10 ms·

Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

139 points by nailer 2y ago

cheptsov 2y ago
“Summing up: for the time being, if you run a social media company, or if you provide encrypted messaging services, which are accessible in France, and you’re based in the United States, get out of Europe.”
- hcfman 2y ago
  Yeah, Europe is becoming more and more authoritarian and less and less demoractic. The Netherlands, the host country of the ICC, in 2021 made a law that anyone that works in a job with an obligation to secrecy cannot be prosecuted for lying under oath in a court. They cited an example of a lawyer client confidenially. They did not however, talk about the fact that now everyone in government can lie under oath in court. This undermines the very functional principle of a court of law. Lovely for the ICC. In addition, they created an organisation called the RIEC, with does not have a natural person as it's presentative, which under Dutch law means that it cannot be taken to court by anyone. The gave this organisation control over not just criminal investigations but "interventions", which have no definition and can be anything. They can do anything against anyone and not be held accountabile. And typically they do this through weak civilian proxies for further deniability. There's a 6x part Dutch documentary where it shows that 9 innocent people were sent to jail on fabricated evidence. One committed suicide. The Dutch will not re-open this case and the responsible person (The former head of the organised crime unit in Arnhein) is not the president of the court of Maastricht. Not fired, promoted. https://npo.nl/start/serie/de-villamoord/seizoen-2/de-leeuw-en-de-hyena https://npo.nl/start/serie/de-villamoord/seizoen-2/de-leeuw-... So the Netherlands has clearly loss a functional democracy. It's the way all of Europe is going.
tptacek 2y ago
This analysis leaves out the fact that Pavel Durov is, with Telegram, in approximately the same position Ladar Levison was with Lavabit. Unlike Meredith Whitaker, Durov actually is in a position to furnish documents to the French government, where he has citizenship. He's in that position because he has repeatedly made deliberate product decisions, to the bafflement of cryptographers around the world, to keep himself in that position. If you literally have plaintext documents responsive to criminal inquiries in a jurisdiction you are subject to, we don't reach the "internet censorship wars". You're in a place not dissimilar to a 1970s telephone company; the "random people can't simply declare themselves above the law wars". Don't be in that place. Encrypt end-to-end.
- cperciva 2y ago
  Indeed. Two of the more common questions I get with Tarsnap are Q. How do I know that Tarsnap is secure? A. Read the source code. Q. Ok, but you're really smart, what's stopping you from putting in a backdoor and hiding it really well? A. I don't want to get tortured, and ensuring that I can't decrypt your data protects *me*.
  - daliusd 2y ago
    IMHO second answer does not hold water. If you will end up in situation where you are tortured they will torture you until you will you say how to add the backdoor.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      His point is that he can't backdoor it: you can read the code before you install it. I'd go further, and say that this is true of anything end-to-end encrypted, open-source or not, because it's not 2002 anymore and reversing ordinary client software is table stakes. (I'd still rather run something open source, ceteris paribus).
      - inopinatus 2y ago
        Feeding the paranoia above is that cperciva would verifiably be the smartest person in the room. A canny torturer would respond to this bringing in djb as the primary instrument of torture. "First one to break or weaken scrypt or 8-round salsa20 gains their freedom". The loser is forced to give talks at AWS marketing conferences for the rest of their natural
        h0l0cube 2y ago
        > A canny torturer A canny torturer would read the Smart People on a public forum red-teaming cperciva's mind.
      - cperciva 2y ago
uxhacker 2y ago
Is this an unintentional war by Europe on facebook, signal, etc? What will the outcome be? Will these services leave Europe? Will Europe change the rules ?
- riffraff 2y ago
  It seems not yet. Signal is e2e encrypted data which telegram is not, Facebook has regularly collaborated with authorities, which apparently telegram did not. Every case is different. I think TFA is ignoring the usual practice of prosecutors everywhere to stack accusations with a bunch of things which won't stick. Nonetheless, France has been flirting with extended internet censorship for a while.
- guappa 2y ago
  No it's a NATO war against unaligned companies that don't only cooperate with NATO.
- pyeri 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - jen20 2y ago
    > UK recently elected far-left parties What in the everliving fuck are you talking about?
    - pyeri 2y ago
      Isn't Labour party far left?
      - jen20 2y ago
        No.
- herbst 2y ago
  Facebook is in the headlines because it shits on people's privacy. Telegram is assumed to do the exact opposite.
truman01 2y ago
Telegram’s End to End Encryption by default is disabled, only available for one-to-one conversation. My ‘guess’ is that most of group conversions are pretty accessible on telegram servers, which might be the case here.
- ks2048 2y ago
  This article repeatedly referred to Telegraph as "encrypted" ("have full encryption on their services", "when you’re running a globally accessible encrypted platform"), which seems misleading, if by default, it is not end-to-end encrypted.
  - NdMAND 2y ago
    I think the idea is that Telegram servers are encrypted with keys that Telegram itself has access to (just distributed to different countries) - as opposed to e2e encryption.
cedws 2y ago
The speculation on this situation is crazy. People are losing their minds over the idea of Durov being arrested over crimes committed on his platform, but we don’t even know the details. For all we know he could have been completely complicit. Hold your horses people.
- weinzierl 2y ago
  This and in addition, I have not seen proof that he knew about a pending arrest when he went to France. Many commenters and media paint him somewhere on the spectrum between arrogant and stupid, when it is not clear at all that he had a chance to avoid the situation.
- willsoon 2y ago
  The article specifically argues about the ex-hypothesis of Durov's involvement in these crimes. And maybe I misread it, but this thread also argues about that possibility.
- akira2501 2y ago
  > the idea of Durov being arrested I don't know him but the idea that an individual CEO would be handled in this way seems extreme and calls into question the actual motives of the French government. > For all we know he could have been completely complicit. I guess he could be an international terrorist drug dealing pimp. > Hold your horses people. The French governments actions and communication on the subject has created this environment. They can easily alter it if they choose.
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    It's not for the government to communicate, and criminal investigations are secret in France. So prosecutors don't have to make any public statements or release any documents (and in fact they shouldn't) but in such high profile cases they are likely to make a general statement to placate the media.
    - cedws 2y ago
hackcasual 2y ago
Trying to understand his legal situation by analogizing with US law understanding strikes me as some real Dunning-Kruegering. Surely someone like Preston Byrne has someone he can reach out to to get a better understanding of the actual French legal situation Durov is in.
- sofixa 2y ago
  Yeah, a lot of people, commentators, HNers, Redditors invoke US laws and procedures as reasoning and for comparison. Which is bordering on the useless - okay, you think he wouldn't have been arrested in the US, cool, what does that actually tell us about him being arrested in France? Nothing? You didn't even bother to look up how warrants and arrests and criminal proceedings work in France? Thank you for wasting my time with your commentary.
  - pjbyrne 2y ago
    The article was written for the benefit of Americans with business operations in France, so understanding why America is way better than France to run a social media company is relevant information. That the article wound up being circulated to a bunch of Europeans who thought it was an article about French law after someone posted it on HN is something of an accident; the article isn't for them (unless of course they're planning on starting a social media company, in which case leaving Europe and setting up shop in America on a permanent basis would be recommended). The very fact of his arrest is enough for Americans to know to steer clear of the EU going forward.
    - sofixa 2y ago
      > so understanding why America is way better than France to run a social media company is relevant information Without any information on the legal background for France, how can anyone seriously make that claim?
      - pjbyrne 2y ago
