier ministre une
| description des caracteristiques techniques de ce moyen de
| cryptologie, ainsi que le code source des logiciels
| utilises. Un decret en Conseil d'Etat fixe :
|
| > a) Les conditions dans lesquelles sont souscrites ces
| declarations, les conditions et les delais dans lesquels le
| Premier ministre peut demander communication des
| caracteristiques du moyen, ainsi que la nature de ces
| caracteristiques ;
|
| > b) Les categories de moyens dont les caracteristiques
| techniques ou les conditions d'utilisation sont telles que,
| au regard des interets de la defense nationale et de la
| securite interieure ou exterieure de l'Etat, leur
| fourniture, leur transfert depuis un Etat membre de la
| Communaute europeenne ou leur importation peuvent etre
| dispenses de toute formalite prealable.
|
| > IV. - Le transfert vers un Etat membre de la Communaute
| europeenne et l'exportation d'un moyen de cryptologie
| n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions
| d'authentification ou de controle d'integrite sont soumis a
| autorisation du Premier ministre, sauf dans les cas prevus
| au b du present IV. Un decret en Conseil d'Etat fixe :
|
| > a) Les conditions dans lesquelles sont souscrites les
| demandes d'autorisation ainsi que les delais dans lesquels
| le Premier ministre statue sur ces demandes ;
|
| > b) Les categories de moyens dont les caracteristiques
| techniques ou les conditions d'utilisation sont telles que,
| au regard des interets de la defense nationale et de la
| securite interieure ou exterieure de l'Etat, leur transfert
| vers un Etat membre de la Communaute europeenne ou leur
| exportation peuvent etre soit soumis au regime declaratif
| et aux obligations d'information prevus au III, soit
| dispenses de toute formalite prealable.
|
| Basically, any cryptography exported/imported that is not
| about authentication or integrity control, or a set of
| other exceptions, needs to be approved from the Prime
| Minister's office.
|
| The exceptions and formalities are defined in the relevant
| decree [2] and it's annex defining the full list of
| exceptions [3] (Ctrl/Cmd+F "ANNEXE 1"). The procedure to
| ask for authorisation is to send a special type of letter a
| month before going into production, and if you don't hear
| back within a month (the directorate has a month to ask for
| more information), all is good. They can request the source
| code, and forbid use if they decide it's against the
| nations interests. The list of exceptions is quite
| exhaustive, e.g. it includes cryptography aboard single
| board computers for personal use, banking, TV encryption,
| etc.
|
| Interestingly, there's this part:
|
| > Equipements specialement concus et limites pour assurer
| la protection de logiciels ou de donnees informatiques
| contre la copie ou l'utilisation illicite et dont la
| capacite cryptographique n'est pas accessible a
| l'utilisateur.
|
| So, if I'm reading this correctly, if Telegram was end to
| end encrypted, they wouldn't have had to declare to the PM.
|
| How the declaration
|
| 1 - https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/JORFTEX
| T0000...
|
| 2 -
| https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000646995
|
| 3 - https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/download/pdf?id=y0_q3mVj
| GocOR...
| Arnt wrote:
| Thanks, that's very useful.
|
| I wonder whether that final exception is intended to
| cover the kind of end-to-end encryption Signal does, or
| rather the kind of end-to-end encryption the Netflix app
| does. Digital rights management. It's not clear to me
| that those can be separated -- doesn't Jitsi use the same
| in-browser code as Vimeo? But it's also not clear to me
| what "not accessible to the user" means, exactly.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Yeah, as far as I understand, exactly this : for instance
| you can't use the DRM embedded in HDMI for your own
| purposes, you have to be a licensee and get access to the
| source code (and a way to modify the chips) for that.
|
| Somewhat relevant :
|
| HDMI Forum rejects AMD's HDMI 2.1 open-source driver :
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41386667
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| "Telegram has played a role in multiple criminal cases in
| France tied to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online
| hate crimes, but has shown a "near-total absence" of response
| to requests for cooperation from law enforcement, Ms. Beccuau
| said."
|
| That's not little low on details.
| Arnt wrote:
| Sorry, that was unclear. I expected to see what the charges
| are.
|
| Has played a role, sure, enough to talk about it in public,
| but I expected to see what the prosecutor thought would be
| enough for a court.
| pikseladam wrote:
| Is there any website owner with a million users who can't be held
| accountable for the same crimes? According to the logic in
| France, since criminals use Windows, the CEO of Microsoft could
| also be blamed.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I have not read the charges, but do you mean the charges are
| literally like that?
|
| Or that the charges are false?
|
| Or that the charges are true but only enforced because they
| want him for other reasons?
| thefz wrote:
| > According to the logic in France, since criminals use
| Windows, the CEO of Microsoft could also be blamed
|
| What a superficial take. Following the same logic, highway
| management would be held accountable if a killer used one of
| their roads to go and commit a crime.
|
| But for _platform providers_ , they (the providers) have the
| responsibility to moderate the content that is hosted
| _publicly_ on their platforms. Which most of the content on
| Telegram is. And if some illegal material is there, they (the
| providers) have the responsibility to take it offline.
