This will be an interesting case to watch -- I don't believe there are any western nations that want non-locally-backdoored messaging of any sort -- but generally my understanding is that harassment on border entry has been the order of the day, rather than arrests.
But that's what exactly they want no? EU is literally implementing a regulation that will allow to "circumvent end-to-end encryption to address child sexual abuse material". I believe it failed to pass recently, but they will try again - and nothing stops countries to implement it independently. I think France is the one who was pushing for that in the first place.
https://www.wired.com/story/europes-moral-crusader-lays-down...
https://www.statewatch.org/news/2024/july/police-should-have...
Which every company does more or less. The fact that Telegram doesn't reach this extremely low, very low bar is quite something.
> it failed to pass recently
These two sentences cannot be both true
There are two legistive bodies in the EU, one is only allowed to propose law, the other is only allowed to vote on it.
Lots of braindead laws get put to a vote, theres no requirement that they get through.
I understand that raising the alarm is helpful, but it would be helpful if people took a second to understand how the EU works, the politicians involved and how their motions are perceived by the rest of parliament.
> I don't believe there are any western nations that want non-locally-backdoored messaging of any sort
means
> I believe every western nation wants all messaging to be locally-backdoored
First, your analogy is broken -- roads, telephones, pen and paper, motor vehicles all fit your description just as aptly.
Second, you propose your preferred moral economy as one that only curtails harms. In fact, you create another harm implementing what you think is right.
Reasonable people disagree about which is worse -- the creation and public support of a technocratic oligarchy in control of how humans communicate or the proliferation of some harms that take advantage of unfettered communication. But please don't be simple minded, pretending to yourself or others that there aren't real costs, social and physical, on both sides of this.
For myself, I think private communications are a human right and a massive good for society, and I don't condone criminal acts undertaken using messaging.
There is a principle in the free world that one is not criminally liable for the speech of others. This is the principle that allows ISP's, newspapers, web forums, Google, etc. etc. to exist. You demand that the principle be violated and the Internet be destroyed. I disagree.
There are other ways to capture and ensnare criminals. Sacrificing our privacy for the "greater good" is a bridge too far.
As one counter point, think about all of the completely fine human behaviors that instantly become kompromat when the powers have access to your every communication. That is way more dangerous to democracy, freedom, and liberty than a slightly smaller chance of "not protecting the children".
Besides, if we actually cared so much about children, we wouldn't let them not get school lunches, we wouldn't sell them on gambling and gacha games, and we'd do a much better job of educating them.
What about toilet paper? It's used by quite some criminals (not all that said: many criminals have very poor hygiene and just put their undies back on without wiping after number two).
Should we arrest people manufacturing toilet paper?
Anyway we all know it's not about criminals: it's about controlling speech so that protests as in Barcelona, the UK (where people who are denouncing rapes and killings are put in jail, while the actual rapists get very light sentences like only six months in jail), etc. cannot organize themselves.
It's about controlling the narrative.
And they're using useful idiots resorting to broken logic to push their totalitarian agenda.
Despite what the article says, Telegram is not even a nominally end-to-end encrypted platform. You need to jump through hoops to get end-to-end encryption on the platform.
It's not on by default, works only between 2 devices, they both have to be online at the same time and you can't access anything from the web. And group chats don't support it at all. Private chats are not end to end encrypted by default and it's actually quite clumsy to encrypt them so almost nobody uses it.
It's really weird that Telegram is singled out like this.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-to-staff-switc...
>The European Commission has told its staff to start using Signal, an end-to-end-encrypted messaging app, in a push to increase the security of its communications.
Also Telegram is not E2E by default. You need to activate it per chat. By default and in groups it is only server encrypted.
Most use normal chats.
With anonymous accounts, using anonymous +888 numbers, whose price has increased from $16 to $1000+ in a matter of a year, it is indeed a very convenient playground for all sorts of activities.
They actually don't want that backdoored, guaranteed.
What might be essential right to human communication might suddenly become "illegal" according to the government.
So there should never ever be, under no circumstances, even the code and infra to be there to provide backdoor/censorships, otherwise it _will_ be abused by limiting people's communication in the moment they literally need the most.
How is a channel "against the law?"
Do you mean access to the channel is creating opportunities for lawlessness that simply wouldn't exist otherwise? I'm not sure the French justice system has demonstrated that it has exhausted all options other than to handcuff a CEO of one particular platform.
If the thing they want to delete is run by an entity that has a physical presence in that country, then they -- unfortunately -- have the right to get that material deleted.