        There is plenty of legal background for France (and Europe more broadly, eg the German NetzDG) there if you'd care to read the piece, including reference to numerous censorial provisions of French law which make France suboptimal vis a vis the U.S. for social media operations including Loi no. 2020-766 du 24 juin 2020, the EU DSA, and the applicable French aiding and abetting statute, the last of which would not have been usable against Durov in the U.S. absent specific intent to commit an unlawful act. The conditional immunity under the DSA is also not as comprehensive as the broad immunity under Section 230, but that was out of scope so I didn't get into it. I do admit the piece assumes some familiarity on the part of the reader with the existing problems around the EU regulatory schemes relating to speech and content removal. If you have any constructive suggestions I'll be happy to consider including them and giving you appropriate credit, just chuck them in the comment section. tl;dr though, in my view, France is not a great place to incorporate and run a social media company.
ks2048 2y ago
He starts by saying that in the US, social media owners are not responsible for crimes committed by their users. How does that relate to the Kim DotCom case? Is piracy treated differently?
sjdhdhdj 2y ago
[flagged]
- pjerem 2y ago
  Except Google is taking down any illegal data they are asked to takedown or to give to law enforcement. Durov is not arrested to have hosted illegal content but to deliberately have not do anything against it when asked to. If you did something illegal via Gmail and the law enforcement asked for your mails to Google, they’d give them. Telegram voluntarily did not. Note that Durov/Telegram could have been easily protected against this by using E2E encryption and therefore not becoming the owner of the data on their servers.
  - oaththrowaway 2y ago
    > Note that Durov/Telegram could have been easily protected against this by using E2E encryption and therefore not becoming the owner of the data on their servers. How'd that work for Lavabit?
  - sjdhdhdj 2y ago
    No they stay up for weeks after dozens of reports. I suspect the ads are only taken off once the stolen credit card used in AdWords gets declined.
    - herbst 2y ago
      Same is true for whoever checks Ads for Facebook. Funnily enough telegram is way more restrictive with it's own ads.
pjerem 2y ago
> What it means is that European states are going to try to extraterritorially dictate to foreign companies what content those companies can and cannot host on foreign-based webservers It looks like the author failed to grab that Durov asked for the French nationality and therefore is a French citizen who must comply to French law. > Telegram is not the only company in the world which has a social media platform used for unlawful purposes Except Telegram is the only one of those companies which intentionally doesn’t answers to legal requests. All other social networks are cooperating with law enforcers in the countries they operate. Even Signal is cooperating when asked too. The difference is that unlike Signal, Telegram owns its users data in plaintext. Also the author fails to understand that the complicity here doesn’t mean that companies in Europe are responsible for their users content. Like in the US, they are responsible if they fail to comply to laws in a reasonable time. Telegram doesn’t comply in a reasonable time since they voluntarily don’t comply at all. That’s a huge difference.
- willsoon 2y ago
  >Legal request A legal request comes from a legal authority: a judge. >Cooperating with law enforcement Law Enforcement (that's the police, right?) are not judges and are not authorised to rule on legal matters. Hate has not logic. So you are trying to cover the whole spectrum of things to ensure your belief that Durov is being legally detained. Sorry for editing instead of answering. Reddit says I "post too fast".
  - pjerem 2y ago
    What logic ? Where is the hate ?
  - agubelu 2y ago
    A legal authority (judge) issues a legal request, which must be complied with to the best of your ability. If you don't comply, you're acting unlawfully and thus you're detained by law enforcement (police). It's a pretty straightforward logic.
- gostsamo 2y ago
  The author wants to cry against the EU lows because EU bad period. "Don't travel to Europe, don't hire in Europe" and so on. The rest is looking for arguments to support his "hunches".
biztos 2y ago
This is a take I keep seeing, more or less, and yet Telegram is not an encrypted messaging service for the most part, and so Durov could have moderated but actively promoted his not doing so; and the crimes this article leads with, as examples of things that’d get you in trouble in the US too, are said to have been prevalent on Telegram. (Also, maybe it’s nitpicking, but there are very obvious reasons why it’s better to have the Taliban using WhatsApp and the US getting all that metadata and maybe more, rather than the Taliban finding some other channel. If Washington wanted WhatsApp banned in Afghanistan it would’ve happened long ago.) What I can’t figure out is, are these commentators naïve or just piling on for attention or what?
- guappa 2y ago
  Read the actual charges. Providing an encrypted means of communication is one of the charges.
- bigiain 2y ago
  > there are very obvious reasons why it’s better to have the Taliban using WhatsApp and the US getting all that metadata and maybe more, rather than the Taliban finding some other channel There are some very obvious opportunities when the Taliban (or enemy de jour, like drug cartels) feel the need to be "finding another channel". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trojan_Shield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trojan_Shield "Hardened encrypted devices provide an "impenetrable shield against law enforcement surveillance” and are in high demand by TCOs (transnational criminal organizations), thus the shutdown of Phantom Secure in March 2018 left a vacuum for TCOs in need of an alternative system for secure communication. Around the same time, the San Diego FBI branch had been working with a person who had been developing a "next-generation" encrypted device for use by criminal networks. The person was facing charges and cooperated with the FBI in exchange for a reduced sentence. The person offered to develop ANOM and then use his contacts to distribute it to TCOs through existing networks. Before the devices were put to use, however, the FBI, and the AFP had a backdoor built into the communication platform which allowed law enforcement agencies to decrypt and store the messages as the messages were transmitted." I'm still seeing drug busts here in Australia that're attributed to An0m (or which look extremely likely to have used An0m as part of the investigation).
newaccount74 2y ago
This is quite a one-sided take. What makes Telegram unique is: 1) They have access to almost all the content 2) They try to use arguments about jurisdiction to avoid helping law enforcement with lawful requests All the other messaging platforms (WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage) have started to use end-to-end encryption to avoid being in this position in the first place. But they also comply with law enforcement and share the data they do have, and don't hinder lawful investigations. The biggest issue with Telegram is that due to the lack of end-to-end encryption it is a huge security risk; how do you know the operators aren't selling access to your chats to some criminal actor or a repressive government agency? You don't.
- danpalmer 2y ago
  I found it interesting to read that their approach is supposedly to split encryption keys across jurisdictions. It sounds like they believe that they should therefore not be able to be compelled to reveal any plaintext because the keys are not in the jurisdiction asking for data, but as far as I can tell this is obviously rubbish, because a computer is not subject to the law, an individual is, and in this case an individual with the power to comply who is seemingly deciding not to. What's weird is that there aren't really technical blockers to E2E encryption anymore (maybe different 10+ years ago), and with such a weak alternative, you'd expect Telegram to want to switch. The fact they haven't for so long, and have essentially doubled down on their flawed approach suggests that there's a reason we're not privy to as to why they don't want to move to E2E encryption. I'd hope not, and I don't want to throw around conspiracy theories, but when a decision doesn't make sense that's usually due to missing information, and I do wonder what we're missing.
  - NayamAmarshe 2y ago
    > that there aren't really technical blockers to E2E encryption anymore There are several disadvantages, and Telegram would lose its key features: 1. Cloud Sync 2. Instant Multi-device login 3. The ability to create large group chats, like thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in a single place. 4. Sending files up to 4GB.
jcranmer 2y ago
The fundamental problem we have right know is that we know the charges, but not the factual allegations that underlie those charges. Put differently, if you wanted to put together a charge list for the head of a large social media company you didn't like, this is what it would look like. If you wanted to put together a charge list for someone actively running the group chat of a terrorist group... this is what it would look like. And same for pretty much every level in between. Deciding which of these scenarios is more likely is more indicative of your priors of the scenarios than it is of the evidence. Is this the French government going after a fairly innocuous service because they don't like what they provide? Or is it the government going after a service saying "neener neener your laws can't touch us"? Or is it the government going after an individual with tenuous connections to criminal organizations? Or one with solid connections to criminal organizations? Truthfully, we don't have the evidence to distinguish between these scenarios yet, and we should reserve judgement until such evidence comes to light.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  The thing is that French law for criminal procedure says that it is secret. So in principle judges and prosecutors don't have to publicly say anything and in fact should not say anything apart from discussing with Durov and his lawyers. That said, for high profile cases they tend to give some information to control rumors and the media.