|
| Do you have any idea how much, let's say Meta, spends in terms
| of money and manpower to prevent this? How much moderation goes
| on for most of the platforms? Read about regulations in France
| (SREN law IIRC).
| WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
| Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, X(Twitter), Instagram,
| Snapchat, Whatsapp
|
| They all cooperate with governments:
| https://www.engadget.com/authorities-reportedly-ordered-goog...
|
| In fact, google is partly CIA/NSA
|
| https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Maybe these websites cooperate unlike Telegram? First paragraph
| or second one from the article:
|
| "Telegram has played a role in multiple criminal cases in
| France tied to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online
| hate crimes, but has shown a "near-total absence" of response
| to requests for cooperation from law enforcement, Ms. Beccuau
| said."
| ath3nd wrote:
| > According to the logic in France, since criminals use
| Windows, the CEO of Microsoft could also be blamed.
|
| That's a very bad take. The charges are because of Telegram
| repeatedly refusing or being too slow to take down illegal
| content (illegal in France, that is): child pornography, drugs
| ads, etc. Meta and X both remove illegal content when a notice
| from authorities is made, unlike Telegram which drags its feet.
|
| If Telegram was encrypted e2e, Durov would not have been able
| to know of the existence of that illegal content, and could
| have plausible deniability. As it stands though, Telegram was
| notified of publicly available illegal content, and refused to
| remove it, which is a crime in France, where Durov is a
| citizen.
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| > where Durov is a citizen.
|
| Why is this important? Do you think he would not have been
| arrested if he had not had a French passport? I would think
| that all that matters is that his crimes fall under French
| jurisdiction.
| retinaros wrote:
| twitter should def be charged with the same. why when elon
| musk seized it he could bring down pedopornography by double
| digit percentage in a few weeks? why wasnt it addressed
| before? META also recently revealed that they indeed worked
| for the DNC to supress opinions shouldnt we trial zuck?
| ath3nd wrote:
| > twitter should def be charged with the same.
|
| I agree, I don't like double standards
|
| > why when elon musk seized it he could bring down
| pedopornography by double digit percentage in a few weeks?
|
| I am not sure if I got this right. I was under the
| impression that illegal and extreme content and bots on
| twitter only grew as Elon seized it. He fired a majority of
| his moderation staff, right?
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-07/elon-
| musk...
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Is there any website owner with a million users who can't be
| held accountable for the same crimes?
|
| Go and look at "Safe Harbour" rules. Its not a blank cheque to
| say "oh it wasn't us, it was the users". your protection from
| being sanctioned is contingent on complying with requests to
| take down posts(be that copyright or other).
|
| The same thing applies here
| stanislavb wrote:
| Some interesting facts:
|
| - Durov is, according to him, living in exile outside of Russia
| since 2014 - due to Russian gov persecution.
|
| - Since his "exile" - he has travelled 50-60 times to Russia
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/1f2pgg3/pavel_dur...
|
| - Most Russian billionaires that live in exile and are persecuted
| by the RU gov fall from windows (or something tall) quite often.
| Durov has been living lavishly though.
|
| - Russia is trying to protect him now that he is being charged.
|
| i.e. a lot of odd and contradicting moments.
| dools wrote:
| Yeah and Telegram is also the biggest source of disinfo. Total
| Russian operation.
| datadeft wrote:
| Sorry but you can't blame the medium for this. If you do
| please also blame everybody else: keyboard producers, monitor
| manufacturers etc. Do not just cherry pick one vendor.
| dools wrote:
| This is like saying there is no difference between a postal
| worker and the getaway driver in a bank heist.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| One person's 'disinfo' is another's info, that same person's
| info is propaganda to another. The recent acknowledgement by
| Zuckerberg that the Biden/Harris regime pressured them into
| censoring information should give you some thought about what
| is 'disinfo'.
|
| In other words don't be too quick in condemning channels
| which allow voices outside the desired narrative to be heard
| because the day might come than you need to step outside it.
| Given that you seem to recognise 'disinfo' - given your claim
| of Telegram being the main source of it - you can just ignore
| it just like others ignore what they consider or know to be
| falsehoods.
| dools wrote:
| > One person's 'disinfo' is another's info, that same
| person's info is propaganda to another
|
| Yeah the only difference is that one person is right and
| the other person is wrong.
|
| > The recent acknowledgement by Zuckerberg that the
| Biden/Harris regime pressured them into censoring
| information should give you some thought about what is
| 'disinfo'.
|
| Of course they fucking did, and so they should have. Also,
| you think the current Republican controlled senate hasn't
| applied any "pressure" to obtain this statement right now
| for their bullshit committee?
|
| Facebook's statement doesn't say they shut down anything
| factual, just that they took down a bunch of covid content
| "including humour and satire". The shit they took down was
| _still disinfo_. The entire anti-vaccination movement is
| libertarian propaganda (why do you think there 's no anti-
| anaesthetics movement? It's made by the same companies,
| used about as widely and is orders of magnitude more
| dangerous).
