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I did not see the info anywhere else, but it was just broadcasted by the main French tv channel. Pavel Durov, the Telegram founder was just arrested out of his
by greatgib 2y ago
I did not see the info anywhere else, but it was just broadcasted by the main French tv channel.
Pavel Durov, the Telegram founder was just arrested out of his airplane in the Bourget airport in France near Paris.
There is no info about why exactly he was arrested but it looks like that French police had a warrant for him.
But it looks like it is because that he is accused of being an accessory of a lot of things like traffic, drugs, pedopornography, anything bad you can image because he would not have done anything to combat that on Telegram.
If it is real, it would really be the same kind of political crime abuse on an individual of the same level as what happened to Julian Assange.
I can easily guess that assholes in secret service would probably like very much to use that to blackmail him to add backdoors to telegram. So sad.
- Glacia 2y ago>I can easily guess that assholes in secret service would probably like very much to use that to blackmail him to add backdoors to telegram Do you unironically believe it's not already backdoored for Russian government?
- greatgib 2y agoSince forever I stay suspicious but so far Telegram as an impeccable track record. Never there was a single instance of case where there would be even a suspicion of proof that insider knowledge of conversations was accessed/used. Also, it is clear that Durov is a dissident and personally experienced and run away of the dictatorial state. So I think that it is probably one of the tech personality that I trust the most in the world.
- ceinewydd 2y agohttps://x.com/filosottile/status/987376021589692416?s=21 https://x.com/filosottile/status/987376021589692416?s=21 I'm not sure that counts as an impeccable track record.
- lxgr 2y ago“Track record” is an incredibly poor indicator for the lack of a government backdoor, thinking back to Snowden, for example.
- hamilyon2 2y agoThe latest evidence of wide cooperation of telegram and Russian officials: https://roskomsvoboda.org/ru/post/shutdown-v-baymake/ https://roskomsvoboda.org/ru/post/shutdown-v-baymake/
- codedokode 2y agoThe article doesn't contain the evidence though; it claims that someone changed access to private for a Telegram group that covered the protests. However, as the article says, it could be done not only by Telegram, but by one of the administrators.
- Glacia 2y agoExcept there were multiple different groups that magically happen to go private at the same time. I'm not even going to mention how many people were arrested over telegram messages in russia.
- Glacia 2y agoObviously FSB is not going to make a press release and be like "We have the keys LOL" so there would never be definitive proof. Fun fact: Telegram at some point was blocked in Russia for not giving FSB access to data. Later telegram was unblocked and is used extensively in Russia. It's not hard to figure out why it was unblocked.
- ivanmontillam 2y ago> It's not hard to figure out why it was unblocked. If you're implying it's backdoored, that's a wild mental gymnastics you made there. No hate, but your comment is speculative in nature.
- k1ndl1 2y agoIt was unblocked because of the backlash from people, incl. Russian politicians who are heavy Telegram users. FSB has nothing to do with it.
- Glacia 2y ago>It was unblocked because of the backlash from people, incl. Russian politicians who are heavy Telegram users. FSB has nothing to do with it. Saying Russian government would give a shit about people opinions, funny joke.
- roveo 2y agoTelegram wasn't fully blocked in Russia even for a single day. They tried to block it and failed miserably. The team actively circumvented the blocking by deploying to new IPs faster than they were blocked, and in addition to that every IT guy in Russia had a tgproxy instance running for family and friends. After a while they just stopped trying and decided that it's less reputational damage to just let it be.
- Glacia 2y ago>After a while they just stopped trying and decided that it's less reputational damage to just let it be. That's not true. It's legally unblocked. the reason why it was unblocked was never published. "It was unblocked because they gave up" is just your interpretation of the events. Pretty naive one, in my opinion.
- evilfred 2y ago[flagged]
- codedokode 2y agoBy the way, Dropbox had a person from the govt (Condoleezza Rice) on the Board of Directors, and people still entrusted their data to it.
- chucke1992 2y ago> Do you unironically believe it's not already backdoored for Russian government? Yes. You should read the history of Durov and why Telegram was created in the first place.
- z_open 2y agoWhy don't you post it yourself. And why should I care about what he says when telegram has some of the worst default encryption settings among commonly used messaging apps in the west?
