9 ms·

Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

98 points by NayamAmarshe 2y ago

snaoceonicteqto 2y ago
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business2sellau 2y ago
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fahrenheit154 2y ago
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Arnt 2y ago
https://archive.is/wDlpb https://archive.is/wDlpb I found it a little low on detail, though.
- sofixa 2y ago
  From the horse's mouth, in French and English, the official press statement from the Prosecutor's office (it's a PDF): https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files/2024-08/2024-08-26%20-%20CP%20TELEGRAM%20.pdf https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files... It's a laundry list of accessory to commit crimes + a few interesting associated ones like organising to commit crimes, and laundering the proceeds of crimes.
  - Arnt 2y ago
    Thanks. So they're fairly confident about most of it, them. I wonder about this: «Fourniture d'un moyen de cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sans déclaration préalable,» Do you happen to know what making that declaration involves?
    - sofixa 2y ago
      Disclaimer: not a lawyer, just did some law courses in a couple of countries, including France. From the law 2004-575 [1], section 1, article 30: > I. - L'utilisation des moyens de cryptologie est libre. > II. - La fourniture, le transfert depuis ou vers un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne, l'importation et l'exportation des moyens de cryptologie assurant exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sont libres. > III. - La fourniture, le transfert depuis un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne ou l'importation d'un moyen de cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sont soumis à une déclaration préalable auprès du Premier ministre, sauf dans les cas prévus au b du présent III. Le fournisseur ou la personne procédant au transfert ou à l'importation tiennent à la disposition du Premier ministre une description des caractéristiques techniques de ce moyen de cryptologie, ainsi que le code source des logiciels utilisés. Un décret en Conseil d'Etat fixe : > a) Les conditions dans lesquelles sont souscrites ces déclarations, les conditions et les délais dans lesquels le Premier ministre peut demander communication des caractéristiques du moyen, ainsi que la nature de ces caractéristiques ; > b) Les catégories de moyens dont les caractéristiques techniques ou les conditions d'utilisation sont telles que, au regard des intérêts de la défense nationale et de la sécurité intérieure ou extérieure de l'Etat, leur fourniture, leur transfert depuis un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne ou leur importation peuvent être dispensés de toute formalité préalable. > IV. - Le transfert vers un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne et l'exportation d'un moyen de cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sont soumis à autorisation du Premier ministre, sauf dans les cas prévus au b du présent IV. Un décret en Conseil d'Etat fixe : > a) Les conditions dans lesquelles sont souscrites les demandes d'autorisation ainsi que les délais dans lesquels le Premier ministre statue sur ces demandes ; > b) Les catégories de moyens dont les caractéristiques techniques ou les conditions d'utilisation sont telles que, au regard des intérêts de la défense nationale et de la sécurité intérieure ou extérieure de l'Etat, leur transfert vers un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne ou leur exportation peuvent être soit soumis au régime déclaratif et aux obligations d'information prévus au III, soit dispensés de toute formalité préalable. Basically, any cryptography exported/imported that is not about authentication or integrity control, or a set of other exceptions, needs to be approved from the Prime Minister's office. The exceptions and formalities are defined in the relevant decree [2] and it's annex defining the full list of exceptions [3] (Ctrl/Cmd+F "ANNEXE 1"). The procedure to ask for authorisation is to send a special type of letter a month before going into production, and if you don't hear back within a month (the directorate has a month to ask for more information), all is good. They can request the source code, and forbid use if they decide it's against the nations interests. The list of exceptions is quite exhaustive, e.g. it includes cryptography aboard single board computers for personal use, banking, TV encryption, etc. Interestingly, there's this part: > Equipements spécialement conçus et limités pour assurer la protection de logiciels ou de données informatiques contre la copie ou l’utilisation illicite et dont la capacité cryptographique n’est pas accessible à l’utilisateur. So, if I'm reading this correctly, if Telegram was end to end encrypted, they wouldn't have had to declare to the PM. How the declaration 1 - https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/JORFTEXT000000801164/LEGISCTA000006117690/2020-01-01 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/JORFTEXT0000... 2 - https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000646995 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000646995 3 - https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/download/pdf?id=y0_q3mVjGocORJv9gawo_59zMW9r0VCLrkV8AmAAT3o= https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/download/pdf?id=y0_q3mVjGocOR...