|
| > In other words don't be too quick in condemning channels
| which allow voices outside the desired narrative to be
| heard because the day might come than you need to step
| outside it
|
| It's patently obvious that Telegram is a Russian operation.
| The messages aren't really encrypted, the founder isn't
| really in exile, and oh it just so happens that all the
| most batshit crazy conspiracy theories originate there.
| madars wrote:
| >why do you think there's no anti-anaesthetics movement?
|
| for one, I've never been required to get anesthesia as a
| condition of employment. lumping all vaccines together is
| not productive and we don't do that when discussing
| painkillers. there is a movement against OxyContin but
| not a movement against Ibuprofen.
| dools wrote:
| > for one, I've never been required to get anesthesia as
| a condition of employment
|
| You've been required to get anaesthesia as a condition of
| getting dental work done, or any number of routine day
| procedures, or more serious operations. Maybe you've
| never had to have anaesthetic at all, but you certainly
| will at some point in your life.
|
| > lumping all vaccines together is not productive and we
| don't do that when discussing painkillers. there is a
| movement against OxyContin but not a movement against
| Ibuprofen
|
| There is no "movement against oxycontin". There are a
| slew of well documented and successful legal cases
| against Purdue for its misleading advertising of Oxy _in
| the US_ , but there's not like, a groundswell of
| conspiracy theories about it. In fact, the way that the
| Oxy case has played out is a good example of what real
| conspiracy looks like, and how it shows up in the legal
| system.
|
| Sure there are accidental overdoses in other countries,
| and people everywhere every day are either hospitalised
| or die from accidental or intentional overdoses of
| opioids, but not to the same scale. The way that it's
| played out in the US worse than anywhere else and is as
| much to do with the dysfunctional nature of the
| healthcare system that allowed Purdue to behave the way
| it did, as it is to do with the drugs themselves.
|
| Compared to that, the covid vaccine story (and story
| about vaccines generally) is a case in point about what a
| manufactured conspiracy theory looks like and how it
| shows up in the legal system (ie. a series of politically
| motivated lawsuits that fall along party lines).
| hagbard_c wrote:
| > You've been required to get anaesthesia as a condition
| of getting dental work done
|
| Odd, that has always been optional where I've lived - the
| Netherlands and Sweden, mostly. I understand that is is a
| requirement for very large operations but for normal
| procedures it has never been a requirement.
|
| > covid vaccine story (and story about vaccines
| generally)
|
| Why do you insist on lumping together these two very
| disparate cases? There is an enormous gap between the
| small cohort of people who distrust established vaccines
| - e.g. those administered to children, those needed when
| travelling to the tropics, etc. - and the large cohort
| who distrust the experimental SARS2 therapeutics which
| were forced upon the masses in different ways. All you
| achieve by lumping these two together is to increase
| distrust in established vaccines, both by exposing the
| second cohort to the arguments of the first as well as by
| the fact that the negative side effects of the SARS2
| therapeutics are slowly but surely being published to a
| wider audience.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| > Yeah the only difference is that one person is right
| and the other person is wrong.
|
| Says everyone. While there are clear examples where this
| is the case - e.g. SARS2 vaccines do not protect against
| infection nor do they protect against infecting others -
| there are many other situations where 'right' and 'wrong'
| are not so clearly defined. When someone claims a certain
| party or presidential candidate is a 'threat to
| democracy' there is no clear 'right' or 'wrong' as these
| are opinions, not facts.
|
| Your following statements with regards to the 'current
| Republican-controlled senate' show where your bias lies
| and explains why you react the way you do. Now try to
| step outside your bubble for a while - and yes, you are
| in a bubble just like most others (myself included) are -
| and step in another one, say the bubble inhabited by a
| Russian or someone who supports the current Russian
| regime. That person would consider it 'patently obvious
| that Facebook (et al) are American operations. The
| messages can be intercepted by the operators who censor
| on behalf of the American regime.
|
| If you are happy using platforms which are controlled by
| this or that government, fine. I prefer to be able to say
| what I want without either the American or Russian or
| French or Swedish or Dutch (etc.) governments interfering
| or censoring so I run my own services. This happens to be
| dead-easy and nearly maintenance-free.
| wewxjfq wrote:
| The amount of disinfo the Telegram defenders spread about
| this case only shows that they are far from the critical
| thinkers they think they are. Back when there was nothing
| known about the arrest other than it did indeed take place,
| it was the pro-Telegram crowd that was making all kinds of
| outlandish claims.
|
| I can tell from the sidelines that you guys "doing your own
| research" and "staying informed" is a net negative for a
| society.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Since his "exile" - he has travelled 50-60 times to Russia_
|
| That "fact" is disputed. The source of that information appears
| to have relied on unverified information, among other issues.
|
| I do find it odd that Russia is working so hard to get him out
| of France, though.
| jajko wrote:
| Its almost like some PR gestures are irrelevant when actual
| SHTF, and then you see intents and corresponding actions in
| clear.