For better or worse, we are all bound by the laws of the place where we physically reside. If we want to do or allow things online that are legal where we are, but are illegal in other countries, then we shouldn't visit those countries.
It doesn't matter if anyone "endorses" repressive governments in doing their repressive things; they are legally able to do those things to people physically present within their borders. That's just the reality of the situation.
France claims Durov allowed stuff that's illegal in France. He went to France, so France has the ability to punish Durov for his alleged misdeeds. It doesn't matter if we think that's right or wrong; that's just how the world works.
The laws are (usually) defined by the people of a country, based on their idea of morality, and are totally in their right to reject blasphemous stuff or whatever. It's their home, after all.
The only thing non-negotiable, to me, is that the Declaration of the Human Rights is universal and no law, anywhere, should go against them.
1. "I think it is perfectly fair for governments to take down large channels that are clearly against the law"
Telegram obviously acts upon such requests Here in Italy I cannot access the channels of RIA and Sputnik, obviously a request was made to Telegram on behalf of EU /Italy, and Telegram complied.
2. I think that you, in your US bubble, which you THINK guarantees free speech, misunderstand yourself what Telegram is. Right now, it is the ONLY wide audience platform in the world, where Russian people can freely (as opposed to, say, HN) write what they really think. And it is true as much for the people who are "pro", as for the people who are "against Putin", (I use these nonsense labels to adapt what I write to the general american level of "understanding" Russia).
There is now also https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/telegram-messaging-app-...
The French article mentions:
Why was he under threat of a search warrant?
The Justice considers that the absence of moderation, cooperation with law enforcement and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable numbers, cryptocurrencies...) makes him an accomplice to drug trafficking, child-crime offenses and swindling.
Or does it refer to public channels only?
(From the reuters link)
Maybe it's best to keep the original one. I think everyone here knows how to use Google Translate or ChatGPT.
This isn't Slayers X.
But on a serious note if he's a billionaire then he can drop the whole monetization schtick. Telegram has become unusuable in the last few years. There's crypto scam ads everywhere.
So you cannot really blame Telegram.
Very interesting to see where it will all go.
I don’t understand how they’re going to convince French judges that he’s guilty for not being able to decrypt chats that he has no keys for…
Except he (or his corporation) has keys for almost all initiated chats on the Telegram network. Only the private chats are E2EE and they're not default and rather inconvenient because they don't sync between devices (unlike Signal's E2EE chats).
> To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption, Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. Cloud chat data is stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are controlled by different legal entities spread across different jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data.
> Thanks to this structure, we can ensure that no single government or block of like-minded countries can intrude on people's privacy and freedom of expression. Telegram can be forced to give up data only if an issue is grave and universal enough to pass the scrutiny of several different legal systems around the world.
If I have to guess, I would say that the authorities would be interested in identities of some users and access to private group chats with shady stuff and Telegram would be able to provide these.
These are probably already available to the Russian intelligence considering the low radiation levels in Pavel Durov’s blood stream and no novichok experience.
With the context that you omitted it makes more sense:
Justice considers that the absence of moderation, cooperation with
law enforcement and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable numbers,
cryptocurrencies...) makes it an accomplice to drug trafficking,
pedo-criminal offenses and swindling.As for moderation, any post in public or private groups can be reported to moderators. As for one-to-one chats, this might not work, but you should not be chatting with random people anyway.
It's just they're the current power structure, so they can get away with the state monopoly on violence et al?
That false statement is refutable trivially: Just perform the mud puddle test [1] in front of the judge (and a cryptographer explaining the implications to the judge).
[1] https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2012/04/05/icloud-w...
There are lot of direct laws about record-keeping (company accounts for instance) but there are also a lot of laws which indirectly impose requirements of record-keeping, because having records will be the only way to comply with the requirement (tracking of origin for food recalls for instance).
France almost certainly has a law that says that if you run a telecommunication service, you must respond to court orders with the following information: X, Y, Z & W.
If non-compliance with such a law is the basis for the arrest, it will be his damn problem to convince the judges, that despite being subject of many such court orders, he had a stronger legal basis for not keeping the necessary records to comply.
However, my money is on Al Capone: I would be very surprised if the charges do not (also) contain tax-evasion, securities fraud, money laundering.
> I wonder what caught up with him first: the undisturbed sale of hard drugs vIa telegram, or the undisturbed recruitment of freelancers for GRU's terrorist attacks across Europe.
Seems there could be some truth to the accusations.
Well, if this guy starts damage controlling, this is definitely a CIA operation
Cant say I have good things to say about Telegram founders and operators. Its not some innocent "free speech" messenger app, its sinister
https://x.com/SamidounPP/status/1827062901364208099
So not sure what's the non-cooperating about banning "terrorist" content is about, since various info channels definitely were getting blocked on telegram in EU over the last year.