- Foobar8568 2y ago
  "Telegram has played a role in multiple criminal cases in France tied to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online hate crimes, but has shown a “near-total absence” of response to requests for cooperation from law enforcement, Ms. Beccuau said." That's not little low on details.
  - Arnt 2y ago
    Sorry, that was unclear. I expected to see what the charges are. Has played a role, sure, enough to talk about it in public, but I expected to see what the prosecutor thought would be enough for a court.
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
[flagged]
pikseladam 2y ago
Is there any website owner with a million users who can't be held accountable for the same crimes? According to the logic in France, since criminals use Windows, the CEO of Microsoft could also be blamed.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  I have not read the charges, but do you mean the charges are literally like that? Or that the charges are false? Or that the charges are true but only enforced because they want him for other reasons?
- thefz 2y ago
  > According to the logic in France, since criminals use Windows, the CEO of Microsoft could also be blamed What a superficial take. Following the same logic, highway management would be held accountable if a killer used one of their roads to go and commit a crime. But for platform providers, they (the providers) have the responsibility to moderate the content that is hosted publicly on their platforms. Which most of the content on Telegram is. And if some illegal material is there, they (the providers) have the responsibility to take it offline. Do you have any idea how much, let's say Meta, spends in terms of money and manpower to prevent this? How much moderation goes on for most of the platforms? Read about regulations in France (SREN law IIRC).
- WhereIsTheTruth 2y ago
  Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, X(Twitter), Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp They all cooperate with governments: https://www.engadget.com/authorities-reportedly-ordered-google-to-reveal-the-identities-of-some-youtube-videos-viewers-140018019.html https://www.engadget.com/authorities-reportedly-ordered-goog... In fact, google is partly CIA/NSA https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...
- Foobar8568 2y ago
  Maybe these websites cooperate unlike Telegram? First paragraph or second one from the article: "Telegram has played a role in multiple criminal cases in France tied to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online hate crimes, but has shown a “near-total absence” of response to requests for cooperation from law enforcement, Ms. Beccuau said."
stanislavb 2y ago
Some interesting facts: - Durov is, according to him, living in exile outside of Russia since 2014 - due to Russian gov persecution. - Since his "exile" - he has travelled 50-60 times to Russia https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/1f2pgg3/pavel_durov_has_secretly_traveled_to_russia_more/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/1f2pgg3/pavel_dur... - Most Russian billionaires that live in exile and are persecuted by the RU gov fall from windows (or something tall) quite often. Durov has been living lavishly though. - Russia is trying to protect him now that he is being charged. i.e. a lot of odd and contradicting moments.
- dools 2y ago
  Yeah and Telegram is also the biggest source of disinfo. Total Russian operation.
  - datadeft 2y ago
    Sorry but you can't blame the medium for this. If you do please also blame everybody else: keyboard producers, monitor manufacturers etc. Do not just cherry pick one vendor.
    - dools 2y ago
      This is like saying there is no difference between a postal worker and the getaway driver in a bank heist.
  - hagbard_c 2y ago
    One person's 'disinfo' is another's info, that same person's info is propaganda to another. The recent acknowledgement by Zuckerberg that the Biden/Harris regime pressured them into censoring information should give you some thought about what is 'disinfo'. In other words don't be too quick in condemning channels which allow voices outside the desired narrative to be heard because the day might come than you need to step outside it. Given that you seem to recognise 'disinfo' - given your claim of Telegram being the main source of it - you can just ignore it just like others ignore what they consider or know to be falsehoods.
janmo 2y ago
It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not communicating user information to the french intelligence services. Recently have been a bunch of scandals where french intelligence officers where involved in murder plots. - There is "Haurus", a french intelligence officer who sold personal information on the darknet, in one case he sold personal information including the address of a drug dealer. Something that is believed to have helped in his murdered by a "competitor". - There is the murder of racing driver "Laurent Pasquali" who is presumed to have been killed by a french intelligence officer. The plot involved over 20 people with several of them being french intelligence officers. In fact they got his personal information and address to plan the murder plot through the french intelligence database. You can Google all this, it is true.
- NiekvdMaas 2y ago