- fvdessen 2y ago
  I just opened telegram, went to ‘find people nearby’ and was immediately presented with a long list of drug dealers and prostitutes advertising their services. I’m pretty sure that’s not legal
  - guappa 2y ago
    Now try to buy from them. They are just scammers who are nowhere near you. They will ask you to send codes from gift cards.
    - paxys 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
maeil 2y ago
> If, however, the French are simply saying that Durov’s failure to police his users or respond promptly to French document requests is the crime (which I suspect is the case), then this represents a dramatic escalation in the online censorship wars. What it means is that European states are going to try to extraterritorially dictate to foreign companies what content those companies can and cannot host on foreign-based webservers. This completely ignores that the amount of criminal activity on Telegram in Europe as well as parts of Asia in itself has been escalating. The author is coming at this from a US-based point of view, which is fine, but unless you're particularly interested in the topic it's difficult for Americans to be aware of the scale of Telegram's role in criminality elsewhere, as this does not seem to be the case in the US. Maybe someone here knows why Telegram is not as core to organized crime in the US, and what communication methods are used there. But it's clear that in Europe and parts of Asia, its role is massive, and has been growing and growing without a limit in sight. This is easy to underestimate. In these parts of the world, the scale of it is of a completely different magnitude than criminal activity on e.g. Facebook, which the author brings up but is a misguided comparison. And that's ignoring the relative percentages of legit vs criminal activity, which are inverted (if not worse) between the two platforms, because that's not as important. Scale and absolute numbers, the absolute detrimental effect on society, matter. I don't see this as an escalation because there was always going to be a line somewhere. A line where the amount of criminal activity on a platform, which when crossed , was going to cause arrests. Telegram's continuous growth in this aspect means that the line has now been crossed. And in reality, this line exists anywhere even in the US. It might be higher, but it's still there. The idea of not having such a line is clearly insane - that would mean no matter if something completely destroys society, we're going to let it pass. Such lines are almost never enshrined in law, for obvious reasons. They only become visible to everyone as they are crossed.
- coffeebeqn 2y ago
  In the last few years most of the drug supply has moved from tor to telegram in large parts of Europe for example
- guappa 2y ago
  There have been several arrests of drug dealers using whatsapp over the years. Do you have any official source that criminals on telegram are more? Or is it just a feeling you have?
mediumsmart 2y ago
Thinking is not shitting Is there a difference between telegram and other social media messenger hybrids? Do they allow anti Russian content the same way they allow pro Russian content? Is that a problem?
- necovek 2y ago
  Telegram is widely used in Ukraine too, and that includes a lot of anti-Russia material.
- sofixa 2y ago
  Telegram allows everything and anything, including unsavoury/illegal content (supposedly you can report it and it gets taken down, but potentially the whole crux of the issue Durov was arrested over was that it's not enough/fast enough/law enforcement can't report). There are channels from Russian and Ukrainian officials making official announcements (today our city of X got hit by missiles, please go to ABC if you need help), there are Russian officials using it for official communications (including military and intelligence). There are paramilitaries and other such groups using it for internal and external communications too.
  - herbst 2y ago
    > Telegram allows everything and anything, including unsavoury/illegal content Which is simply wrong. Telegram is heavily banning users, channels and groups (if reported I assume) the difference is that they don't apply American morals but something a bit more open than that. To give you a concrete example, it strictly follows basically the same morality terms for porn as onlyfans or pornhub (except the copy right that is)
cja 2y ago
Why are so many people taking this at face value? There's a war going on and the man in charge of the communications system for one side flew to try to meet his leader and then flew to an enemy country where there was a warrant for his arrest. I'm not saying the French aren't serious about the charges they've published but they're hardly the main point. There's plenty in the media about the use of Telegram by the the Russian military and intelligence services, as well as politicians. For example: https://www.politico.eu/article/telegram-ceo-arrest-pavel-durov-russian-military-communications-france/ https://www.politico.eu/article/telegram-ceo-arrest-pavel-du...
- sofixa 2y ago
  I see this argument a lot, but it falls apart when you realise Ukraine also extensively uses Telegram. Maybe not for official state business (Zelenskyy chatting with his intelligence chief), but many times officials communicate with civilians via Telegram channels.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    He could be selling one side out against the other.
  - cja 2y ago
    Your second sentence contradicts your first
    - sofixa 2y ago
      It doesn't. Public service announcements are extremely critical for a nation at war.
      - cja 2y ago
        They aren't secret. France and its allies having access to Telegram data/systems doesn't affect Ukraine's ability to use it for that purpose.
- 2y ago
NayamAmarshe 2y ago
The fact that the French president invited Durov to dinner and then arrested him, is so strange. They want to control Telegram, the arrest is just an excuse.
- uhryks 2y ago
  Judiciary power is (somewhat) independent from executive power. Thank god people can still do things without needing Macron's approval.
  - NayamAmarshe 2y ago
    'somewhat' is the keyword.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
paulcarroty 2y ago
https://istories.media/en/news/2024/08/27/pavel-durov-has-visited-russia-more-than-50-times-since-his-exile-in-2014/ https://istories.media/en/news/2024/08/27/pavel-durov-has-vi... Telegram is FSB project, lost all my doubts about.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
e2ee is not a panacea. Law enforcement is more interested in metadata than content: who messaged whom and when, which account corresponds to which phone number etc. This data is still sitting on whatsapp and signal servers, so not much safer than telegram. I'm looking at Element now: at least it doesn't ask for phone number and I can host my own server.
medo-bear 2y ago
Another danger here is that other governments (eg Russia China) might respond assymetrically (or even exactly the same) against other CEOs of companies that give agency to narratives they are not happy with. For example by kidnapping them and constructing some bogus charges, using this instance as a precedent.
medo-bear 2y ago
> where he has citizenship Durov is being persecuted for his role as a CEO of Telegram. Telegram is a legal entity that has nothing to do with France
- lispm 2y ago
  > Telegram is a legal entity that has nothing to do with France That's obviously false. Telegram is providing services to French and EU citizens.
  - medo-bear 2y ago
    Or the EU and France allowed its citizens to gain services from a foreign company, Telegram, and did nothing to stop them? Russia at least tried to block them.
tetrisgm 2y ago
I read somewhere that his exile is vastly overstated. Apparently he has traveled to Russia 40x in the recent years. Take it with a grain of salt.
JoelJacobson 2y ago
Strange, I haven't found any articles that mention the "Find People Nearby" and "Make Myself Visible" features, which seems to be core features criminals use to sell drugs/sex, finding new random clients in the area. The public non-encrypted aliases or bio of users often contain wordings that explicitly spell out they sell drugs or sex. For instance, one alias is "WEED COKE MDMA SPE..." I don't have a clear opinion on whether drugs or selling sex should be illegal or not, can see pros/cons, but my opinion is irrelevant, my point here is that Law Enforcement, might find this very problematic, that there is obviously no moderation here.
- herbst 2y ago
  I always was under assumption that these are all fake. There are ~300 people living nearby me. 5 are dealers and 10 prostitutes according to telegram.
  - dewey 2y ago
    Coordinates can be spoofed.
    - meiraleal 2y ago
      Oh, someone figured out the meaning of fake
      - dewey 2y ago
        I believe the comment was edited to add that part.
- LtWorf 2y ago
  You believe those are real people who are really near you? They aren't more near you than the ladies in "meet single women in..." are. https://xkcd.com/713/ https://xkcd.com/713/
gpayan 2y ago
I wonder why Durov traveled to France, knowing that he would be arrested there. Could there be more to the story?
- g42gregory 2y ago