I can't for the life of me as an EU "citizen" even figure out who asks for these bans on behalf of the EU. Kinda doubt it's someone in my country, because it's reported as EU wide ban in this case. Maybe it's done by some overbearing country on this particular topic, like Germany, and Telegram just blocked it EU wide, for some reason.
My pet tinfoil-hat theory is that he decided that staying in a French prison is safer for him than being out in the open and get some polonium, or whatnot.
People do that.
Recently, the Bulgarian drug lord nicknamed Brendo not only surrendered, but somehow bribed border control to let him in the country so he can show up directly in front of Sofia Central Prison, with a duffel bag, ready to be taken in. He wanted to skip the bureaucracy and go behind bars ASAP.
This is probably the most ridiculous theory I’ve read all year.
FWIW, France do not extradite its citizen and Pavel Durov is french. He may have been arrested but that doesn't mean he will stay in detention depending on the nature of the charge and his eventual cooperation. Who knows, maybe he called before landing in France so that he was arrested and seen as cooperative.
Why would he get some polonium? There are endless official Russian state telegram channels. Putin clearly has no issue with it or he would have banned it.
Politics is complicated.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-telegram-ban-idUSK...
In addition to drug trafficking, he is accused of collaborating with an organized crime group, covering up for pedophiles, fraud and money laundering.
I don't know how reliable this is, but I've seen in 3-4 sources that he's arrested for terrorism, child abuse, drug trafficking (not providing data to prosecutors).
It is basically the part of the current politics in EU where they are trying to force access to all encrypted traffic across devices.
The accusations are serious enough that it’s probably reasonable to assume that they have some serious evidence for this and if that is true then this is a good outcome that should be celebrated.
However, I could imagine him staying in custody while being investigated for a couple days, then quickly facing some level of judge to decide whether he has to stay in jail or can be released.
Once this is done, don't expect a formal trial until multiple months (and most realistically, at least a year.)
I think the original link mentioned exactly that, and it would be done over the weekend
He's gonna have a very miserable time. Flying private jet --> watching another man shitting next to you.
That seems very unlikely. I don't think France has a statutory number of days in their speedy trial right, so even if you demand trial as you walk in the door, for a serious trial of this size, with this many charges, my experience is saying one to two years for trial.
Now, France does have more rights on pre-trial detention, so he might be able to get some sort of bail, but he's an enormously high flight risk, so.. maybe not.
I always found that guy's story of living 'in exile' from Russia a bit suspect. And now Russian government officials are calling for his release.
Need more information to make any kind of judgement. What I'm pretty sure of now is that this probably has nothing to do with encryption.
It has nothing to do with ordinary sorts of “bad” content either like hate speech or crypto scams or whatever. All of that can be found in abundance in many places, all of which are still online.
This is about something else. Note the standard cast of characters with certain well known alignments rushing out to defend him.
My top guess is direct involvement in scams, money laundering, CSAM, etc. I mean direct participation, not just running a chat used by others for these things.
My second guess is the upcoming election. Telegram was a big vector for coordinating the January 6th riots. Maybe there’s a network being taken down here.
Don’t know, will have to wait and see.
Why would anyone want to innovate and develop privacy technologies if this is what happens? So, your best bet is to work with government agencies if you want to work on this tech? What if the government isn’t one you agree with? No one has good answers for these, but criminals aren’t the only ones who need to use privacy-preserving tech.
According to the TF1 link, the charges being brought against him are
1. No moderation and refusal to cooperate with government forces on a bunch of cases (what you are describing)
2. Tools allegedly catering to criminality (burner phone numbers, cryptocurrency transactions...)
Note that for now, no judgement has taken place yet. So none of this has been determined by the judicial system to be illegal.
France can and will charge anyone on its territory no matter what passport you hold.
> Telegram offers end-to-end encrypted messaging […]
Yes, just like McDonalds offers salads and other healthy food options.
I don't know anyone who uses TG "secret chats". (I tried to convert one friend but then there was some buggy stuff that also lost us long chat history so we reverted)
Telegram has also tried to distance itself from TON crypto token, but it is so obvious how it still serves the original Durov's vision and controlled by a team of founders (aka initial token holders), now proofing their stakes for a supposedly decentralized blockchain to operate.
It's not a wise idea to run "uncensored" messenger where a lot of shit happens and also offer it's users built-in non-government-surveilled payment methods.