  To make things even stranger, Durov was apparently invited to lunch by Macron. Instead of a presidential welcome, he was arrested on arrival. Source: https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1828529272539304278 https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1828529272539304278
  - emptysongglass 2y ago
    I find it deeply uncomfortable that the HN contingent is rushing to defend the French government on this matter. The European Union has been angling for more comprehensive access to messaging platforms with proposal after proposal. Everyone here loves to sing the praises of the EU but broad regulatory powers is not a clear cut value proposition: European governments and those governed have a long history of oppression. What's more, many of the broad regulatory powers have been used successfully by despotic regimes like China as cudgels not only to break apart monopolies (good) but to demand unfettered access to data (bad). These accusations made by the French government of conspiracy on one individual and alleged invitations by a head of state to entrap should be chilling to anyone observing. It reminds me of what happened to Jack Ma, when Ant threatened the CPC's interests. If Telegram really was not answering enforcement requests in a timely manner, then France should have moved against the company either through a direct ban on the app itself or other court action. Putting its CEO in prison sends a message. That message should be terrifying to anyone who values a free society.
deleted 2y ago
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sschueller 2y ago
If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? This is a very slippery slope. I don't see a problem with requiring a company to cooperate with a court order to release data. However if a company does not have this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect such data.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  Agreed. But Telegram seems to have this data unencrypted.
- lz400 2y ago
  but that's exactly what's happening. They have the data and they don't comply. Phone companies and ISPs get court-ordered to release data all the time and they do it or go to jail too
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? They are already liable unless they follow the law to enjoy certain exemptions.
- KaiserPro 2y ago
  > how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? Very far. but france is a civil law system. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_French_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_Fre...) if you don't comply with legally valid requests, then you are going to be held liable for it. But thats the same in common law as well. If an hosting provider in the USA refuses to act on reports of hosting copyrighted material, then they are liable for damages. Safe Harbour has its limits.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  That's the deal: ISPs aren't responsible for hosting child abuse content, phishing sites, crime ring messaging infrastructure, or pirated content, as long as they work with the relevant authorities to take such content down or hand over relevant evidence. ISPs hand over phone records and anything else they have on people. They set wiretaps, they can triangulate users, you name it. When the government asks Telegram for information, they get a history dump. When they ask a carrier for information, they get a history dump (for anything stored on ISP servers, such as email or some text messages, depending on the warrant) _and a live copy of every bit of information that flows over the connection_. Email inboxes get handed over all the time, and server hosts must take down content within days to hours depending on how illegal the content reported is. Services like Google have been handing out information like "what users were in this general area at this time" because they track that stuff (which is why Android's location history has degraded significantly; Google moved that stuff to on-device storage for this reason). As for data collection: in some places, the government can force you to collect data. Some "logless" VPN/email providers have been compelled to turn on logging for certain accounts, for instance. The alternative, which was almost a thing in the early internet, was that ISPs were responsible for all content on their systems.
wellthisisgreat 2y ago
I am not a Durov fan, but wouldn’t it make sense that if a top exec of a platform is criminally liable for the crimes happening on the platform, the head of state who has an authority to use force against the citizens should be legally liable for crimes happening in their country? Edit: the argument about Durov not ”trying to do anything” after the French requests don't seem that relevant as it aligns with “I tried” excuse of a poor student’s missing homework, i.e. trying isn’t enough - crimes are either stopped or they aren’t. Edit2: ha @ downvotes w/o any opinions.
deleted 2y ago
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Arch485 2y ago
There seems to be a lot of arguments citing that "$otherPlatform should be held liable for the same things!" The main takeaway here is that Durov is not being arrested strictly because his platform contains illegal material. He is being arrested because (allegedly) - he is aware of the illegal material, and - he refuses to cooperate with law enforcement to remove that material. So the French authorities are charging him with being complicit in a lot of this stuff. Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content. Telegram, on the other hand, has decryption keys for the messages and media sent in group chats, meaning they can identify and remove illegal content if they choose to.