| cvalka wrote:
| The information had been verified by the Russian independent
| media.
| tucnak wrote:
| Interesting that this comment is down-voted. I think it's worth
| noting that Telegram LLC--as organisation itself--is anomalous
| to the point where it's consistent with Russian "cover"
| doctrine. For example, you wouldn't find ex-Telegram employees
| on Linkedin, Telegram itself seemingly doesn't invite people
| for interviews, there's no ex-Telegram people in the industry.
| Their open source software is developed using fake-umbrella
| accounts such as John Preston, DrKLO, Ilya Laktyushin (Telegram
| Desktop, Android and iOS clients respectively.) There is no
| executive layer in the company, too. Telegram doesn't seem to
| compete for engineering talent on labour market, Telegram
| employees don't go to conferences, are never seen on mailing
| lists of open source projects, etc.
|
| We're simply led to believe that Telegram (a 950M user base) is
| developed by a Pavel, his brother, and their "friends" in
| Dubai. There's no evidence of any physical office in Dubai,
| too.
|
| In short, there's very little evidence to corroborate their
| story.
| Shank wrote:
| > Telegram doesn't seem to compete for engineering talent on
| labour market, Telegram employees don't go to conferences,
| are never seen on mailing lists of open source projects, etc.
|
| Isn't the whole narrative that Durov, who is essentially
| extremely rich as a result of building VK, bankrolled the
| whole creation? For all of the criticism, Telegram remains
| one of the most highly polished and well-designed apps I've
| ever used. It doesn't get bogged down with lots of messages,
| and has regular feature-rich updates. It seems to me like
| Telegram has one of the best development teams on the planet
| in terms of sheer output. Maybe they don't need to compete on
| talent simply because they're paid well by Durov?
| dools wrote:
| > Maybe they don't need to compete on talent simply because
| they're paid well by Durov?
|
| Or because they're staffed by the Kremlin!
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Any source on that?
| gdsfg534 wrote:
| It's hilarious that what you impute to them is, essentially,
| that they don't have enough bullshit: useless management that
| hires endless hordes of bootcamp graduates for no reason
| (then lays them off when cheap money are over), no BS
| conferences without any substance, no hires of overpriced
| American "talent" when they have a tremendous pool of much
| much much more affordable and no less qualified people from
| CIS countries. Also, let's not pretend that a chat app is
| some kind of rocket science that requires a company of
| gazillion engineers and other stuff characteristic of VC
| funded special Olympics.
| Shank wrote:
| In 2022 and beyond, Durov has posted very publicly about
| Ukraine, inclduing support for Ukraine and reiterating parts of
| his history with the FSB at VK [0].
|
| Telegram was also blocked in Russia for a period of time while
| they argued about compliance [1].
|
| I think it is far more likely that Russia understands that
| Durov is one of the most influential people that acts as an
| emissary to their country. His past altercations around VK and
| subsequent compliance with various investigations in Russia
| probably mean they have at least a semi-amicable relationship
| now. The reality is that, for better or for worse, Telegram is
| widely used by a large number of people. In just the same way
| that US agencies can compel investigations with US companies,
| I'm sure that Russia exerts some amount of control on Telegram
| for investigation purposes. But this is what I would expect
| about any messaging platform that isn't fully E2EE.
|
| The fact of the matter is that Telegram's flagship product for
| many people is NOT the messaging system, it's the non-encrypted
| channels system, which has been used widely by various people
| to act as a social network. This system is valuable to
| investigate for a lot of people. Encrypted messaging aside,
| companies usually are compelled to do a minimum amount of
| compliance work with authorities for jurisdictions they operate
| in.
|
| [0]: https://t.me/durov/179
|
| [1]: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-
| atlanticist/whats-...
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| > In just the same way that US agencies can compel
| investigations with US companies, I'm sure that Russia exerts
| some amount of control on Telegram for investigation
| purposes.
|
| Not in the same way, since Telegram (unlike, say, vKontakte),
| is NOT a Russian company.
|
| (At least officially, also quite anti-Putin at its funding...
| less clearly now.)
| trustno2 wrote:
| He also has a French citizenship despite having no connections
| to France, which he somehow magically gotten due to "merit
| foreigner" status in 2021.
|
| Le Monde couldn't figure out why he gotten that citizenship,
| there is very little detail.
|
| >Durov was naturalized as a French citizen in August 2021,
| giving him European Union citizenship. Le Monde described the
| naturalisation as "mysterious", since Durov had not resided in
| France apart from brief visits. Le Monde suggested that Durov
| was naturalised via the rarely used "merit foreigner" procedure
| that is awarded directly by the French government to people
| viewed to have contributed exceptionally to France's
| international influence or international economic relations.
| janmo wrote:
| It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not
| communicating user information to the french intelligence
| services.
|
| Recently have been a bunch of scandals where french intelligence
| officers where involved in murder plots.
|
| - There is "Haurus", a french intelligence officer who sold
| personal information on the darknet, in one case he sold personal
| information including the address of a drug dealer. Something
| that is believed to have helped in his murdered by a
| "competitor".