They have de-emphasized the built in token and payment features, and Mobilecoin has tanked in value, but it’s still there and still works and nobody has been even detained over it, much less prosecuted.
By "clear rules" I mean not something vague like "you should not cooperate with criminals" (does "criminals" include not yet convicted criminals? does it include Trump? what is "cooperate") or "you should not allow illegal content" (what is exact definition of "illegal"? how can a person declare some content "illegal" without going through the court?).
Even ProtonMail which wrongly claims to be a privacy safe heaven does so!
The lack of E2EE is actually what has got Telegram in trouble.
The same stuff that happens on Telegram also happens on WhatsApp and Signal - but because it's E2EE, it's harder for the police to find it, and when they do find it, WhatsApp and Signal have no way to comply - they can't see the chats! That said, they will provide details to LE that they do have access to (e.g. metadata) - of which WhatsApp holds a lot more.
In Telegrams case with public groups sharing illegal content out in the open - this is viewable to LE and they request logs from Telegram for their investigations. This stuff is publicly viewable on and to Telegram. Telegram can remove it. Telegram can provide chat logs to LE - but they refuse to. This is why they're in trouble.
Moral of the story - if you want to start an internet service - you either go E2EE no knowledge, or you moderate your shit and cooperate with LE, you can't avoid doing the latter unless you're doing the former.
I've always been under the impression that as long as your country has your back, you can refuse law enforcement requests claiming their government or their laws are bad so you don't have to comply.
For people in tech
Interestingly (and understandably I guess, given the original nationality of the current CEO), the Ukrainian military are mostly using Signal, and the Russian military almost exclusively use Telegram.
Maybe because their legal compliance strategy is something other than "we will only, and only possibly, comply with law enforcement requests if it concerns terrorism"?
To quote Telegram's from https://telegram.org/privacy:
> If Telegram receives a court order that confirms you're a terror suspect, we may disclose your IP address and phone number to the relevant authorities. So far, this has never happened. When it does, we will include it in a semiannual transparency report published at: https://t.me/transparency.
So yeah, Meta takes it really seriously. It doesn’t work perfectly because the scale is mind-boggling, but it’s probably the best system of this kind at this scale, and it is constantly being evaluated, red teamed, and improved.
Source: I used to work on FB Groups.
There are a large number of highly active Ukrainian channels on Telegram, all about as anti-Russian as you would expect. There are Ukrainian government ministers operating channels on Telegram. How does that occur on a "Russian controlled medium?"
I don't speak either Russian or Ukrainian. I know none of these channel operators. Yet I've been granted approval on a number of "private" Ukrainian channels. Certainly a Russian could as well. Why wouldn't Russia's state actors, given that they enjoy "control" of the medium, shut it all down?
- https://www.senat.fr/leg/tas22-148.pdf page 43 bottom, or searching "réquisition de toute personne"
- https://www.senat.fr/leg/pjl22-569.pdf with a good intervention from an LFI MEP, Ugo Bernalicis who is DEFINITIVELY worth to hear https://youtu.be/PDG9V01jPUs
Just to cite the relatively recent more stunning move. But there was many in the less recent past (starting from police surveillance, impunity and so on) not counting the current delay to DENIED the last legislative elections results...
Looks like a better alternative to all that centralized drek.
[1] https://turan.az/en/politics/putin-refused-to-meet-with-pave...
Telegram: client source code shows e.g. all group messages are always shared to the company
Signal: client source code shows end-to-end encryption is always on for every message.
You pretending reality isn't real is really telling.
Also Telegram conveniently appeared when WhatsApp became popular and it was the spitting image of WA back then. Typical Russian IT economy where all they know is how to copy. First Durov copied FB to VKontakte, then he copied WA to TG.
> Why was he under threat of a search warrant? > The justice department considers that the lack of moderation, lack of cooperation with law enforcement, and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) make him an accomplice to drug trafficking, pedo-criminal offenses and fraud.
This isn’t some grand conspiracy theory.
>This isn’t some grand conspiracy theory.
Funny that when the wrong country does it it's tyranny. When a Western country does it it's the rule of law.
Especially when they are the exact same thing.
“Liberal democracy” my ass, the West is a police state. Carl Schmitt was right.
North Koreans doing crimes in US are also very safe.
Free - doesn’t mean do whatever you want.
In contrast, Signal does not have access to any chats or user information (except the timestamp of when users last logged in) and could not be forced to wiretap.
Couldn't they just quietly release an update, under a threat of a 20y jail time, or just $5 wrench? Any centralized solution is vulnerable. The only real solution is open source serverless p2p network.