  He did not know that he would be arrested there. The plane tried to leave Paris airspace at the last minute, but it was too late. Durov should have known that he could be arrested. Basically, arrogance and wishful thinking, complacency, believing in "democracy". Still, UAE will probably get him out.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - dolmen 2y ago
    > The plane tried to leave Paris airspace at the last minute, but it was too late. Do you have sources?
surfingdino 2y ago
> Summing up: for the time being, if you run a social media company, or if you provide encrypted messaging services, which are accessible in France, and you’re based in the United States, get out of Europe. If you make a mockery of the law enforcement's requests made within the scope of the local laws then yes, you should get out. Especially if you show your middle finger to the country you visit and hold citizenship of. Durov has money to buy citizenships that allow him access to most of the world without needing to obtain a visa so I'm sure he has a well-paid legal team that proactively monitor the situation. He may have been informed of the legal noose tightening around his neck and chose to go to France for one reason--France does not extradite its citizens and he happens to hold French citizenship. This puts him out of the reach of other jurisdictions (e.g. the US) and he may be hoping for a deal and better food. We should wait for official information from the French authorities as well as for news of people connected to him and his businesses falling out of windows. The former will explain the latter.
- SSLy 2y ago
  More importantly, this puts him (mostly) out of reach of moscow too.
  - surfingdino 2y ago
    [flagged]
pelorat 2y ago
Another American who knows nothing about things outside of the USA.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
sersi 2y ago
Reading the charges, one jump to my mind as being scary: "Importation d'un moyen de cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sans déclaration préalable." - Import of a cryptographic mean that does not exclusively perform authentication or integrity control functions without prior declaration. This to me is a deeply disturbing charge, would that mean that using full disk encryption I'd be liable to be charged with that? Did the maintainers of LUKS do a prior declaration? If not are they likely to be charged if they ever travel to France? After all, I can fully imagine a server being seized in a data center being encrypted with LUKS. In that case, is it the fault of the maintainers?
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  > This to me is a deeply disturbing charge, would that mean that using full disk encryption I'd be liable to be charged with that? Interesting take, what counts as «importing» for software ? Is a copy (with source) of open-source software more in danger of being deemed so ? > Did the maintainers of LUKS do a prior declaration? If not are they likely to be charged if they ever travel to France? I would assume yes, but the likelihood might depend on their specific circumstances ? It wasn't that long ago that the USA considered cryptography to be on the same level of danger as weapons wrt export...
higgsbozo 2y ago
More and more proof is coming out that Pavel Durov has secretly traveled to Russia more than 60 times between 2014 to 2021. If so, it's close to impossible that he does not cooperate with RU security services. It's either co-operation or he'd be kaput. Furthermore, after his failure with his crypto project in the United States, he returned to his homeland, and the Kremlin immediately "unblocked" Telegram. The next day, Durov promised investors to pay off the debts. Quite a coincidence. Telegram also has taken down various channels from one side of the global conflict and not others. For example, he took down the channel of Iranians protesting against the dictatorship in 2017, but he refuses to take down the channels that sell child *pornography, drug$, human trafficking, or Ru$$ians posting videos of beheading Ukrainian POWs, etc. This whole situation is really complicated, to say the least. Freedom of speech is paramount, but in times of global information warfare, it's not really possible to stay neutral as the owner of the top communication platform. Especially given the horrific stuff that’s being done on this platform. He says he is neutral, but the facts indicate that it's not quite true. And it’s understandable from the aspect that his life is probably at risk if he doesn’t cooperate. So, it seems he's just trying to navigate a delicate balance, maneuvering between conflicting pressures. Prison is not great, even if it’s French, but Europe is less likely to give him novichok tea, so he apparently chose to work with the other side.
orwin 2y ago
I really wish people who don't know anything would shut up and wait for the GaV to end and the Ofmin judge statement before getting any conclusions. Yes, France is more and more corrupt, the fact that they deny anticor the right to pursue lawsuit against companies and politicians since 2023 is proof, but this arrest in particular seems well within the legal system (if he is kept under surveillance for more than 96 hours however I will agree with the author, but frankly it's a 'broken clock right twice a day' kind of agreement)
BlueTemplar 2y ago
> if they just passively host the content But specifically, the issue with the likes of today's Facebook and Twitter (no idea about Telegram) is that they do NOT «just passively host the content», in fact they started to actively engage into its editorializing as soon as they switched to using «algorithmic feeds» ! This has even been a pretty big legislative battle in EU a few years ago, when there were attempts to try to legislate «3rd way(s)» between the extremes of dumb hosting and online newspaper : https://communia-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/190227art13_arrows.png https://communia-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/... (Anyone has an up to date chart with the current situation, ideally in English ?) https://communia-association.org/2024/06/10/article-17-five-years-later/ https://communia-association.org/2024/06/10/article-17-five-...
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  Huh, I really did not expect US courts to agree with me that soon : https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/28/tiktok_blackout_challenge_appeal/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/28/tiktok_blackout_chall...
adolph 2y ago
Is HTTPS legal in France? Here, the French government is accusing Durov of being complicit with – i.e. aiding and abetting – criminal activity and also unlicensed provision of “cryptological” software, with encryption products subject to prior government authorization before their use in France will be approved.
treebeard901 2y ago
Articles about Telegram and similar encryption problems always tend to hit the very manipulative topics. Terrorism and CSAM are always used. The four horsemen methodology for control. The point is to emotionally manipulate the audience into complicity. To cause people not to question the underlying privacy and legal issues. Instead they want the reader to have thoughts of large numbers of people, in organized networks presumably, that want to cause terror to them or harm to their children. This causes a reaction in many people to forget about basic rights and focus on the fear they have been given instead. I'm sure France and the U.S. have a million reasons to want this data from the Ukraine war, to probably some cases of the things they claim. However, it is definitely exaggerated and no one should be willing to trade the ability to communicate privately out of some fear that people who want to harm you are also able to communicate privately. None of it really makes any logical sense because at the end of the day, to end all encryption means the Government would have to basically criminalize math. So of course they rely on the reliable methods of emotional manipulation. I mean, they should have a blank check to go after this guy and anyone else, right? You don't support terrorism do you???
codedokode 2y ago
I see contradictory statements: some media report that warrant for Durov brothers was issued in March 2024 [2], yet, france24 [1] claims that: > In a subsequent statement, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said Durov was arrested as part of a probe into an unnamed person launched by the office's cybercrime unit on July 8. So the probe was launched in July, but the warrant was issued in March? I do not understand that. Was warrant issued on a different case? Is information about warrant incorrect? [1] https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240826-telegram-ceo-pavel-durov-nothing-to-hide-arrested-france https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240826-telegram-ceo-pav... [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/exclusive-telegram-ceo-brother-nikolai-durov-wanted-france-authorities-pavel-durov/ https://www.politico.eu/article/exclusive-telegram-ceo-broth...
codedokode 2y ago
Actually I remember a couple of cases where Telegram cooperated with US regulators: - at Apple's demand Telegram made adult-themed groups unaccessible by default - at Apple's or Google's demand Telegram removed an animated emoji of an exploding eggplant Though those requests resemble censorship rather than preventing crime.
letitiaquinn5 2y ago
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letitiaquinn5 2y ago
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camilla4151 2y ago
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elena4151 2y ago
[flagged]