- Shank 2y ago
  > Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content. Telegram, on the other hand, has decryption keys for the messages and media sent in group chats, meaning they can identify and remove illegal content if they choose to. I feel like I must emphasize this because it's repeatedly missed. Telegram has mainly 3 different components. The first is a server-side encrypted messaging platform, which is unremarkable, and as-secure as Discord or Slack. The second is its "E2EE" system, secret chats, which don't sync, and have not been broken (though people have raised some concerns historically about it). The third system is channels, which are basically subscription feeds from users. Channels are as secure as Slack or Discord or Twitter or Facebook. The whole point of Channels is that you can subscribe to channels and get messages in Telegram from them, but they're basically open access. A good example is Durov's channel: https://t.me/s/durov https://t.me/s/durov Now I say all of this because the vast majority of people believe that E2EE would solve the problem here. The reality is that channels doesn't make sense to be E2EE since anyone can join, and channels are where are a large amount of the "interesting" content to law enforcement occurs. Abuse definitely occurs to some degree on all 3 components, but channels simply don't exist in Signal, as an example.
  - xvector 2y ago
    We have robust cryptographic constructions for channels at this point. One is described in https://www.ietf.org/blog/mls-secure-and-usable-end-to-end-encryption/ https://www.ietf.org/blog/mls-secure-and-usable-end-to-end-e...
originalvichy 2y ago
I’m disappointed to see how few people are up to date on what legal responsibilities platform hosts have. Didn’t we have months and months of this discussion around the last US presidential election? Haven’t we had this discussion years ago when piracy was rampant on ”surface web” sites? Businesses have always had legal requirements based on the nature of their trade.
- flanked-evergl 2y ago
  Just because something is law does not mean it should be law. Not all legal responsibilities should be legal responsibilities. There is no way in which we will accept that what the French government is doing is legitimate merely because it's legal for them to do it in France. What France is doing is unjust. They should stop. If their laws are not just they should be repealed.
axegon_ 2y ago
I love it how fast people are jumping in to defend a guy who is by all accounts guilty because "well how is he supposed to know illegal stuff is happening on his platform?". He knew and everyone behind telegram knew. Well read this: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/31/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/31/oj Telegram has legal obligations and we all know they haven't fulfilled them-you can easily verify that on your own: you don't need to be a government agency to do that - open telegram and use the search function, hell even the auto suggestions lead you to a ton of illegal stuff.
jokoon 2y ago
In the end, if that annoys Russia, that's a good thing. Telegram is used by Russia, terror groups, and so on. It's always funny to hear people talk about free speech in that situation.
- 71bw 2y ago
  >Telegram is used by Russia, terror groups, and so on. As well as a lot of people in CIS countries (including Ukraine), people fed up with Meta and probably 95% of Android custom ROM communities (wild guess, do not quote me on that). Not to mention platforms like, for example, Discord. Also used in Russia. Also probably used by terror groups. But it's okay because we are supposed to like "our" platform. >It's always funny to hear people talk about free speech in that situation.
  - BlueTemplar 2y ago
    While Discord Inc. is based in San Francisco, Tencent (China) owns Discord, most likely at a majority stake, considering how they have been funding the devs before they even had the idea for it. Also one big difference might be that Discord is part of the Deep Web (requiring an account and an invitation to its chatrooms to even see what is going on there), while Telegram seems to be mostly on the Open Web, even providing an interface to be crawled ?
    - 71bw 2y ago
      >While Discord Inc. is based in San Francisco, Tencent (China) owns Discord Good to know it's yet another one in the never-ending Tencent spectrum. >Telegram seems to be mostly on the Open Web, even providing an interface to be crawled ? Theoretically yes, but in practice I've found it only works good with big (as in, popular - with a lot of members) channels, and even then history is wonky and you can't grab files without an account. Pictures do work fine, videos don't AFAIR.
neonate 2y ago
https://archive.ph/wDlpb https://archive.ph/wDlpb
oxfordlawyer 2y ago
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silexia 2y ago
France has turned into a Soviet style communist state with persecutions of people for exercising what should be a basic human right - the right to free speech.
your_drunk_dad 2y ago
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98 points by NayamAmarshe 2y ago