- chucke1992 2y agoExcept Telegram is considered one of the most secured apps around. Obviously it cannot stop people from being stupid when they expose themselves. The very reason why France is not happy is that because they cannot get access to private chats and stuff. EU was (and is) pushing for the end of E2E encryption after all (it failed this time, but they will try again). Durov created Telegram because the russian government was trying to take over his original social network - VK (basically imagine USA gov taking over Facebook). Thus he sold his shared and left the country. I do find it hilarious to see apologists of government over-reach like you.
- z_open 2y agoWhat about group chat encryption? You can not possible say telegram is more secure than signal or WhatsApp. What did I say that made me an apologist for government overreach? I recommend users use Signal? Your accusation is unfounded when I was complaining about a lack of encryption.
- chucke1992 2y agoWith Whatsapp it is pretty obvious at this point that it is in cahoot with governments in regards of backdoors and stuff. With Signal? Who knows? Maybe too. Governments don't go after services that they can access freely.
- tssge 2y ago[deleted]
- lxgr 2y agoTelegram has, by design, message content accessible to whoever runs the servers. WhatsApp has gone to great lengths to not have that. Obviously there’s client security, potential backdoors, unencrypted backups, and many other things to worry about. But I don’t see a scenario where it fares worse than Telegram, and many where it’s significantly better.
- arresin 2y agoWhatsapp has to have some kind of escape hatch if not back door simply because of the amount of heat it doesn’t get (think of all the regimes who are ok with it).
- lxgr 2y agoI believe that escape hatch to be cloud backups, which are heavily encouraged by the UI and not end-to-end encrypted by default. iMessage has made the same compromise. As long as enough people click that checkbox, law enforcement has access and Meta/Apple are out of the news without having lied about or hidden anything.
- evilfred 2y agotelegram is undoubtedly influenced by the Russian govt https://www.wired.com/story/the-kremlin-has-entered-the-chat/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-kremlin-has-entered-the-chat...
- jimbob45 2y agoMy understanding is that WhatsApp has never made claims comparable to Telegram or Signal. I also can’t tell if you’re being sincere. I was under the impression that Telegram was considered significantly less secure than Signal and that the matter was mostly settled. I’ve been seeing the following talking points repeated for years now. https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/xk1jdw/comment/ipbvbx0/ https://www.reddit.com/r/signal/comments/xk1jdw/comment/ipbv...
- alephnerd 2y ago> Do you unironically believe it's not already backdoored for Russian government? To people arguing against this, Russia's Sovereign Wealth Fund RDIF has an ownership stake in Telegram after co-raising with Abu Dhabi's Mudabala in 2021 [0] Either way, Telegram is at the whims of MbZ, and if the UAE ever needs something from Russia, they'll use Durov and Telegram as collateral. The UAE's done the same thing with Pakistan (Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif), India (Dawood Ibrahim), Israel-Palestine (Mohammad Dahlan), Serbia (Belgrade Waterfront Project and Mohammad Dahlan), Turkiye (Mohammad Dahlan), etc. If the Telegram founders were truly opposed to Russia, they would have immigrated to Israel, the UK, Germany, Netherlands, or the US like most business dissidents in Russia. If VK wasn't stolen by an oligarch, they would have remained in Russia to this day. [0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-23/russia-mubadala-invest-in-telegram-after-kremlin-ban-failed?embedded-checkout=true https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-23/russia-mu...
- GaggiX 2y ago>Do you unironically believe it's not already backdoored for Russian government? Yes as Telegram was banned in Russia for a long time (or at least they tried) before giving up.
- palata 2y agoThere is no need for a backdoor since the vast majority of messages on Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted. Just read from the server!
- kgeist 2y agoDurov was notorious in Russia for refusing to cooperate with FSB (successor to KGB), too. I remember when FSB asked him to give access to protester communications on VK (in 2011 during mass protests), he mockingly responded with a picture of a dog with its tongue out (showing your tongue means "I won't give it to ya" in Russian culture). That's why he left Russia, because he felt he'd get arrested soon. Quite ironic that he ended up getting arrested in the "free world", not Russia. Telegram was also banned in Russia for a few years.
- codedokode 2y agoAnd my intuition is that Telegram is going to become banned in Russia soon, as Youtube is being banned now and Telegram is the last popular application where you can find the content about war, protests or elections that govt doesn't like.
- kgeist 2y agoTelegram has also large Russian pro-war communities, and it's extensively used by soldiers deployed in Ukraine for communication. If pro-war channels outnumber opposition channels (and they probably do), Telegram probably won't be banned as long the government has no alternative. The fact of Durov getting arrested could be also used for propaganda purposes (no free speech in the West).