139 points by nailer 2y ago

“Summing up: for the time being, if you run a social media company, or if you provide encrypted messaging services, which are accessible in France, and you’re based in the United States, get out of Europe.”

hcfman 2y ago
Yeah, Europe is becoming more and more authoritarian and less and less demoractic. The Netherlands, the host country of the ICC, in 2021 made a law that anyone that works in a job with an obligation to secrecy cannot be prosecuted for lying under oath in a court. They cited an example of a lawyer client confidenially. They did not however, talk about the fact that now everyone in government can lie under oath in court. This undermines the very functional principle of a court of law. Lovely for the ICC. In addition, they created an organisation called the RIEC, with does not have a natural person as it's presentative, which under Dutch law means that it cannot be taken to court by anyone. The gave this organisation control over not just criminal investigations but "interventions", which have no definition and can be anything. They can do anything against anyone and not be held accountabile. And typically they do this through weak civilian proxies for further deniability. There's a 6x part Dutch documentary where it shows that 9 innocent people were sent to jail on fabricated evidence. One committed suicide. The Dutch will not re-open this case and the responsible person (The former head of the organised crime unit in Arnhein) is not the president of the court of Maastricht. Not fired, promoted. https://npo.nl/start/serie/de-villamoord/seizoen-2/de-leeuw-en-de-hyena https://npo.nl/start/serie/de-villamoord/seizoen-2/de-leeuw-... So the Netherlands has clearly loss a functional democracy. It's the way all of Europe is going.

tptacek 2y ago

This analysis leaves out the fact that Pavel Durov is, with Telegram, in approximately the same position Ladar Levison was with Lavabit. Unlike Meredith Whitaker, Durov actually is in a position to furnish documents to the French government, where he has citizenship. He's in that position because he has repeatedly made deliberate product decisions, to the bafflement of cryptographers around the world, to keep himself in that position. If you literally have plaintext documents responsive to criminal inquiries in a jurisdiction you are subject to, we don't reach the "internet censorship wars". You're in a place not dissimilar to a 1970s telephone company; the "random people can't simply declare themselves above the law wars". Don't be in that place. Encrypt end-to-end.

cperciva 2y ago
Indeed. Two of the more common questions I get with Tarsnap are Q. How do I know that Tarsnap is secure? A. Read the source code. Q. Ok, but you're really smart, what's stopping you from putting in a backdoor and hiding it really well? A. I don't want to get tortured, and ensuring that I can't decrypt your data protects *me*.
- daliusd 2y ago
  IMHO second answer does not hold water. If you will end up in situation where you are tortured they will torture you until you will you say how to add the backdoor.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    His point is that he can't backdoor it: you can read the code before you install it. I'd go further, and say that this is true of anything end-to-end encrypted, open-source or not, because it's not 2002 anymore and reversing ordinary client software is table stakes. (I'd still rather run something open source, ceteris paribus).
    - inopinatus 2y ago
      Feeding the paranoia above is that cperciva would verifiably be the smartest person in the room. A canny torturer would respond to this bringing in djb as the primary instrument of torture. "First one to break or weaken scrypt or 8-round salsa20 gains their freedom". The loser is forced to give talks at AWS marketing conferences for the rest of their natural
      - h0l0cube 2y ago
        > A canny torturer A canny torturer would read the Smart People on a public forum red-teaming cperciva's mind.
    - cperciva 2y ago

uxhacker 2y ago

Is this an unintentional war by Europe on facebook, signal, etc? What will the outcome be? Will these services leave Europe? Will Europe change the rules ?

riffraff 2y ago
It seems not yet. Signal is e2e encrypted data which telegram is not, Facebook has regularly collaborated with authorities, which apparently telegram did not. Every case is different. I think TFA is ignoring the usual practice of prosecutors everywhere to stack accusations with a bunch of things which won't stick. Nonetheless, France has been flirting with extended internet censorship for a while.
guappa 2y ago
No it's a NATO war against unaligned companies that don't only cooperate with NATO.
pyeri 2y ago
[flagged]
- jen20 2y ago
  > UK recently elected far-left parties What in the everliving fuck are you talking about?
  - pyeri 2y ago
    Isn't Labour party far left?
    - jen20 2y ago
      No.
herbst 2y ago
Facebook is in the headlines because it shits on people's privacy. Telegram is assumed to do the exact opposite.

truman01 2y ago

Telegram’s End to End Encryption by default is disabled, only available for one-to-one conversation. My ‘guess’ is that most of group conversions are pretty accessible on telegram servers, which might be the case here.

ks2048 2y ago
This article repeatedly referred to Telegraph as "encrypted" ("have full encryption on their services", "when you’re running a globally accessible encrypted platform"), which seems misleading, if by default, it is not end-to-end encrypted.
- NdMAND 2y ago
  I think the idea is that Telegram servers are encrypted with keys that Telegram itself has access to (just distributed to different countries) - as opposed to e2e encryption.

cedws 2y ago

The speculation on this situation is crazy. People are losing their minds over the idea of Durov being arrested over crimes committed on his platform, but we don’t even know the details. For all we know he could have been completely complicit. Hold your horses people.

weinzierl 2y ago
This and in addition, I have not seen proof that he knew about a pending arrest when he went to France. Many commenters and media paint him somewhere on the spectrum between arrogant and stupid, when it is not clear at all that he had a chance to avoid the situation.
willsoon 2y ago
The article specifically argues about the ex-hypothesis of Durov's involvement in these crimes. And maybe I misread it, but this thread also argues about that possibility.
akira2501 2y ago
> the idea of Durov being arrested I don't know him but the idea that an individual CEO would be handled in this way seems extreme and calls into question the actual motives of the French government. > For all we know he could have been completely complicit. I guess he could be an international terrorist drug dealing pimp. > Hold your horses people. The French governments actions and communication on the subject has created this environment. They can easily alter it if they choose.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  It's not for the government to communicate, and criminal investigations are secret in France. So prosecutors don't have to make any public statements or release any documents (and in fact they shouldn't) but in such high profile cases they are likely to make a general statement to placate the media.
  - cedws 2y ago

hackcasual 2y ago

Trying to understand his legal situation by analogizing with US law understanding strikes me as some real Dunning-Kruegering. Surely someone like Preston Byrne has someone he can reach out to to get a better understanding of the actual French legal situation Durov is in.

sofixa 2y ago
Yeah, a lot of people, commentators, HNers, Redditors invoke US laws and procedures as reasoning and for comparison. Which is bordering on the useless - okay, you think he wouldn't have been arrested in the US, cool, what does that actually tell us about him being arrested in France? Nothing? You didn't even bother to look up how warrants and arrests and criminal proceedings work in France? Thank you for wasting my time with your commentary.
- pjbyrne 2y ago
  The article was written for the benefit of Americans with business operations in France, so understanding why America is way better than France to run a social media company is relevant information. That the article wound up being circulated to a bunch of Europeans who thought it was an article about French law after someone posted it on HN is something of an accident; the article isn't for them (unless of course they're planning on starting a social media company, in which case leaving Europe and setting up shop in America on a permanent basis would be recommended). The very fact of his arrest is enough for Americans to know to steer clear of the EU going forward.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > so understanding why America is way better than France to run a social media company is relevant information Without any information on the legal background for France, how can anyone seriously make that claim?
    - pjbyrne 2y ago
      There is plenty of legal background for France (and Europe more broadly, eg the German NetzDG) there if you'd care to read the piece, including reference to numerous censorial provisions of French law which make France suboptimal vis a vis the U.S. for social media operations including Loi no. 2020-766 du 24 juin 2020, the EU DSA, and the applicable French aiding and abetting statute, the last of which would not have been usable against Durov in the U.S. absent specific intent to commit an unlawful act. The conditional immunity under the DSA is also not as comprehensive as the broad immunity under Section 230, but that was out of scope so I didn't get into it. I do admit the piece assumes some familiarity on the part of the reader with the existing problems around the EU regulatory schemes relating to speech and content removal. If you have any constructive suggestions I'll be happy to consider including them and giving you appropriate credit, just chuck them in the comment section. tl;dr though, in my view, France is not a great place to incorporate and run a social media company.