snaoceonicteqto 2y ago

[flagged]

business2sellau 2y ago

[dead]

fahrenheit154 2y ago

[flagged]

Arnt 2y ago

https://archive.is/wDlpb https://archive.is/wDlpb I found it a little low on detail, though.

sofixa 2y ago
From the horse's mouth, in French and English, the official press statement from the Prosecutor's office (it's a PDF): https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files/2024-08/2024-08-26%20-%20CP%20TELEGRAM%20.pdf https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files... It's a laundry list of accessory to commit crimes + a few interesting associated ones like organising to commit crimes, and laundering the proceeds of crimes.
- Arnt 2y ago
  Thanks. So they're fairly confident about most of it, them. I wonder about this: «Fourniture d'un moyen de cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sans déclaration préalable,» Do you happen to know what making that declaration involves?
  - sofixa 2y ago
    Disclaimer: not a lawyer, just did some law courses in a couple of countries, including France. From the law 2004-575 [1], section 1, article 30: > I. - L'utilisation des moyens de cryptologie est libre. > II. - La fourniture, le transfert depuis ou vers un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne, l'importation et l'exportation des moyens de cryptologie assurant exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sont libres. > III. - La fourniture, le transfert depuis un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne ou l'importation d'un moyen de cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sont soumis à une déclaration préalable auprès du Premier ministre, sauf dans les cas prévus au b du présent III. Le fournisseur ou la personne procédant au transfert ou à l'importation tiennent à la disposition du Premier ministre une description des caractéristiques techniques de ce moyen de cryptologie, ainsi que le code source des logiciels utilisés. Un décret en Conseil d'Etat fixe : > a) Les conditions dans lesquelles sont souscrites ces déclarations, les conditions et les délais dans lesquels le Premier ministre peut demander communication des caractéristiques du moyen, ainsi que la nature de ces caractéristiques ; > b) Les catégories de moyens dont les caractéristiques techniques ou les conditions d'utilisation sont telles que, au regard des intérêts de la défense nationale et de la sécurité intérieure ou extérieure de l'Etat, leur fourniture, leur transfert depuis un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne ou leur importation peuvent être dispensés de toute formalité préalable. > IV. - Le transfert vers un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne et l'exportation d'un moyen de cryptologie n'assurant pas exclusivement des fonctions d'authentification ou de contrôle d'intégrité sont soumis à autorisation du Premier ministre, sauf dans les cas prévus au b du présent IV. Un décret en Conseil d'Etat fixe : > a) Les conditions dans lesquelles sont souscrites les demandes d'autorisation ainsi que les délais dans lesquels le Premier ministre statue sur ces demandes ; > b) Les catégories de moyens dont les caractéristiques techniques ou les conditions d'utilisation sont telles que, au regard des intérêts de la défense nationale et de la sécurité intérieure ou extérieure de l'Etat, leur transfert vers un Etat membre de la Communauté européenne ou leur exportation peuvent être soit soumis au régime déclaratif et aux obligations d'information prévus au III, soit dispensés de toute formalité préalable. Basically, any cryptography exported/imported that is not about authentication or integrity control, or a set of other exceptions, needs to be approved from the Prime Minister's office. The exceptions and formalities are defined in the relevant decree [2] and it's annex defining the full list of exceptions [3] (Ctrl/Cmd+F "ANNEXE 1"). The procedure to ask for authorisation is to send a special type of letter a month before going into production, and if you don't hear back within a month (the directorate has a month to ask for more information), all is good. They can request the source code, and forbid use if they decide it's against the nations interests. The list of exceptions is quite exhaustive, e.g. it includes cryptography aboard single board computers for personal use, banking, TV encryption, etc. Interestingly, there's this part: > Equipements spécialement conçus et limités pour assurer la protection de logiciels ou de données informatiques contre la copie ou l’utilisation illicite et dont la capacité cryptographique n’est pas accessible à l’utilisateur. So, if I'm reading this correctly, if Telegram was end to end encrypted, they wouldn't have had to declare to the PM. How the declaration 1 - https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/JORFTEXT000000801164/LEGISCTA000006117690/2020-01-01 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/JORFTEXT0000... 2 - https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000646995 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000646995 3 - https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/download/pdf?id=y0_q3mVjGocORJv9gawo_59zMW9r0VCLrkV8AmAAT3o= https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/download/pdf?id=y0_q3mVjGocOR...
Foobar8568 2y ago
"Telegram has played a role in multiple criminal cases in France tied to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online hate crimes, but has shown a “near-total absence” of response to requests for cooperation from law enforcement, Ms. Beccuau said." That's not little low on details.
- Arnt 2y ago
  Sorry, that was unclear. I expected to see what the charges are. Has played a role, sure, enough to talk about it in public, but I expected to see what the prosecutor thought would be enough for a court.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