|
| - There is the murder of racing driver "Laurent Pasquali" who is
| presumed to have been killed by a french intelligence officer.
| The plot involved over 20 people with several of them being
| french intelligence officers. In fact they got his personal
| information and address to plan the murder plot through the
| french intelligence database.
|
| You can Google all this, it is true.
| NiekvdMaas wrote:
| To make things even stranger, Durov was apparently invited to
| lunch by Macron. Instead of a presidential welcome, he was
| arrested on arrival.
|
| Source: https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1828529272539304278
| emptysongglass wrote:
| I find it deeply uncomfortable that the HN contingent is
| rushing to defend the French government on this matter.
|
| The European Union has been angling for more comprehensive
| access to messaging platforms with proposal after proposal.
|
| Everyone here loves to sing the praises of the EU but broad
| regulatory powers is not a clear cut value proposition:
| European governments and those governed have a long history
| of oppression.
|
| What's more, many of the broad regulatory powers have been
| used successfully by despotic regimes like China as cudgels
| not only to break apart monopolies (good) but to demand
| unfettered access to data (bad).
|
| These accusations made by the French government of conspiracy
| on one individual and alleged invitations by a head of state
| to entrap _should be_ chilling to anyone observing. It
| reminds me of what happened to Jack Ma, when Ant threatened
| the CPC 's interests.
|
| If Telegram really was not answering enforcement requests in
| a timely manner, then France should have moved against the
| company either through a direct ban on the app itself or
| other court action. Putting its CEO in prison sends a
| message. That message should be terrifying to anyone who
| values a free society.
| simion314 wrote:
| The CEO can run away and refuse to collaborate with the
| investigation or refuse to appear in court to defend his
| crimes, creating a company to get fa immunity from your
| crimes is not a thing that works.
|
| I read that the guy is free now but he is not allowed to
| leave France.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| And by this point, platforms _also_ have a decently long
| history of being evil (and Telegram seems to have a mixed
| history in trying to combat this natural tendency), so why
| wouldn 't we ?
| 3np wrote:
| Related for context: https://media.ccc.de/v/37c3-12309-a_ye
| ar_of_surveillance_in_...
| EricE wrote:
| It's amazing how many seem to enjoy the taste of shoe
| leather, isn't it?
| yorwba wrote:
| Non-copypasta source:
| https://x.com/canardenchaine/status/1828438807697408059 (When
| Zlatti_71 signs off with "Remylind23" and can't spell the
| name of the French newspaper they're attributing, doesn't
| that make you a bit suspicious? And _Le Canard enchaine_ is a
| satirical newspaper, so it 's not inconceivable that the
| story is made-up.)
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| It has a sarcastic tone but it is one of the best newspaper
| for the sources. Other newspapers regularly cite them.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| The question is whether that statement is a joke or not
| (they do both).
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not
| communicating user information to the french intelligence
| services.
|
| If you ignore the missing human rights activists were using
| telegram and then suddenly disappeared.
|
| as pointed out before, telegram is utterly compromised security
| wise. Its really advantageous that "naughty people" are
| documenting their stuff there as it leaves a loverly indelible
| trail of actions.
| an_guy wrote:
| What does missing human rights activists have to do with
| telegram?
|
| What are your sources on "utterly compromised security on
| telegram"?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > What are your sources on "utterly compromised security on
| telegram"?
|
| Have you looked at the "encrypted" protocol? Wonderfully
| complex, and the key authority is telegram, with little to
| no way to spot bait and switch. But thats the "secret"
| messaging. Everything else is plain text and stored
| centrally.
|
| its basically facebook/slack with better cyrillic support.
| emptysongglass wrote:
| These are all false claims. Messages are not stored in
| plaintext. Secret Chats are E2EE and use standard crypto
| primitives. All of this is well-documented. [1] [2]
|
| [1] https://core.telegram.org/mtproto/AJiEAwIYFoAsBGJBjZw
| YoQIwFM...
|
| [2] https://core.telegram.org/api/end-to-end
| gdsfg534 wrote:
| > If you ignore the missing human rights activists were using
| telegram and then suddenly disappeared.
|
| What human rights activists? What kind of gaslighting is
| that?
| maeln wrote:
| > - There is the murder of racing driver "Laurent Pasquali" who
| is presumed to have been killed by a french intelligence
| officer. The plot involved over 20 people with several of them
| being french intelligence officers. In fact they got his
| personal information and address to plan the murder plot
| through the french intelligence database.
|
| The guy who is presumed to be the murderer is an _ex_
| -intelligence officer, not currently employed by the
| intelligence services.
|
| > It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not
| communicating user information to the french intelligence
| services.
|
| And exactly how many did he condemned by letting criminal
| network run wild on his platform, with little to no moderation,
| and no collaboration with police forces ?
