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Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

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Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#121

This seems like the Kim Dotcom situation again. Why are these service providers being punished for what their users do? Specifically, these service providers? Because Google, Discord, Reddit, etc. all contain some amount of CSAM (and other illegal content), yet I don't see Pichai, Citron, or Huffman getting indicted for anything. Hell, then there's the actual infrastructure providers too. This seems like a slippery s…

Because those providers cooperate with authorities and moderate their content to a fairly large degree?

Reddit moderates itself so well that even half the legitimate posts get immediately removed by mods or downvoted by users to oblivion

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#122

> jpost.com > • 5 hours ago > Pavel Durov, Telegram founder, arrested by France following warrant - The Jerusalem Post > The alleged offenses include: terrorism, narcotic supply, fraud, money laundering and receiving stolen goods. For those unaware, all channel on telegram are NOT ENCRYPTED. They are stored in plaintext on telegram servers. All chats that are not 'secret chat' mode (single device to single device) ar…

This Signal you trust? https://kitklarenberg.substack.com/p/signal-facing-collapse-...

Anyway, while it's possible to activate a Telegram account without a physical phone (using some temporary number services) or using an (relatively) anonymous SIM card 99% of users use it via Android or iOS and that's means there is no need to grab data from Telegram, USA gov. as well as Apple or Alphabet could simply milk them from their OSes, virtual keyboards and so on.

It's really cloying how many do focus on the service instead of weighting the ecosystem...

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#123
It's interesting that he chose to fly to France knowing fully well that he will be arrested. It is also not surprising, because he has French citizenship and France does not extradite its citizens. Looks like a tactical move on his part when his legal team told him he ran out of options and he much preferred to spend time in a French prison than in a Federal prison in the US.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#124

This seems like the Kim Dotcom situation again. Why are these service providers being punished for what their users do? Specifically, these service providers? Because Google, Discord, Reddit, etc. all contain some amount of CSAM (and other illegal content), yet I don't see Pichai, Citron, or Huffman getting indicted for anything. Hell, then there's the actual infrastructure providers too. This seems like a slippery s…

Dotcom got extradited (which was declared legal much later). Durov landed in a country that had an arrest warrant out for him.

I hope his situation isn't similar to Dotcom's, as Dotcom was shown to be complicit in the crimes he was being persecuted for. Convicting the megaupload people would've been a LOT harder if they hadn't been uploading and curating illegal content on their platform themselves.

As a service provider, you're not responsible for what your users post as long as you take appropriate action after being informed of illegal content. That's where they're trying to get Telegram, because Telegram is known to ignore law enforcement as much as possible (to the point of doing so illegally and getting fined for it).

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a crime not to report a crime, at least not where I live. But facilitating a crime, which is something you could accuse telegram of is.

You're technically right (I think). However, I believe if you witness a murder and know the murderer and the police asks you: "Do you know anything about X murder?" Then I think you're legally required to tell the truth here.

If someone says I need a cab for after I rob a bank and you give them a ride after waiting then you’re almost certainly an accessory. If they flag a random cab off the street then not.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#127
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is effectively plaintext, in that one entity has all of those secrets for everyone. That's one entity to subpoena. If that entity doesn't comply, governments will get upset and charge your executives with crimes if they get the chance. Different jurisdictions makes it harder to kick down the doors and get the keys, but it doesn't change the fundamental problem. "Nuh-uh, I put all those records in a box in Switze…

> This is effectively plaintext Everything's effectively plaintext then. Plaintext: refers to data that is transmitted or stored unencrypted. None of which Telegram does.

Data that is transmitted or stored along with the keys is effectively plaintext, which Telegram does. The data is effectively plaintext on my device, at Telegram, and on the group members' devices, even if it is not plaintext in-between.

Data I send to a website over TLS is effectively plaintext on my computer and on the other side; in transit, it is not.

It all comes down to your threat model. Encryption does not protect information from entities who hold the keys to decrypt that information.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're technically right (I think). However, I believe if you witness a murder and know the murderer and the police asks you: "Do you know anything about X murder?" Then I think you're legally required to tell the truth here.

> Then I think you're legally required to tell the truth here. Or you can just not respond, at least in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-incrimination

I don't think it's necessarily self-incrimination to report a crime you witnessed, though I think it's dependent based on the time from when it occurred to the time of reporting.

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because those providers cooperate with authorities and moderate their content to a fairly large degree?

How does Meta cooperate with the authorities? Isn't Whatsapp supposed to be end-to-end encrypted?

Answering law enforcement letters, even if it's just to say that data cannot be provided, is some 80% of cooperation needed.

Meta can provide conversation and account metadata (Twitter does the same - or used to do at least), or suspend accounts

Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

#130
post #99

A lot of really terrible takes in this comment section. Telegram didn't have encrypted groups by default, and telegram possessed a lot of content on their servers that they had been made aware was illegal and didn't cooperate. Nothing more, nothing less. The comparisons to other providers is off base because either other providers are cooperating more when they possess actionable, unencrypted information and taking s…

> Nothing more, nothing less.

A lot more and a lot less than that. Arresting this CEO in France is largely a political decision, not a politically neutral enforcement action against the Telegram platform.

They don’t perform the same enforcement against other entities they could go after.

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