[flagged]

pikseladam 2y ago

Is there any website owner with a million users who can't be held accountable for the same crimes? According to the logic in France, since criminals use Windows, the CEO of Microsoft could also be blamed.

actionfromafar 2y ago
I have not read the charges, but do you mean the charges are literally like that? Or that the charges are false? Or that the charges are true but only enforced because they want him for other reasons?
thefz 2y ago
> According to the logic in France, since criminals use Windows, the CEO of Microsoft could also be blamed What a superficial take. Following the same logic, highway management would be held accountable if a killer used one of their roads to go and commit a crime. But for platform providers, they (the providers) have the responsibility to moderate the content that is hosted publicly on their platforms. Which most of the content on Telegram is. And if some illegal material is there, they (the providers) have the responsibility to take it offline. Do you have any idea how much, let's say Meta, spends in terms of money and manpower to prevent this? How much moderation goes on for most of the platforms? Read about regulations in France (SREN law IIRC).
WhereIsTheTruth 2y ago
Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, X(Twitter), Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp They all cooperate with governments: https://www.engadget.com/authorities-reportedly-ordered-google-to-reveal-the-identities-of-some-youtube-videos-viewers-140018019.html https://www.engadget.com/authorities-reportedly-ordered-goog... In fact, google is partly CIA/NSA https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...
Foobar8568 2y ago
Maybe these websites cooperate unlike Telegram? First paragraph or second one from the article: "Telegram has played a role in multiple criminal cases in France tied to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online hate crimes, but has shown a “near-total absence” of response to requests for cooperation from law enforcement, Ms. Beccuau said."

stanislavb 2y ago

Some interesting facts: - Durov is, according to him, living in exile outside of Russia since 2014 - due to Russian gov persecution. - Since his "exile" - he has travelled 50-60 times to Russia https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/1f2pgg3/pavel_durov_has_secretly_traveled_to_russia_more/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Telegram/comments/1f2pgg3/pavel_dur... - Most Russian billionaires that live in exile and are persecuted by the RU gov fall from windows (or something tall) quite often. Durov has been living lavishly though. - Russia is trying to protect him now that he is being charged. i.e. a lot of odd and contradicting moments.

dools 2y ago
Yeah and Telegram is also the biggest source of disinfo. Total Russian operation.
- datadeft 2y ago
  Sorry but you can't blame the medium for this. If you do please also blame everybody else: keyboard producers, monitor manufacturers etc. Do not just cherry pick one vendor.
  - dools 2y ago
    This is like saying there is no difference between a postal worker and the getaway driver in a bank heist.
- hagbard_c 2y ago
  One person's 'disinfo' is another's info, that same person's info is propaganda to another. The recent acknowledgement by Zuckerberg that the Biden/Harris regime pressured them into censoring information should give you some thought about what is 'disinfo'. In other words don't be too quick in condemning channels which allow voices outside the desired narrative to be heard because the day might come than you need to step outside it. Given that you seem to recognise 'disinfo' - given your claim of Telegram being the main source of it - you can just ignore it just like others ignore what they consider or know to be falsehoods.

janmo 2y ago

It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not communicating user information to the french intelligence services. Recently have been a bunch of scandals where french intelligence officers where involved in murder plots. - There is "Haurus", a french intelligence officer who sold personal information on the darknet, in one case he sold personal information including the address of a drug dealer. Something that is believed to have helped in his murdered by a "competitor". - There is the murder of racing driver "Laurent Pasquali" who is presumed to have been killed by a french intelligence officer. The plot involved over 20 people with several of them being french intelligence officers. In fact they got his personal information and address to plan the murder plot through the french intelligence database. You can Google all this, it is true.

