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Telegram has moved to Dubai long ago so no idea where you get the idea that FSB can strong-arm them from.
by pdimitar 2y ago
Telegram has moved to Dubai long ago so no idea where you get the idea that FSB can strong-arm them from.
- sbarre 2y agoAh yes, Dubai the bastion of integrity, equality and human rights.
- pdimitar 2y agoTrue, they aren't. Whether they're friends with Russia is another thing though.
- sbarre 2y agoThey don't have to be friends to turn a blind eye. If Dubai had to pick between letting some nobody foreign national living on their soil get squeezed by a foreign secret police, or pissing off the Russians, what do you think they would do? (This isn't a knock on Dubai specifically, substitute them for almost any non-NATO country in the world).
- pdimitar 2y agoAnd you think the USA doesn't do such things? If so, that's quite naive.
- sbarre 2y agoDid I say that? Did I mention the USA at any point in this discussion? What a strange thing to add. I am not American btw.
- pdimitar 2y agoI mentioned it because people very easily single out Russia and I think that's quite the outdated sentiment. I'd start with USA, North Korea, China, Russia and Iran -- again, just as a start, and I am sure there are many others that can't be trusted. Where Telegram's devs and business resides hardly matters IMO. If somebody truly wants to put them under their boot they'll find a way, and that goes for probably half the countries on this planet.
- sbarre 2y agoYou didn't "mention" it, you implied that I believed this, when it wasn't even part of the discussion. You can believe whatever you want, but you really shouldn't accuse others of such things. Also: this whole topic is about a Russian company/app and Russian citizens living in Dubai. What other country would we be talking about here, exactly?
- pdimitar 2y agoWell then, your goal was just to point out that Dubai is a bad place for democracy -- and nothing else? If so, OK.
- ixwt 2y agoAs I stated in a sister comment, Dubai is marginally better, but not significantly better. If it's the same original developers, they could be squeezed through their family.
- pdimitar 2y agoSame goes for Signal devs, or any devs really. You're only stating the obvious: humans can be forced and coerced given enough motivation and resources. Singling out Telegram, or Signal, or any other service's devs is not advancing any argument forward.
- darby_eight 2y agoNo, telegram is especially concerning given how insecure it is by default.
- StackRanker3000 2y agoThere is more reason to be concerned about Telegram than most other similar services. Partly because it’s insecure by default, which makes a large percentage of conversations vulnerable. And also because the team behind it is very susceptible to pressure from the Russian government, which is especially bad when it comes to these things. Even if some of them are based out of Dubai now, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t still at risk of coercion, either directly or through for example threats against family members who remain in the country. If you don’t trust Russia, which you shouldn’t, then don’t trust Telegram with anything sensitive.
- 5e92cb50239222b 2y agoWhom should we trust then? Have we already forgotten about Snowden?
- fauigerzigerk 2y agoCan we trust some more than others without trusting anyone completely? I for one trust that there are more Americans who would say no to the NSA when they have a legal basis for doing so than there are Russians saying no to the FSB. The state of the rule of law is certainly not great anywhere in the world right now. But it's far worse in some places than in others. The difference still matters to some degree.
- beretguy 2y agoDid you hear about a russian pilot who defected to Ukraine and then was killed in Spain? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/world/europe/russian-pilot-maksim-kuzminov-spain.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/world/europe/russian-pilo... If russia wants to find and kill you they will.
- frankharv 2y agoHardy har har har. How quaint. Guess you never heard of polonium either. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/alexander-litvinenko-and-the-most-radioactive-towel-in-history https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/06/alexander-litv...
- pdimitar 2y agoI heard. Your point?
- frankharv 2y agoThey have a long reach and like to be brutal for effect.
- pdimitar 2y agoDeath is death, whether it's brutal or not, your dead corpse will not care. Still no idea what your argument is. Or that of the grand-parent comment. "Oh look, Russia is poisoning people!" Yeah, we knew that ever since the Cold War. Show me a nation that doesn't persecute people it doesn't like.
- frankzinger 2y agoMuch more recently using Novichok: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_...
- seanieb 2y agoDurov travels freely to and from Russia and several of their employees are still based in Russia. So yeah, the FSB have leverage if they need to use it.