- foverzar 2y ago> And my intuition is that Telegram is going to become banned in Russia soon It had already happened with extreme humiliation of responsible agencies. > as Youtube is being banned now It's not banned, it's throttled because google kept abusing backbone networks once their CDNs had started to burn down and claiming that this is totally fine and fixable with direct BGP peerings with ISPs (yeah, right) It works just fine on mobile internet connection where traffic shaping is an inherent feature and it only works like shit on broadband where ISPs are only capable of sending TCP RST once the queue is over the limit. > Telegram is the last popular application where you can find the content about war, protests or elections that govt doesn't like Clearly you are not in touch with people in Russia and have never actually seen their social media. Or just being dramatic.
- timcobb 2y agoYeah why would it be backdoored by the Russian government? Because Durov is Russian?
- stiltzkin 2y ago[flagged]
- Simulacra 2y agoFeels very much like a political crime, how soon until Mark Zuckerberg is arrested for WhatsApp?
- lxgr 2y agoThere’s a world of a difference between refusing to hand over data you have to the authorities, and plausibly not having stored them in the first place. By end-to-end encrypting messages, but uploading backups to Google Drive and iCloud, and in a non-end-to-end encrypted way by default, WhatsApp (and iMessage, which does largely the same) have quite cleverly maneuvered themselves out of that potential source of legal problems without cutting off law enforcement access entirely.
- aquatica 2y ago> "I can easily guess that assholes in secret service would probably like very much to use that to blackmail him to add backdoors to telegram. So sad." Telegram is a backdoor by design. The server has complete access to all your messages, they can do whatever they want with those. And they even had a backdoor in E2EE chats, see: https://habr.com/ru/articles/206900/ https://habr.com/ru/articles/206900/
- k1ndl1 2y agoThis was a bug that was fixed right after it was reported. The author of the article praised Telegram for the speed of reaction.
- codedokode 2y agoNote that America has been caught spying on EU countries politicians and manufacturers so many times and nobody got ever punished for this. While the backdoor talks are purely hypothetical, and Telegram's client and protocol are open source: you can just study the code.
- aquatica 2y agoWhich is what the author of the article I linked did. The backdoor wasn't hypothetical, Telegram had to patch the protocol.
- noobermin 2y agoDo you have a link in english?
- aquatica 2y agoGoole Translate works good enough for this article, there is also one from "FiloSottile" but I haven't read it and iirc it still references this one, it's called "The most backdoor-looking bug I have ever seen"
- gmueckl 2y agoThat is absolutely not how it works. If you offer a platform for public discourse you are required by law to moderate it or face the consequences. Telegram group chats are technically open to moderation, yet the company has done nothing to put any kind of moderation in place. This is in contrast to Facebook or Twitter. Those platforms will absolutely take down content that is offensive or criminal in nature.
- codedokode 2y agoYou can report any post in public or private groups to moderators.
- gmueckl 2y agoI don't see a report button anywhere in the Android app. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.
- byyll 2y agoJust press next to the message and click 'Report'. It shouldn't be hard to find.
- codedokode 2y agoThis article [1] says: > Reporting a channel > Open Telegram > Open channel > Select channel name (top) > Report > Select the report reason > If you need to report content by email > Address it to abuse@telegram.org with a subject like “Report user @username” In desktop app you can simply click right button on the message or click three-dots menu in the top bar and there will be an option for report. [1] https://netsafe.org.nz/social-media-safety/telegram https://netsafe.org.nz/social-media-safety/telegram
- seszett 2y ago> There is no info about why exactly he was arrested but it looks like that French police had a warrant for him. > But it looks like it is because that he is accused of being an accessory of a lot of things like traffic, drugs, pedopornography, anything bad you can image because he would not have done anything to combat that on Telegram. This very article says that it's because Telegram doesn't cooperate with authorities in handling illegal content (which it is legally obligated to, to operate in France) and provides services to facilitate illegal activities (crypto or throwaway numbers). It's in the "why was he arrested" section.
- wkat4242 2y agoI hate the way Telegram always gets flak for crime when WhatsApp and Signal can be used for it just as well and they are even harder to track things down on because they have E2EE. Telegram by default doesn't and it doesn't even support it in group chats! So if these things happen in WhatsApp or Signal we simply don't know about it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]