NiekvdMaas 2y ago
To make things even stranger, Durov was apparently invited to lunch by Macron. Instead of a presidential welcome, he was arrested on arrival. Source: https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1828529272539304278 https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1828529272539304278
- emptysongglass 2y ago
  I find it deeply uncomfortable that the HN contingent is rushing to defend the French government on this matter. The European Union has been angling for more comprehensive access to messaging platforms with proposal after proposal. Everyone here loves to sing the praises of the EU but broad regulatory powers is not a clear cut value proposition: European governments and those governed have a long history of oppression. What's more, many of the broad regulatory powers have been used successfully by despotic regimes like China as cudgels not only to break apart monopolies (good) but to demand unfettered access to data (bad). These accusations made by the French government of conspiracy on one individual and alleged invitations by a head of state to entrap should be chilling to anyone observing. It reminds me of what happened to Jack Ma, when Ant threatened the CPC's interests. If Telegram really was not answering enforcement requests in a timely manner, then France should have moved against the company either through a direct ban on the app itself or other court action. Putting its CEO in prison sends a message. That message should be terrifying to anyone who values a free society.

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sschueller 2y ago

If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? This is a very slippery slope. I don't see a problem with requiring a company to cooperate with a court order to release data. However if a company does not have this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect such data.

actionfromafar 2y ago
Agreed. But Telegram seems to have this data unencrypted.
lz400 2y ago
but that's exactly what's happening. They have the data and they don't comply. Phone companies and ISPs get court-ordered to release data all the time and they do it or go to jail too
Dalewyn 2y ago
>how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? They are already liable unless they follow the law to enjoy certain exemptions.
KaiserPro 2y ago
> how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? Very far. but france is a civil law system. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_French_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_Fre...) if you don't comply with legally valid requests, then you are going to be held liable for it. But thats the same in common law as well. If an hosting provider in the USA refuses to act on reports of hosting copyrighted material, then they are liable for damages. Safe Harbour has its limits.
jeroenhd 2y ago
That's the deal: ISPs aren't responsible for hosting child abuse content, phishing sites, crime ring messaging infrastructure, or pirated content, as long as they work with the relevant authorities to take such content down or hand over relevant evidence. ISPs hand over phone records and anything else they have on people. They set wiretaps, they can triangulate users, you name it. When the government asks Telegram for information, they get a history dump. When they ask a carrier for information, they get a history dump (for anything stored on ISP servers, such as email or some text messages, depending on the warrant) _and a live copy of every bit of information that flows over the connection_. Email inboxes get handed over all the time, and server hosts must take down content within days to hours depending on how illegal the content reported is. Services like Google have been handing out information like "what users were in this general area at this time" because they track that stuff (which is why Android's location history has degraded significantly; Google moved that stuff to on-device storage for this reason). As for data collection: in some places, the government can force you to collect data. Some "logless" VPN/email providers have been compelled to turn on logging for certain accounts, for instance. The alternative, which was almost a thing in the early internet, was that ISPs were responsible for all content on their systems.

wellthisisgreat 2y ago

I am not a Durov fan, but wouldn’t it make sense that if a top exec of a platform is criminally liable for the crimes happening on the platform, the head of state who has an authority to use force against the citizens should be legally liable for crimes happening in their country? Edit: the argument about Durov not ”trying to do anything” after the French requests don't seem that relevant as it aligns with “I tried” excuse of a poor student’s missing homework, i.e. trying isn’t enough - crimes are either stopped or they aren’t. Edit2: ha @ downvotes w/o any opinions.

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Arch485 2y ago

There seems to be a lot of arguments citing that "$otherPlatform should be held liable for the same things!" The main takeaway here is that Durov is not being arrested strictly because his platform contains illegal material. He is being arrested because (allegedly) - he is aware of the illegal material, and - he refuses to cooperate with law enforcement to remove that material. So the French authorities are charging him with being complicit in a lot of this stuff. Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content. Telegram, on the other hand, has decryption keys for the messages and media sent in group chats, meaning they can identify and remove illegal content if they choose to.

