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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

#581

Post by walterbell »

medion wrote: post #565
walterbell wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://restoreprivacy.com/telegram-sharing-user-data/ > the operators of the messenger app Telegram have released user data to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in several cases. According to SPIEGEL information, this was data from suspects in the areas of child abuse and terrorism. In the case of violations of other criminal offenses, it is still difficult for German investigators to obtain information from…

Signal built by the US government? Is there any more actual information on this claim?

Signal's early funding source is public record, https://www.opentech.fund/projects-we-support/supported-proj...

Double Ratchet [1] is also used by WhatsApp (2B+ users) and IETF MLS [2] standard for E2EE group messaging.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm

[2] https://www.ietf.org/blog/mls-secure-and-usable-end-to-end-e...

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

#582

Post by axegon_ »

axegon_ wrote: post #291
mazambazz wrote: post #29

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…

The difference is that this is not an isolated case on telegram(you said it yourself: "some amount", which implies "limited"). At the same time, you can literally open up the app and with 0 effort find everything they are accusing them of - drugs, terrorist organizations, public decapitations, you name it. They also provide the ability to search for people and groups around you, and I am literally seeing a channel wh…

:%s/selling groups/selling drugs/g

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

#583

Post by tptacek »

mazambazz wrote: post #29

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 is being prosecuted for knowingly and deliberately directing and encouraging the unlawful behavior of his users, and it's a criminal prosecution rather than a civil case because he's accused of building a (lucrative) business off the effort. You don't have to agree with the case or believe the DOJ has made it adequately (it's early to say, given the extradition drama), but it's not reasonable to say that Dotcom is being prosecuted "for what his users did", any more than it would be reasonable to say that a mafia kingpin was being prosecuted for what their street crews did at their behest.

(I have no idea what's going on with Durov, or how French and/or EU law works, except to say that legal analysis on HN tends sharply towards US norms, and people should remember that a lot of basic US legal norms, like the rules of evidence and against self-incrimination, do not generally apply in Europe.)

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

#584

Post by devman0 »

akira2501 wrote: post #555
ashconnor wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sane comment in the slew of conspiracy theories, "service provider" apologists and misdirection of encryption being the issue.

> "service provider" apologists I sincerely doubt that Telegram makes most of it's money by being this kind of host. I don't generally give the government the benefit of the doubt when it comes to _communication_ platforms. I also see zero evidence that Telegram's existence or policies help promote or create crime in any way. It's not conspiratorial to refuse to show deference to the government which currently only h…

> "which currently only has vague accusations to justify jailing a CEO"

If they are charging him and intend to convict, they have specific accusations, unless the French legal system is much different than the rest of the western world.

> "If the French government was so concerned about the criminal aspect then they should just order Telegram to not operate in France or they should work to block it at a national level."

Many governments with anti-CSAM laws exercise universal jurisdiction in those statues (i.e. they will to prosecute anyone for those crimes regardless of where they were committed and regardless if the person in question is a citizen), that being said it isn't entirely relevant here since the defendant is a French citizen. I would fully expect a government with CSAM accusations to prosecute those involved in facilitating such not just "block" them.

It's worth noting that the person in question was just arrested, so the trial hasn't happened yet, and yes the government could be full of shit, that would presumably come out at trial as dropped charges or an acquittal.

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

#585

Post by mr_mitm »

konart wrote: post #539
Timber-6539 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An "open source server"... are you trolling?

Not sure what part of my comment amused you so much. An IM platform server can be open sourced. Just like any kind of software. It's just a matter of publishing your code and, preferably making it possible to verify that the service your users are connecting to is build using the same published code.

How could you possibly verify what code they are running server-side?

Typically, the way it goes is that you implement e2ee such that even a fully compromised server cannot read the clients messages, publish the client's source code, and build it yourself or use reproducible builds. That ladt part is where you can criticize Signal. Whether they publish the server code is mostly irrelevant unless you want to run a separate messenger infrastructure.

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

#586

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

mpeg wrote: post #49
pathless wrote: post #6

Telegram is genuinely the best general communication platform I have ever used, by far. I really hope he has a good lawyer and this doesn't end up getting essentially murdered for creating it. When you create something that is objectively great, everyone will use it - including bad actors.

I use telegram for some group chats, but I'm not sure why tech-savvy people would like it so much – messages are not end-to-end encrypted which makes it an inferior choice compared to even whatsapp

Hot take: E2EE is overrated!

Almost all conversations that most people have are benign. I used telegram to follow journalists (essentially as a twitter replacement), how would E2EE benefit my use case?

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

#587

Post by hnpolicestate »

carbotaniuman wrote: post #269
whimsicalism wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i should be allowed to watch whatever state propaganda i want, i'm a big boy 15 years ago in the US this would have been uncontroversial

I'm sure the US government would have been real keen on you reading Kremlin news source 40 year ago...

It's legal. We have that right.

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

#588

Post by asdf6969 »

WickyNilliams wrote: post #530
asdf6969 wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know. That’s obviously true, but I hate that it happens and it makes no sense to me why more people aren’t upset by it. What I’m trying to get at is that complying with rules that are stupid, ineffective, and unfair is not a good thing and anyone who thinks these goals are reasonable should apply them to equivalent services to realize they’re bad. Cooperation with law enforcement is morally neutral and not importan…

> anyone who thinks these goals are reasonable should apply them to equivalent services to realize they’re bad AFAIK these goals _are_ applied to equivalent services. It's just that twitter, FB, Instagram, WhatsApp, and all the others _do_ put in the marginal amount of effort required to remove/prohibit illicit activity on their platform. Free speech is one thing, refusing to take down CSAM or drug dealing operating…

I don’t agree that internet platforms deserve to be in their own special category which is uniquely required to police bad content. The only reason it happens is because it’s not politically or technically feasible to do it when the message comes through another medium.

I think it’s wrong on social media for the exact same reason it’s wrong to arrest power companies if a guy staples printed CSAM to a utility pole. Same thing for monitoring private phone calls. We know that AI can detect people talking about terrorism on the phone and cameras can monitor paper ads and newsletters in public spaces, but nobody would advocate for making this a legal requirement because it’s insane. The fact that nobody cares is proof that the public does value privacy and free speech. Why are so many of them tricked into thinking the internet is an exception?

I want people to commit to their beliefs and either admit they want surveillance wherever it’s technically feasible or give up and recognize that internet surveillance is also wrong. No more of this “surveillance is good but legacy platforms are exempt” waffling. Very frustrating and only serves the interests of people who already have power

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

#589

Post by karaterobot »

ipaddr wrote: post #513
whimsicalism wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe, but i don't think sealed warrants are the reason

There purpose is to hide charges as longas possible to deceive or trick which is against a fully transparent process

You're somewhat mistaken. In the U.S., you aren't owed a warning that the cops are looking for you, especially if you're a flight risk. That was never part of it.
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