| gdsfg534 wrote:
| > The guy who is presumed to be the murderer is an ex-
| intelligence officer
|
| There's a "he resigned two weeks ago" meme in Russia. Every
| time a police officer or someone else from the government is
| caught red-handed committing a crime, it "turns out" they
| have allegedly resigned a few weeks prior to the incident. It
| seems Putin's regime is not an aberration, they're
| trailblazers.
| maeln wrote:
| Except the guy was working for the DCRI, which has turned
| into the DGSI since 2014. So it has been out of the police
| forces for at least 10 years. Not a few weeks ago.
|
| You can find a lot of information on french media, like
| https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/reseau-franc-macon-
| de...
|
| What would be more concerning is that current member of the
| DGSE were planning a murder (in the same article). But then
| again, they were arrested, and this is why we know what
| likely happened to Pasquali. This is not Russia where the
| FSB can run wild.
|
| Finally, I do find it strange to argue with a brand new
| account who basically just post to defend Telegram.
| gdsfg534 wrote:
| > Finally, I do find it strange to argue with a brand new
| account who basically just post to defend Telegram.
|
| Why do you find it strange? Do you consider self
| compilation of a dossier on yourself a healthier
| practice?
| polotics wrote:
| Well you are looking at crimes by _former_ intelligence
| officers here, also you 'll find two complete rookies, had just
| got in and clearly they were in some weird gung-ho state. If
| you look for those stories you'll be finding plenty of ex cops,
| even SO team members, having gone for illicit easy money one
| way or another thanks to the potent mix of impunity and
| stupidity...
| Unbefleckt wrote:
| Plausible deniability
| sschueller wrote:
| If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far
| away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for
| crimes committed using their services?
|
| This is a very slippery slope.
|
| I don't see a problem with requiring a company to cooperate with
| a court order to release data. However if a company does not have
| this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be
| required to collect such data.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Agreed. But Telegram seems to have this data unencrypted.
| lz400 wrote:
| but that's exactly what's happening. They have the data and
| they don't comply. Phone companies and ISPs get court-ordered
| to release data all the time and they do it or go to jail too
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs
| liable for crimes committed using their services?
|
| They are already liable unless they follow the law to enjoy
| certain exemptions.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs
| liable for crimes committed using their services?
|
| Very far. but france is a civil law system. (https://en.wikiped
| ia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_Fre...)
|
| if you don't comply with legally valid requests, then you are
| going to be held liable for it.
|
| But thats the same in common law as well. If an hosting
| provider in the USA refuses to act on reports of hosting
| copyrighted material, then they are liable for damages. Safe
| Harbour has its limits.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| That's the deal: ISPs aren't responsible for hosting child
| abuse content, phishing sites, crime ring messaging
| infrastructure, or pirated content, as long as they work with
| the relevant authorities to take such content down or hand over
| relevant evidence.
|
| ISPs hand over phone records and anything else they have on
| people. They set wiretaps, they can triangulate users, you name
| it. When the government asks Telegram for information, they get
| a history dump. When they ask a carrier for information, they
| get a history dump (for anything stored on ISP servers, such as
| email or some text messages, depending on the warrant) _and a
| live copy of every bit of information that flows over the
| connection_.
|
| Email inboxes get handed over all the time, and server hosts
| must take down content within days to hours depending on how
| illegal the content reported is. Services like Google have been
| handing out information like "what users were in this general
| area at this time" because they track that stuff (which is why
| Android's location history has degraded significantly; Google
| moved that stuff to on-device storage for this reason).
|
| As for data collection: in some places, the government can
| force you to collect data. Some "logless" VPN/email providers
| have been compelled to turn on logging for certain accounts,
| for instance.
|
| The alternative, which was almost a thing in the early
| internet, was that ISPs were responsible for all content on
| their systems.
| thefz wrote:
| > If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how
| far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for
| crimes committed using their services?
|
| > This is a very slippery slope.
|
| I wonder what is hard to understand. Is there CP/violent
| content in Instagram? Nope. In Facebook? Nope. In YouTube?
| nope.
|
| Why? These companies are held responsible for the public
| content, published in clear, on their platforms and they
| enforce moderation to remove illegal content.
|
| Telegram is in clear and has public content violating the law.
| They should have done the same, they did not.
| an_guy wrote:
| > Is there CP/violent content in Instagram? Nope. In
| Facebook? Nope. In YouTube? nope.
|
| Yes. Infact you can find public groups, pages and channels
| posting all kind of illegal stuff (drugs, weapons, fraud,
| dox..)
| simion314 wrote:
| Really, report them they have to take them down, if they do
| not take CP down then make a hacker News thread , you for
| sure will be on the top of the page.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Telegram regularly takes down such channels too but their
| mistake? They underestimated the moderation team size and
| move at a slower pace than other trillion dollar corpos.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| The main mistake seems to have been to ignore requests
| from law enforcement - and since these requests allegedly
| only numbered in the dozens, it's not a team size issue.
| ramblerman wrote:
| > I wonder what is hard to understand
|
| The fact that you can't understand the difference between
| facebook/youtube and an ISP.