Shank 2y ago
> Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content. Telegram, on the other hand, has decryption keys for the messages and media sent in group chats, meaning they can identify and remove illegal content if they choose to. I feel like I must emphasize this because it's repeatedly missed. Telegram has mainly 3 different components. The first is a server-side encrypted messaging platform, which is unremarkable, and as-secure as Discord or Slack. The second is its "E2EE" system, secret chats, which don't sync, and have not been broken (though people have raised some concerns historically about it). The third system is channels, which are basically subscription feeds from users. Channels are as secure as Slack or Discord or Twitter or Facebook. The whole point of Channels is that you can subscribe to channels and get messages in Telegram from them, but they're basically open access. A good example is Durov's channel: https://t.me/s/durov https://t.me/s/durov Now I say all of this because the vast majority of people believe that E2EE would solve the problem here. The reality is that channels doesn't make sense to be E2EE since anyone can join, and channels are where are a large amount of the "interesting" content to law enforcement occurs. Abuse definitely occurs to some degree on all 3 components, but channels simply don't exist in Signal, as an example.
- xvector 2y ago
  We have robust cryptographic constructions for channels at this point. One is described in https://www.ietf.org/blog/mls-secure-and-usable-end-to-end-encryption/ https://www.ietf.org/blog/mls-secure-and-usable-end-to-end-e...

originalvichy 2y ago

I’m disappointed to see how few people are up to date on what legal responsibilities platform hosts have. Didn’t we have months and months of this discussion around the last US presidential election? Haven’t we had this discussion years ago when piracy was rampant on ”surface web” sites? Businesses have always had legal requirements based on the nature of their trade.

flanked-evergl 2y ago
Just because something is law does not mean it should be law. Not all legal responsibilities should be legal responsibilities. There is no way in which we will accept that what the French government is doing is legitimate merely because it's legal for them to do it in France. What France is doing is unjust. They should stop. If their laws are not just they should be repealed.

axegon_ 2y ago

I love it how fast people are jumping in to defend a guy who is by all accounts guilty because "well how is he supposed to know illegal stuff is happening on his platform?". He knew and everyone behind telegram knew. Well read this: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/31/oj https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2000/31/oj Telegram has legal obligations and we all know they haven't fulfilled them-you can easily verify that on your own: you don't need to be a government agency to do that - open telegram and use the search function, hell even the auto suggestions lead you to a ton of illegal stuff.

jokoon 2y ago

In the end, if that annoys Russia, that's a good thing. Telegram is used by Russia, terror groups, and so on. It's always funny to hear people talk about free speech in that situation.

71bw 2y ago
>Telegram is used by Russia, terror groups, and so on. As well as a lot of people in CIS countries (including Ukraine), people fed up with Meta and probably 95% of Android custom ROM communities (wild guess, do not quote me on that). Not to mention platforms like, for example, Discord. Also used in Russia. Also probably used by terror groups. But it's okay because we are supposed to like "our" platform. >It's always funny to hear people talk about free speech in that situation.
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  While Discord Inc. is based in San Francisco, Tencent (China) owns Discord, most likely at a majority stake, considering how they have been funding the devs before they even had the idea for it. Also one big difference might be that Discord is part of the Deep Web (requiring an account and an invitation to its chatrooms to even see what is going on there), while Telegram seems to be mostly on the Open Web, even providing an interface to be crawled ?
  - 71bw 2y ago
    >While Discord Inc. is based in San Francisco, Tencent (China) owns Discord Good to know it's yet another one in the never-ending Tencent spectrum. >Telegram seems to be mostly on the Open Web, even providing an interface to be crawled ? Theoretically yes, but in practice I've found it only works good with big (as in, popular - with a lot of members) channels, and even then history is wonky and you can't grab files without an account. Pictures do work fine, videos don't AFAIR.

neonate 2y ago

https://archive.ph/wDlpb https://archive.ph/wDlpb

oxfordlawyer 2y ago

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silexia 2y ago

France has turned into a Soviet style communist state with persecutions of people for exercising what should be a basic human right - the right to free speech.

your_drunk_dad 2y ago

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