ks2048 2y ago

He starts by saying that in the US, social media owners are not responsible for crimes committed by their users. How does that relate to the Kim DotCom case? Is piracy treated differently?

sjdhdhdj 2y ago

[flagged]

pjerem 2y ago
Except Google is taking down any illegal data they are asked to takedown or to give to law enforcement. Durov is not arrested to have hosted illegal content but to deliberately have not do anything against it when asked to. If you did something illegal via Gmail and the law enforcement asked for your mails to Google, they’d give them. Telegram voluntarily did not. Note that Durov/Telegram could have been easily protected against this by using E2E encryption and therefore not becoming the owner of the data on their servers.
- oaththrowaway 2y ago
  > Note that Durov/Telegram could have been easily protected against this by using E2E encryption and therefore not becoming the owner of the data on their servers. How'd that work for Lavabit?
- sjdhdhdj 2y ago
  No they stay up for weeks after dozens of reports. I suspect the ads are only taken off once the stolen credit card used in AdWords gets declined.
  - herbst 2y ago
    Same is true for whoever checks Ads for Facebook. Funnily enough telegram is way more restrictive with it's own ads.

pjerem 2y ago

> What it means is that European states are going to try to extraterritorially dictate to foreign companies what content those companies can and cannot host on foreign-based webservers It looks like the author failed to grab that Durov asked for the French nationality and therefore is a French citizen who must comply to French law. > Telegram is not the only company in the world which has a social media platform used for unlawful purposes Except Telegram is the only one of those companies which intentionally doesn’t answers to legal requests. All other social networks are cooperating with law enforcers in the countries they operate. Even Signal is cooperating when asked too. The difference is that unlike Signal, Telegram owns its users data in plaintext. Also the author fails to understand that the complicity here doesn’t mean that companies in Europe are responsible for their users content. Like in the US, they are responsible if they fail to comply to laws in a reasonable time. Telegram doesn’t comply in a reasonable time since they voluntarily don’t comply at all. That’s a huge difference.

willsoon 2y ago
>Legal request A legal request comes from a legal authority: a judge. >Cooperating with law enforcement Law Enforcement (that's the police, right?) are not judges and are not authorised to rule on legal matters. Hate has not logic. So you are trying to cover the whole spectrum of things to ensure your belief that Durov is being legally detained. Sorry for editing instead of answering. Reddit says I "post too fast".
- pjerem 2y ago
  What logic ? Where is the hate ?
- agubelu 2y ago
  A legal authority (judge) issues a legal request, which must be complied with to the best of your ability. If you don't comply, you're acting unlawfully and thus you're detained by law enforcement (police). It's a pretty straightforward logic.
gostsamo 2y ago
The author wants to cry against the EU lows because EU bad period. "Don't travel to Europe, don't hire in Europe" and so on. The rest is looking for arguments to support his "hunches".

biztos 2y ago

This is a take I keep seeing, more or less, and yet Telegram is not an encrypted messaging service for the most part, and so Durov could have moderated but actively promoted his not doing so; and the crimes this article leads with, as examples of things that’d get you in trouble in the US too, are said to have been prevalent on Telegram. (Also, maybe it’s nitpicking, but there are very obvious reasons why it’s better to have the Taliban using WhatsApp and the US getting all that metadata and maybe more, rather than the Taliban finding some other channel. If Washington wanted WhatsApp banned in Afghanistan it would’ve happened long ago.) What I can’t figure out is, are these commentators naïve or just piling on for attention or what?

guappa 2y ago
Read the actual charges. Providing an encrypted means of communication is one of the charges.
bigiain 2y ago
> there are very obvious reasons why it’s better to have the Taliban using WhatsApp and the US getting all that metadata and maybe more, rather than the Taliban finding some other channel There are some very obvious opportunities when the Taliban (or enemy de jour, like drug cartels) feel the need to be "finding another channel". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trojan_Shield https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trojan_Shield "Hardened encrypted devices provide an "impenetrable shield against law enforcement surveillance” and are in high demand by TCOs (transnational criminal organizations), thus the shutdown of Phantom Secure in March 2018 left a vacuum for TCOs in need of an alternative system for secure communication. Around the same time, the San Diego FBI branch had been working with a person who had been developing a "next-generation" encrypted device for use by criminal networks. The person was facing charges and cooperated with the FBI in exchange for a reduced sentence. The person offered to develop ANOM and then use his contacts to distribute it to TCOs through existing networks. Before the devices were put to use, however, the FBI, and the AFP had a backdoor built into the communication platform which allowed law enforcement agencies to decrypt and store the messages as the messages were transmitted." I'm still seeing drug busts here in Australia that're attributed to An0m (or which look extremely likely to have used An0m as part of the investigation).

newaccount74 2y ago

This is quite a one-sided take. What makes Telegram unique is: 1) They have access to almost all the content 2) They try to use arguments about jurisdiction to avoid helping law enforcement with lawful requests All the other messaging platforms (WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage) have started to use end-to-end encryption to avoid being in this position in the first place. But they also comply with law enforcement and share the data they do have, and don't hinder lawful investigations. The biggest issue with Telegram is that due to the lack of end-to-end encryption it is a huge security risk; how do you know the operators aren't selling access to your chats to some criminal actor or a repressive government agency? You don't.

danpalmer 2y ago
I found it interesting to read that their approach is supposedly to split encryption keys across jurisdictions. It sounds like they believe that they should therefore not be able to be compelled to reveal any plaintext because the keys are not in the jurisdiction asking for data, but as far as I can tell this is obviously rubbish, because a computer is not subject to the law, an individual is, and in this case an individual with the power to comply who is seemingly deciding not to. What's weird is that there aren't really technical blockers to E2E encryption anymore (maybe different 10+ years ago), and with such a weak alternative, you'd expect Telegram to want to switch. The fact they haven't for so long, and have essentially doubled down on their flawed approach suggests that there's a reason we're not privy to as to why they don't want to move to E2E encryption. I'd hope not, and I don't want to throw around conspiracy theories, but when a decision doesn't make sense that's usually due to missing information, and I do wonder what we're missing.
- NayamAmarshe 2y ago
  > that there aren't really technical blockers to E2E encryption anymore There are several disadvantages, and Telegram would lose its key features: 1. Cloud Sync 2. Instant Multi-device login 3. The ability to create large group chats, like thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in a single place. 4. Sending files up to 4GB.

jcranmer 2y ago

The fundamental problem we have right know is that we know the charges, but not the factual allegations that underlie those charges. Put differently, if you wanted to put together a charge list for the head of a large social media company you didn't like, this is what it would look like. If you wanted to put together a charge list for someone actively running the group chat of a terrorist group... this is what it would look like. And same for pretty much every level in between. Deciding which of these scenarios is more likely is more indicative of your priors of the scenarios than it is of the evidence. Is this the French government going after a fairly innocuous service because they don't like what they provide? Or is it the government going after a service saying "neener neener your laws can't touch us"? Or is it the government going after an individual with tenuous connections to criminal organizations? Or one with solid connections to criminal organizations? Truthfully, we don't have the evidence to distinguish between these scenarios yet, and we should reserve judgement until such evidence comes to light.