|
| An ISP would have to vet every site they open up to their
| users. Which would effectively incentivize an AOL like
| internet with just 5-10 websites.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Some of European countries has CP laws written to scratch
| moral itch, they can SWAT raid anyone screenshotting some
| games on App Store and their courts aren't going to care.
|
| And then there's likely a real CP sharing groups on some of
| those platforms: algorithms work as invisible cloak for those
| groups, and we in the public without that preference won't
| have idea until police discovers one through a confiscated
| phone.
| mrtksn wrote:
| CEO's of ISP's who reject providing the information to the
| courts and the law enforcement will certainly go to jail.
|
| That's why we don't have network operators for criminals. We
| have seen the demand for it in the crypto(as in cryptocurrency)
| space and many went to prison for running networks and tools
| for criminals, especially people running cryptocurrency
| tumblers were caught, prosecuted and imprisoned.
|
| I don't believe in a CEO that takes on the law enforcement for
| higher morals or even money, that's mafia's line of work. In
| some cases maybe its possible to have high moral outlaws but
| they will have to shoot at the police when they are coming to
| make an arrest.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| > ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services?
|
| If you host illegal content from your home network, the police
| alert your ISP, and the ISP did nothing, you can be sure the
| police will arrest them too.
| bananapub wrote:
| > If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how
| far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for
| crimes committed using their services?
|
| er...did you miss the last twenty years?
|
| the US government destroyed a website for prostitution ads:
| https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/backpage-principals-convicted...
|
| the US government has destroyed every darknet market they could
| find, despite most of them not selling any drugs themselves.
|
| CSAM is taken extremely seriously and any web site that hosts
| it will be pursued to the end of the earth.
|
| etc.
|
| this is not a new thing at all.
|
| > However if a company does not have this data (because it's
| encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect
| such data.
|
| Telegram deliberately and suspiciously encrypts approximately
| nothing in a way that helps anyone, so this is completely
| irrelevant.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Somewhat - ISPs and phone companies (and web(site) hosting
| companies) tend to be less liable because they don't engage
| into editorializing :
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41390173
|
| (Algorithmic feeds are very popular amongst platforms, not sure
| that Telegram does that too though ?)
| panarky wrote:
| The "slippery slope" is a logical fallacy.
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| I am not a Durov fan, but wouldn't it make sense that if a top
| exec of a platform is criminally liable for the crimes happening
| on the platform, the head of state who has an authority to use
| force against the citizens should be legally liable for crimes
| happening in their country?
|
| Edit: the argument about Durov not "trying to do anything" after
| the French requests don't seem that relevant as it aligns with "I
| tried" excuse of a poor student's missing homework, i.e. trying
| isn't enough - crimes are either stopped or they aren't.
|
| Edit2: ha @ downvotes w/o any opinions.
| Arch485 wrote:
| There seems to be a lot of arguments citing that "$otherPlatform
| should be held liable for the same things!"
|
| The main takeaway here is that Durov is not being arrested
| strictly because his platform contains illegal material. He is
| being arrested because (allegedly)
|
| - he is aware of the illegal material, and - he refuses to
| cooperate with law enforcement to remove that material.
|
| So the French authorities are charging him with being complicit
| in a lot of this stuff.
|
| Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are
| properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content.
| Telegram, on the other hand, has decryption keys for the messages
| and media sent in group chats, meaning they can identify and
| remove illegal content if they choose to.
| Shank wrote:
| > Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are
| properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content.
| Telegram, on the other hand, has decryption keys for the
| messages and media sent in group chats, meaning they can
| identify and remove illegal content if they choose to.
|
| I feel like I must emphasize this because it's repeatedly
| missed. Telegram has mainly 3 different components. The first
| is a server-side encrypted messaging platform, which is
| unremarkable, and as-secure as Discord or Slack. The second is
| its "E2EE" system, secret chats, which don't sync, and have not
| been broken (though people have raised some concerns
| historically about it). The third system is channels, which are
| basically subscription feeds from users. Channels are as secure
| as Slack or Discord or Twitter or Facebook. The whole point of
| Channels is that you can subscribe to channels and get messages
| in Telegram from them, but they're basically open access. A
| good example is Durov's channel: https://t.me/s/durov
|
| Now I say all of this because the vast majority of people
| believe that E2EE would solve the problem here. The reality is
| that channels doesn't make sense to be E2EE since anyone can
| join, and channels are where are a large amount of the
| "interesting" content to law enforcement occurs. Abuse
| definitely occurs to some degree on all 3 components, but
| channels simply don't exist in Signal, as an example.
| xvector wrote:
| We have robust cryptographic constructions for channels at
| this point. One is described in
| https://www.ietf.org/blog/mls-secure-and-usable-end-to-
| end-e...