If all the chats are e2e encrypted then the government will arrest you for designing chats in such a way that a backdoor is impossible
Like we say in Russia, "as long as we have a man we can find a law to imprison him"
seems like the prosecutorial, sacrificial lambs in internet platform space are those who are big enough to afford private jets but not too big to become faceless. hope he has a decent judicial insurance in place.
However... the same governments, and here I'm talking primarily about the one I know the Netherlands, has absolutely ZERO accountability against severe human rights abuses. You will get absolutely nowhere trying to hold government abuse accountable.
In the Netherlands, it took around 25,000 victims before any kind of traction was gained and primarily due to one politician, Peter Omzigt. And others turned against him.
Even now, you have princess Laurentien coming under heavy fire for trying to help the victims of the government abuse here.
So infite powers and less than zero accountability? No thanks. It's actually less than ZERO accountability because attempting to hold someone accountable will bring you under attack.
You don't even need to go as far as to talk about government lack of accountability for their own.
The French government has shown numerous times they don't care about that, anyway. We protected actual pedophiles slash rapists like Roman Polanski from being judged for crimes they committed in other countries (in this case, the US) but we are to arrest the man behind telegram because think of the children? does that compute?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski
> In 1977, Polanski was arrested for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with a minor in exchange for a probation-only sentence. The night before his sentencing hearing in 1978, he learned that the judge would likely reject the proffered plea bargain, so he fled the U.S. to Europe, where he continued his career. He remains a fugitive from the U.S. justice system
""Justice"" is a very relative thing. The western democracies want you to believe it's fair. Ha. Ha.
It’s really chilling to see the steps EU gobs are taking against free speech. In some ways they seem more authoritarian than even China and Russia. It’s like “free world” is becoming a farce.
Considering how he's tarnished Signal, there is absolutely no reason for them or anyone else to back him up.
What will be very funny is the fact that Telegram is pretty much not encrypted (yeah ok, "secret chats", whatever sure) and now that investigators probably have access to Durov's phone, that lack of encryption might come back to bite him in the ass. Can't wait to know what they find and if they do find something, it might be interesting to see if he finally changes his stance.
So was Moxie - or do we forget that Signal is doing cryptocurrencies too?
If you don't uphold the principles all you have to do is wait until it bites you too.
What happened to "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Basically only Signal + Whatsapp.
> claiming they don't do anything for privacy.
Well, Signal is kind of a scam in that regard.
Not even close. You are just poorly informed about the situation in Russia or China.
Yes, that includes people from Russia, China or the US believing they are the ones who are truly free, and everything else are totalitarian shitholes. Each one of them is even kind of right in their own regard.
No, they are not.
Nobody in Europe disappears for six months because they have offended the government before mysteriously reappearing like in China. No one dictates single handedly what’s going to happen without any form of oversight like in Russia.
Heck France currently has an interim government because they voted out the previous one and the US had a decisive election coming in a few months.
The people who want to convince you otherwise generally have a vested interest in undermining democracy and pushing for a form of autocracy.
In Russia, China or North Korea - nobody believes that.
HN: NO! free speech.
Sincere advice: get out of those libertarian echo chambers, and think about real consequences.
FWIW I really like Telegram, I hope it will get cleared up soon.
You can have end to end encryption without a phone number. To require it means you're opening up possibilities of State and location tracking.
What about Messenger and Whatsapp, also end-to-end encrypted?
Will they be arrested?
Is this the end of end-to-end encryption chats?
Signal by design can't moderate their service. Telegram by design has full access, but doesn't act on it.
Me: >Also Telegram is not E2E by default. You need to activate it per chat. By default and in groups it is only server encrypted.
But if it was fully E2EE, would this arrest not have happened?
- Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested in France after arriving from Azerbaijan.
- Durov was detained at Le Bourget Airport by the Gendarmerie des Transports Aériens (GTA) due to a French warrant.
- The warrant was issued on claims of Telegram’s lack of moderation and cooperation with law enforcement, making Durov complicit in crimes such as drug trafficking, pedophilia-related offenses, and fraud.
- Durov’s arrest was contingent on him being on French territory, as he is listed in the FPR (wanted persons file). Unclear why he decided to land there.
- Durov is now in custody and will face a judge, with potential charges including terrorism, drug offenses, complicity, fraud, money laundering, and pedophilia-related content.
- Authorities believe Durov will likely be placed in pre-trial detention due to his substantial financial resources and perceived flight risk.
- The arrest aims to pressure European countries to cooperate on law enforcement efforts against crimes facilitated through Telegram, particularly terrorism and organized crime.