mytailorisrich 2y ago
The thing is that French law for criminal procedure says that it is secret. So in principle judges and prosecutors don't have to publicly say anything and in fact should not say anything apart from discussing with Durov and his lawyers. That said, for high profile cases they tend to give some information to control rumors and the media.
fvdessen 2y ago
I just opened telegram, went to ‘find people nearby’ and was immediately presented with a long list of drug dealers and prostitutes advertising their services. I’m pretty sure that’s not legal
- guappa 2y ago
  Now try to buy from them. They are just scammers who are nowhere near you. They will ask you to send codes from gift cards.
  - paxys 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

maeil 2y ago

> If, however, the French are simply saying that Durov’s failure to police his users or respond promptly to French document requests is the crime (which I suspect is the case), then this represents a dramatic escalation in the online censorship wars. What it means is that European states are going to try to extraterritorially dictate to foreign companies what content those companies can and cannot host on foreign-based webservers. This completely ignores that the amount of criminal activity on Telegram in Europe as well as parts of Asia in itself has been escalating. The author is coming at this from a US-based point of view, which is fine, but unless you're particularly interested in the topic it's difficult for Americans to be aware of the scale of Telegram's role in criminality elsewhere, as this does not seem to be the case in the US. Maybe someone here knows why Telegram is not as core to organized crime in the US, and what communication methods are used there. But it's clear that in Europe and parts of Asia, its role is massive, and has been growing and growing without a limit in sight. This is easy to underestimate. In these parts of the world, the scale of it is of a completely different magnitude than criminal activity on e.g. Facebook, which the author brings up but is a misguided comparison. And that's ignoring the relative percentages of legit vs criminal activity, which are inverted (if not worse) between the two platforms, because that's not as important. Scale and absolute numbers, the absolute detrimental effect on society, matter. I don't see this as an escalation because there was always going to be a line somewhere. A line where the amount of criminal activity on a platform, which when crossed , was going to cause arrests. Telegram's continuous growth in this aspect means that the line has now been crossed. And in reality, this line exists anywhere even in the US. It might be higher, but it's still there. The idea of not having such a line is clearly insane - that would mean no matter if something completely destroys society, we're going to let it pass. Such lines are almost never enshrined in law, for obvious reasons. They only become visible to everyone as they are crossed.

coffeebeqn 2y ago
In the last few years most of the drug supply has moved from tor to telegram in large parts of Europe for example
guappa 2y ago
There have been several arrests of drug dealers using whatsapp over the years. Do you have any official source that criminals on telegram are more? Or is it just a feeling you have?

mediumsmart 2y ago

Thinking is not shitting Is there a difference between telegram and other social media messenger hybrids? Do they allow anti Russian content the same way they allow pro Russian content? Is that a problem?

necovek 2y ago
Telegram is widely used in Ukraine too, and that includes a lot of anti-Russia material.
sofixa 2y ago
Telegram allows everything and anything, including unsavoury/illegal content (supposedly you can report it and it gets taken down, but potentially the whole crux of the issue Durov was arrested over was that it's not enough/fast enough/law enforcement can't report). There are channels from Russian and Ukrainian officials making official announcements (today our city of X got hit by missiles, please go to ABC if you need help), there are Russian officials using it for official communications (including military and intelligence). There are paramilitaries and other such groups using it for internal and external communications too.
- herbst 2y ago
  > Telegram allows everything and anything, including unsavoury/illegal content Which is simply wrong. Telegram is heavily banning users, channels and groups (if reported I assume) the difference is that they don't apply American morals but something a bit more open than that. To give you a concrete example, it strictly follows basically the same morality terms for porn as onlyfans or pornhub (except the copy right that is)

cja 2y ago

Why are so many people taking this at face value? There's a war going on and the man in charge of the communications system for one side flew to try to meet his leader and then flew to an enemy country where there was a warrant for his arrest. I'm not saying the French aren't serious about the charges they've published but they're hardly the main point. There's plenty in the media about the use of Telegram by the the Russian military and intelligence services, as well as politicians. For example: https://www.politico.eu/article/telegram-ceo-arrest-pavel-durov-russian-military-communications-france/ https://www.politico.eu/article/telegram-ceo-arrest-pavel-du...

sofixa 2y ago
I see this argument a lot, but it falls apart when you realise Ukraine also extensively uses Telegram. Maybe not for official state business (Zelenskyy chatting with his intelligence chief), but many times officials communicate with civilians via Telegram channels.
- akira2501 2y ago
  He could be selling one side out against the other.
- cja 2y ago
  Your second sentence contradicts your first
  - sofixa 2y ago
    It doesn't. Public service announcements are extremely critical for a nation at war.
    - cja 2y ago
      They aren't secret. France and its allies having access to Telegram data/systems doesn't affect Ukraine's ability to use it for that purpose.
2y ago

NayamAmarshe 2y ago

The fact that the French president invited Durov to dinner and then arrested him, is so strange. They want to control Telegram, the arrest is just an excuse.

uhryks 2y ago
Judiciary power is (somewhat) independent from executive power. Thank god people can still do things without needing Macron's approval.
- NayamAmarshe 2y ago
  'somewhat' is the keyword.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

paulcarroty 2y ago

https://istories.media/en/news/2024/08/27/pavel-durov-has-visited-russia-more-than-50-times-since-his-exile-in-2014/ https://istories.media/en/news/2024/08/27/pavel-durov-has-vi... Telegram is FSB project, lost all my doubts about.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago

e2ee is not a panacea. Law enforcement is more interested in metadata than content: who messaged whom and when, which account corresponds to which phone number etc. This data is still sitting on whatsapp and signal servers, so not much safer than telegram. I'm looking at Element now: at least it doesn't ask for phone number and I can host my own server.

medo-bear 2y ago

Another danger here is that other governments (eg Russia China) might respond assymetrically (or even exactly the same) against other CEOs of companies that give agency to narratives they are not happy with. For example by kidnapping them and constructing some bogus charges, using this instance as a precedent.

medo-bear 2y ago

> where he has citizenship Durov is being persecuted for his role as a CEO of Telegram. Telegram is a legal entity that has nothing to do with France

lispm 2y ago
> Telegram is a legal entity that has nothing to do with France That's obviously false. Telegram is providing services to French and EU citizens.
- medo-bear 2y ago
  Or the EU and France allowed its citizens to gain services from a foreign company, Telegram, and did nothing to stop them? Russia at least tried to block them.

tetrisgm 2y ago

I read somewhere that his exile is vastly overstated. Apparently he has traveled to Russia 40x in the recent years. Take it with a grain of salt.