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| If you'd have read the comment you're replying to, you'd
| know that "robust cryptographic constructions" are
| irrelevant here, because channels are publicly-accessible.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Also Telegram behaves better than you would expect from a
| platform : they still provide(d?) a quite open interface for
| others to crawl :
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/the-kremlin-has-entered-the-
| chat...
|
| (The downside of course is that it's then also open to <<bad
| actors>>.)
| harryf wrote:
| > Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are
| properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content.
|
| Signal isn't magically protected by proper E2E encryption. When
| the time comes to take them down legally, all that's needed is
| evidence from end users phones demonstrating illegal activities
| occurring over Signal. But - for now - Signal seems to have
| better friends and or be upsetting less authorities than
| Telegram.
|
| To me it's pretty clear reason why they've gone after Telegram
| is the Channels and Groups. Seen from a certain perspective
| Telegram channels are an alternative to Reddit, and have been
| popular medium during COVID and the Ukraine war for
| "alternative news". By now Reddit is properly controlled and
| subdued but Telegram isn't.
| ralfn wrote:
| >To me it's pretty clear reason why they've gone after
| Telegram is the Channels and Groups. Seen from a certain
| perspective Telegram channels are an alternative to Reddit,
| and have been popular medium during COVID and the Ukraine war
| for "alternative news". By now Reddit is properly controlled
| and subdued but Telegram isn't.
|
| This is full on speculation. Right now the reality is you can
| buy underage people, drugs and weapons on telegram. ISIS
| recruitment channels, etc.
|
| Playing the "free speech" card is disingenuous.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| Telegram regularly bans channels that promote hate-speech
| or do illegal activities.
|
| The only issue is, their team is way too small for
| moderation, which is why so many weird communities keep
| popping up.
|
| I've been on Telegram for 5 years and I've yet to see
| anything of what you mentioned in your comment.
|
| It's a fear mongering tactic against a perfectly good and
| arguably the best messenger application in existence right
| now.
| tcfhgj wrote:
| I have seen it constantly. IDK why, but so sometimes I
| got just invited into such groups.
|
| When I activated the function to find people around me,
| most of the time I was spending in Telegram was leaving
| and reporting such groups.
|
| Some of the channels, even discoverable by simple search,
| were years old.
|
| "Arguably" Element is way better than Telegram, it
| actually properly encrypts private chats AND allows sync
| between devices
| harryf wrote:
| > This is full on speculation.
|
| Speculation is a crucial part of decision-making,
| especially in geopolitics, where hard data is often scarce.
| Governments frequently act on leading indicators to preempt
| potential threats, whether it's about national security or
| information control. Dismissing this as "pure speculation"
| overlooks how critical decisions are made in complex,
| rapidly evolving situations.
|
| > Playing the "free speech" card is disingenuous.
|
| This isn't about free speech; it's about narrative control,
| especially with the upcoming U.S. election. Controlling
| platforms like Telegram and TikTok is crucial for
| influencing public discourse. Recent U.S. regulations
| targeting TikTok further highlight how critical it is for
| governments to manage the flow of information as elections
| approach.
| originalvichy wrote:
| I'm disappointed to see how few people are up to date on what
| legal responsibilities platform hosts have.
|
| Didn't we have months and months of this discussion around the
| last US presidential election? Haven't we had this discussion
| years ago when piracy was rampant on "surface web" sites?
|
| Businesses have always had legal requirements based on the nature
| of their trade.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| Just because something is law does not mean it should be law.
| Not all legal responsibilities should be legal
| responsibilities. There is no way in which we will accept that
| what the French government is doing is legitimate merely
| because it's legal for them to do it in France.
|
| What France is doing is unjust. They should stop. If their laws
| are not just they should be repealed.
| axegon_ wrote:
| I love it how fast people are jumping in to defend a guy who is
| by all accounts guilty because "well how is he supposed to know
| illegal stuff is happening on his platform?". He knew and
| everyone behind telegram knew. Well read this: https://eur-
| lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/31/oj
|
| Telegram has legal obligations and we all know they haven't
| fulfilled them-you can easily verify that on your own: you don't
| need to be a government agency to do that - open telegram and use
| the search function, hell even the auto suggestions lead you to a
| ton of illegal stuff.
| jokoon wrote:
| In the end, if that annoys Russia, that's a good thing.
|
| Telegram is used by Russia, terror groups, and so on.
|
| It's always funny to hear people talk about free speech in that
| situation.
| 71bw wrote:
| >Telegram is used by Russia, terror groups, and so on.
|
| As well as a lot of people in CIS countries (including
| Ukraine), people fed up with Meta and probably 95% of Android
| custom ROM communities (wild guess, do not quote me on that).
|
| Not to mention platforms like, for example, Discord. Also used
| in Russia. Also probably used by terror groups. But it's okay
| because we are supposed to like "our" platform.
|
| >It's always funny to hear people talk about free speech in
| that situation.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| While Discord Inc. is based in San Francisco, Tencent (China)
| owns Discord, most likely at a majority stake, considering
| how they have been funding the devs before they even had the
| idea for it.
|
| Also one big difference might be that Discord is part of the
| Deep Web (requiring an account and an invitation to its
| chatrooms to even see what is going on there), while Telegram
| seems to be mostly on the Open Web, even providing an
| interface to be crawled ?
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/wDlpb
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