That's what I read
This is why I don't really care that Telegram doesn't do E2EE by default. Most of my chats aren't that interesting and in my threat model it's good enough.
I just can't make sense of these serial entrepreneurs otherwise. Thousands of similar apps were launched which were the same or better than those ones. Why were these ones allowed to gain traction? Why these people were chosen?
Whenever I've met people who've had success in tech, it was clear that there were some weird dynamics behind the scenes which made them act in ways which were highly counter-intuitive and often involved sabotaging their own projects in some ways.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-to-staff-switc...
>The European Commission has told its staff to start using Signal, an end-to-end-encrypted messaging app, in a push to increase the security of its communications.
> Of course he is complicit. I imagine most people in tech would argue the good outweighs the bad, but to provide E2EE without any backdoor is to turn a blind eye to the horrendous things for which some people will use it.
> There has been a constant in the tech community, since forever, of stupid idealism. For example, I remember the apoplexy when Napster had to stop facilitating mass piracy. Yeah, what a head-scratcher that was. And now the tech community has convinced itself that E2EE without a backdoor is some viable. Your neighbors won't consider the overall harms worth the benefits, and neither will their governments.
PGP is more than 30 years old. What do you mean by "now the tech community has convinced itself that E2EE without a backdoor is some viable"? What is "now"?
Email concerns to mods at hn@ycombinator.com
Though yes, this thread is overall quite low quality. Sigh.
Throwing these people to jail horner, preventing them from wine and dine in destinations they actually want to go to, that puts a price they have to pay personally.
We need to do more of that.
He'll make a deal.
Why do you want your country to control what you can see, read or say? Why do you want your country to have access to your private thoughts and opinions? Stop being a coward and fight this fascist overreach. And spite yourself if you support it.
If Telegram did actually prioritize private and secure communication, they would indeed be just a data pipe and nothing could be shared with law enforcement.
No no, I want my country to control what other people can see, read or say. Not me: I'm a good person.
Anyone who does not want that, should stay away from Telegram in the first place - an app that stores all your private messages unencrypted for the company to read. All your interactions on any channel ever - all their data. All this is about is sharing that data with the western governments. The russian government already has it for example.
That basically counters ur whole point
You don’t see “the West” whatever that means go after WhatsApp, Signal or Matrix. That should tell you something.
I am pretty staunchly pro-privacy, but this arrest has little to do with
> permits the sharing of information and ideas that are in opposition to Western domestic and foreign policy(Israel, Ukraine, China etc)
It is about drug sales and extremism, that last one being about alt right / anti-vaccine crazies / terrorism, whatever else extremism du jour.
„Putin and Telegram Founder Durov in Baku at the Same Time“
However, Telegram might be involved in cooperating with criminals; for example by not deleting channels related to protests against government at govt's request, by not blocking channels of allegedly spreading misinformation Western media like BBC. This is indeed illegal in Russia.
Requiring a phone number most certainly isn’t some fool proof method in the way you are claiming.
No source on what the warrant is about though.
FWIW I really like Telegram and pay for it, I hope it will get cleared up soon.
A channel was created on Telegram by a government propaganda journalist, where they basically dox every activist, posting their addresses, phone numbers, and other private details, at times when these details are actively used for beating people to near death. That's the only content that Telegram channel produces.
I was one of the people whose details were posted on that channel. My phone number, home address, etc., were posted there, along with the private details of tens of others. I contacted Telegram support multiple times, we mass reported the channel - not once have I gotten an answer, and the entire channel is still up, for nearly 4 months.
So, hearing that he's arrested for lack of moderation? Good. I'm very happy. Hope he learns a lesson.
EDIT: Country is Georgia
I do agree to some extent. Having tools to challenge a dictatorship that cannot be silenced can indeed become invaluable. However, there is a significant difference between responsible moderation, which aims to protect individuals' safety, and full-blown censorship. While it can be a slippery slope, the absence of moderation shouldn't leave users defenseless against doxxing and threats, which can have real, harmful, and even deadly consequences. There must be some form of balance. From my experience, it feels like Telegram lacks any moderation whatsoever, which represents another extreme. I assume, though, that they must be enforcing some level of moderation for things like CP, since governments typically, really do not tolerate a no moderation policy in such areas.
I would say that being on this extreme end, Telegram has actually opened itself up to government scrutiny. If there had been some form of responsible moderation, governments might not have found enough grounds to justify their actions. The absence of any moderation means that governments can use full force and indeed justify it, potentially damaging the very area of free speech that Telegram aims to protect.
> help I'm being harassed online [detailed description of how]
> tsk tsk, and you think that justifies *censoring* people?!