JoelJacobson 2y ago

Strange, I haven't found any articles that mention the "Find People Nearby" and "Make Myself Visible" features, which seems to be core features criminals use to sell drugs/sex, finding new random clients in the area. The public non-encrypted aliases or bio of users often contain wordings that explicitly spell out they sell drugs or sex. For instance, one alias is "WEED COKE MDMA SPE..." I don't have a clear opinion on whether drugs or selling sex should be illegal or not, can see pros/cons, but my opinion is irrelevant, my point here is that Law Enforcement, might find this very problematic, that there is obviously no moderation here.

herbst 2y ago
I always was under assumption that these are all fake. There are ~300 people living nearby me. 5 are dealers and 10 prostitutes according to telegram.
- dewey 2y ago
  Coordinates can be spoofed.
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    Oh, someone figured out the meaning of fake
    - dewey 2y ago
      I believe the comment was edited to add that part.
LtWorf 2y ago
You believe those are real people who are really near you? They aren't more near you than the ladies in "meet single women in..." are. https://xkcd.com/713/ https://xkcd.com/713/

gpayan 2y ago

I wonder why Durov traveled to France, knowing that he would be arrested there. Could there be more to the story?

g42gregory 2y ago
He did not know that he would be arrested there. The plane tried to leave Paris airspace at the last minute, but it was too late. Durov should have known that he could be arrested. Basically, arrogance and wishful thinking, complacency, believing in "democracy". Still, UAE will probably get him out.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- dolmen 2y ago
  > The plane tried to leave Paris airspace at the last minute, but it was too late. Do you have sources?

surfingdino 2y ago

> Summing up: for the time being, if you run a social media company, or if you provide encrypted messaging services, which are accessible in France, and you’re based in the United States, get out of Europe. If you make a mockery of the law enforcement's requests made within the scope of the local laws then yes, you should get out. Especially if you show your middle finger to the country you visit and hold citizenship of. Durov has money to buy citizenships that allow him access to most of the world without needing to obtain a visa so I'm sure he has a well-paid legal team that proactively monitor the situation. He may have been informed of the legal noose tightening around his neck and chose to go to France for one reason--France does not extradite its citizens and he happens to hold French citizenship. This puts him out of the reach of other jurisdictions (e.g. the US) and he may be hoping for a deal and better food. We should wait for official information from the French authorities as well as for news of people connected to him and his businesses falling out of windows. The former will explain the latter.

SSLy 2y ago
More importantly, this puts him (mostly) out of reach of moscow too.
- surfingdino 2y ago
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pelorat 2y ago

Another American who knows nothing about things outside of the USA.

deleted 2y ago

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sersi 2y ago

Reading the charges, one jump to my mind as being scary: "Importation d'un moyen de cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sans déclaration préalable." - Import of a cryptographic mean that does not exclusively perform authentication or integrity control functions without prior declaration. This to me is a deeply disturbing charge, would that mean that using full disk encryption I'd be liable to be charged with that? Did the maintainers of LUKS do a prior declaration? If not are they likely to be charged if they ever travel to France? After all, I can fully imagine a server being seized in a data center being encrypted with LUKS. In that case, is it the fault of the maintainers?

BlueTemplar 2y ago
> This to me is a deeply disturbing charge, would that mean that using full disk encryption I'd be liable to be charged with that? Interesting take, what counts as «importing» for software ? Is a copy (with source) of open-source software more in danger of being deemed so ? > Did the maintainers of LUKS do a prior declaration? If not are they likely to be charged if they ever travel to France? I would assume yes, but the likelihood might depend on their specific circumstances ? It wasn't that long ago that the USA considered cryptography to be on the same level of danger as weapons wrt export...

higgsbozo 2y ago

More and more proof is coming out that Pavel Durov has secretly traveled to Russia more than 60 times between 2014 to 2021. If so, it's close to impossible that he does not cooperate with RU security services. It's either co-operation or he'd be kaput. Furthermore, after his failure with his crypto project in the United States, he returned to his homeland, and the Kremlin immediately "unblocked" Telegram. The next day, Durov promised investors to pay off the debts. Quite a coincidence. Telegram also has taken down various channels from one side of the global conflict and not others. For example, he took down the channel of Iranians protesting against the dictatorship in 2017, but he refuses to take down the channels that sell child *pornography, drug$, human trafficking, or Ru$$ians posting videos of beheading Ukrainian POWs, etc. This whole situation is really complicated, to say the least. Freedom of speech is paramount, but in times of global information warfare, it's not really possible to stay neutral as the owner of the top communication platform. Especially given the horrific stuff that’s being done on this platform. He says he is neutral, but the facts indicate that it's not quite true. And it’s understandable from the aspect that his life is probably at risk if he doesn’t cooperate. So, it seems he's just trying to navigate a delicate balance, maneuvering between conflicting pressures. Prison is not great, even if it’s French, but Europe is less likely to give him novichok tea, so he apparently chose to work with the other side.

orwin 2y ago

I really wish people who don't know anything would shut up and wait for the GaV to end and the Ofmin judge statement before getting any conclusions. Yes, France is more and more corrupt, the fact that they deny anticor the right to pursue lawsuit against companies and politicians since 2023 is proof, but this arrest in particular seems well within the legal system (if he is kept under surveillance for more than 96 hours however I will agree with the author, but frankly it's a 'broken clock right twice a day' kind of agreement)

BlueTemplar 2y ago

> if they just passively host the content But specifically, the issue with the likes of today's Facebook and Twitter (no idea about Telegram) is that they do NOT «just passively host the content», in fact they started to actively engage into its editorializing as soon as they switched to using «algorithmic feeds» ! This has even been a pretty big legislative battle in EU a few years ago, when there were attempts to try to legislate «3rd way(s)» between the extremes of dumb hosting and online newspaper : https://communia-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/190227art13_arrows.png https://communia-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/... (Anyone has an up to date chart with the current situation, ideally in English ?) https://communia-association.org/2024/06/10/article-17-five-years-later/ https://communia-association.org/2024/06/10/article-17-five-...

BlueTemplar 2y ago
Huh, I really did not expect US courts to agree with me that soon : https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/28/tiktok_blackout_challenge_appeal/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/28/tiktok_blackout_chall...

adolph 2y ago

Is HTTPS legal in France? Here, the French government is accusing Durov of being complicit with – i.e. aiding and abetting – criminal activity and also unlicensed provision of “cryptological” software, with encryption products subject to prior government authorization before their use in France will be approved.

treebeard901 2y ago

Articles about Telegram and similar encryption problems always tend to hit the very manipulative topics. Terrorism and CSAM are always used. The four horsemen methodology for control. The point is to emotionally manipulate the audience into complicity. To cause people not to question the underlying privacy and legal issues. Instead they want the reader to have thoughts of large numbers of people, in organized networks presumably, that want to cause terror to them or harm to their children. This causes a reaction in many people to forget about basic rights and focus on the fear they have been given instead. I'm sure France and the U.S. have a million reasons to want this data from the Ukraine war, to probably some cases of the things they claim. However, it is definitely exaggerated and no one should be willing to trade the ability to communicate privately out of some fear that people who want to harm you are also able to communicate privately. None of it really makes any logical sense because at the end of the day, to end all encryption means the Government would have to basically criminalize math. So of course they rely on the reliable methods of emotional manipulation. I mean, they should have a blank check to go after this guy and anyone else, right? You don't support terrorism do you???

codedokode 2y ago

I see contradictory statements: some media report that warrant for Durov brothers was issued in March 2024 [2], yet, france24 [1] claims that: > In a subsequent statement, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said Durov was arrested as part of a probe into an unnamed person launched by the office's cybercrime unit on July 8. So the probe was launched in July, but the warrant was issued in March? I do not understand that. Was warrant issued on a different case? Is information about warrant incorrect? [1] https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240826-telegram-ceo-pavel-durov-nothing-to-hide-arrested-france https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240826-telegram-ceo-pav... [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/exclusive-telegram-ceo-brother-nikolai-durov-wanted-france-authorities-pavel-durov/ https://www.politico.eu/article/exclusive-telegram-ceo-broth...

codedokode 2y ago

Actually I remember a couple of cases where Telegram cooperated with US regulators: - at Apple's demand Telegram made adult-themed groups unaccessible by default - at Apple's or Google's demand Telegram removed an animated emoji of an exploding eggplant Though those requests resemble censorship rather than preventing crime.

letitiaquinn5 2y ago

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letitiaquinn5 2y ago

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camilla4151 2y ago

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elena4151 2y ago

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