The veracity of this claim aside, posting this as a reply to someone who just shared their own experience getting doxxed in a country where victims have legitimate grounds to fear for their lives... feels a little out of place.
Also, usually the dictatorships abuse the censors once their grasp is firm. Until then, they're typically abusing the lack of censorship for their own ends. We see that here in the US with troll farms abusing limited content moderation around misinformation to sway public opinion with falsehoods. Countries are trying to pull the US election in both directions right now this way.
We don't use Telegram for communication, or at least it's strongly advocated against, including by me - because I've always viewed Telegram as malicious. There's a longstanding belief that it's E2EE, while it's only so under special circumstances, and Telegram holds the keys. I view insecure defaults as malicious, especially when you're advocating the network as very secure. So in the end, dissenting voices have no use for the tool and only the government does.
I do agree that prosecuting the owner is quite a big deal, but France has the rule of law. Durov faces up to 20 years in prison. While I don’t wish for him to be incarcerated for that long, if this situation serves as a wake-up call and prompts him to reconsider his app’s approach to moderation, it could be a win for everyone.
How can it possibly be "a propaganda tool" when it has no feed, no algorithms, no suggestions or recommendations? You only get sources you've willingly subscribed to, nothing else.
This reads as such a cope.
IMHO people unfairly come on you about your expectation for moderation.
What often happens is, you lose your anonymity and get personally attacked by people in position of impunity.
That should not be a thing.
However, during protests, the government sometimes jams the network, or perhaps the cell towers simply fail under the load of thousands of people in a concentrated area - rendering Signal unusable. Consequently, we needed a peer-to-peer messaging solution, but couldn't find a suitable one. During the protests, we were essentially left without any means of digital communication and had to rely solely on verbal one.
We couldn't use Briar due to the mix of iOS and Android devices here. Cross-platform compatibility is a must. And we never got Bridgefy to work at all in our tests.
With more protests possibly on the horizon depending on the outcome of the October elections this year, I'm on the lookout for a cross-platform messaging app that can function without internet connectivity. If anyone has recommendations for such an app, or other suggestions, please share them with me :)
Not counting the pro-Israeli channels posting details of anti-genocide activists and encouraging violence (and sometimes openly putting bounties on activists' heads). All constantly reported yet no action is taken.
There have been so many things this guy has allowed for years, believing he could act (or fail to act) with total impunity because of his fortune. Hell, he got offered a French passport because Macron used to be a big Telegram fan (might still be). It's absolutely incredible he was so brazen he would just travel to France because there is absolutely no way he wasn't aware he could be held liable (especially considering recent EU legislation), he probably just believed he was above the law.
Pavel Durov tries to play the “victim” to create a legitimate image for himself and Telegram.
So I don't follow how you've made a connection between Putin and (Putin's?) "(fake?) victim" Durov.
[0] https://docs.pyrogram.org/faq/what-are-the-ip-addresses-of-t...
Does this Matsapulina realize, that when you install Telegram on new phone, you just need to confirm the phone number and all your chats are restored on that new device? So for authorities to read her chats it's just a matter of intersepting an SMS with the confirmation code?
Of course, I suggest everyone to assume the software they use may be compromized.
But let's not post trash articles. In the article's own words, "conspiracy theories, paranoia, and speculation".
There is no info about why exactly he was arrested but it looks like that French police had a warrant for him.
But it looks like it is because that he is accused of being an accessory of a lot of things like traffic, drugs, pedopornography, anything bad you can image because he would not have done anything to combat that on Telegram.
If it is real, it would really be the same kind of political crime abuse on an individual of the same level as what happened to Julian Assange.
I can easily guess that assholes in secret service would probably like very much to use that to blackmail him to add backdoors to telegram. So sad.
Do you unironically believe it's not already backdoored for Russian government?
Also, it is clear that Durov is a dissident and personally experienced and run away of the dictatorial state. So I think that it is probably one of the tech personality that I trust the most in the world.
Yes. You should read the history of Durov and why Telegram was created in the first place.
To people arguing against this, Russia's Sovereign Wealth Fund RDIF has an ownership stake in Telegram after co-raising with Abu Dhabi's Mudabala in 2021 [0]
Either way, Telegram is at the whims of MbZ, and if the UAE ever needs something from Russia, they'll use Durov and Telegram as collateral. The UAE's done the same thing with Pakistan (Musharraf, Nawaz Sharif), India (Dawood Ibrahim), Israel-Palestine (Mohammad Dahlan), Serbia (Belgrade Waterfront Project and Mohammad Dahlan), Turkiye (Mohammad Dahlan), etc.
If the Telegram founders were truly opposed to Russia, they would have immigrated to Israel, the UK, Germany, Netherlands, or the US like most business dissidents in Russia. If VK wasn't stolen by an oligarch, they would have remained in Russia to this day.
[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-23/russia-mu...
Yes as Telegram was banned in Russia for a long time (or at least they tried) before giving up.
This is in contrast to Facebook or Twitter. Those platforms will absolutely take down content that is offensive or criminal in nature.
This is not even remotely true. I have reported content many times and when I come back to check it, it's gone. This includes account of spammers, some sellers (or pretending to be) of illegal goods, etc.
The have moderation teams because they are required by law. These are outsourced to the lowest bidder. They are so overwhelmed by the amount of that content.
Watch those documentaries about the psychological traumas inflicted to those that moderate Facebook content.
The political establishment doesn't want the proletariat having journalism that reports against the wishes of the powerful or of regular people having free speech to be used against the government.
No ethical person should take part in enforcing these laws.
Telegram is a backdoor by design. The server has complete access to all your messages, they can do whatever they want with those.
And they even had a backdoor in E2EE chats, see: https://habr.com/ru/articles/206900/
So if these things happen in WhatsApp or Signal we simply don't know about it.
> But it looks like it is because that he is accused of being an accessory of a lot of things like traffic, drugs, pedopornography, anything bad you can image because he would not have done anything to combat that on Telegram.
This very article says that it's because Telegram doesn't cooperate with authorities in handling illegal content (which it is legally obligated to, to operate in France) and provides services to facilitate illegal activities (crypto or throwaway numbers).
It's in the "why was he arrested" section.
By end-to-end encrypting messages, but uploading backups to Google Drive and iCloud, and in a non-end-to-end encrypted way by default, WhatsApp (and iMessage, which does largely the same) have quite cleverly maneuvered themselves out of that potential source of legal problems without cutting off law enforcement access entirely.
And instead they arrest the CEO of a company that provides a mechanism for people to talk to one another.
>we've got to save democracy by restricting free speech and enforcing laws and regulations created by unelected officials
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41341607.
p.s. No, this is not a comment on the EU or any of your views—just about unsubstantive/flamey forum posts.
I keep bringing it up since people forget about it: in 2006 the EU adopted the Data Retention Directive that forced all ISPs to save the browsing history of everyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
It was eventually declared invalid by the European court of human rights, but it was still in effect for many years. Countries that did not implement this (eg Romania because their constitutional court found it illegal) were sued by the EU commission.
The EU's attempts to spy on people go back decades. You'll also note that government gets exemptions from all the privacy stuff the EU pushes.
I hope the EU changes course on this, but as with their handling of other tech... I'm not holding my breath.
Mike Benz, a former insider, spends his days explaining how this works.
This is not the best introduction that he has done, but it is the latest space he recorded on the Telegram affair:
https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827514567884255430
Update: there will be a part two on the „The Geopolitics of Telegram & who is really after Pavel Durov“ 1am ET tonight.
This is going to be one of the best sources of background info on the subject. This is not some random conspiracy theory hack, I promise.
We don’t expect our politicians to dedicate their lives to scientific research so this perspective is inherently flawed.
What? Not in the commission. It's a 100% politically appointed body made up of politicians, it's just not elected.
Also even on the lower levels being an "expert" EU apparatchik has absolutely nothing to do with dedicated your life to science.
In any case it's a deeply flawed system, minimum oversight and a lot of money to spend/waste can't ever lead anywhere good.
Has been this way for decades and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
His Telegram channel is somewhat odd. It's a mix of what you'd expect (updates / general stuff about Telegram), some slightly weird stuff (highly praising countries he visited or talking about his oh-so-high-quality sperm and how he's the biological father of "over 100" kids), and then there's just shilling for some random watch-ads-to-get-coins things or whatever that totally aren't scams built on Telegram's new mini-app thing and TON (which is Telegram's cryptocurrency that they can't legally sell as theirs). You can take a look for yourself here: https://t.me/s/durov
2) "Praising countries" aka focusing on increasing the reach of Telegram, similar to Zuckerberg with Facebook.
3) "biological father of "over 100" kids" is quite the mildly interesting fact. It's unsurprising for an individual in his position to be a little eccentric.
4) "shilling for some random watch-ads-to-get-coins" aka focusing on increasing engagement with the Telegram app ecosystem that directly benefits Telegram.
All make sense to me.
„Other factors affecting rank include user flags, anti-abuse software, software which demotes overheated discussions, account or site weighting, and moderator action.“, see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
Hope he rots in jail