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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

#741

Post by dang »

pictur wrote: post #596
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…

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

#742

Post by ChainOfFools »

bdw5204 wrote: post #737
sterlind wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and it's useful for tradecraft. I think NSA uses Tor to some degree, for example.

I suspect most Tor exit nodes are controlled by the US government and/or its allied governments. It doesn't make much sense for anybody else to run an exit node because your IP gets banned by much of the internet and you get unwanted visits from law enforcement.

"What kinds of people operate tor exit nodes and why do they do it" is one of those questions that I know I'm not even supposed to admit being curious about, let alone ask, in the company of people who are most capable of accurately answering.

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

#743

Post by znpy »

zo1 wrote: post #608
Illotus wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it pretty ridiculous to assume that any dev would comment on the inner workings of their employers software in any way beyond what is publicly available anyway. I certainly wouldn't.

Why not? If I think my employer is doing something unethical, I certainly would. That would be the moral thing to do. This tells me most of the people implementing this are either too-scared of the consequences, or they think what they're implementing is ethical and/or the right thing to do. Again, both are scary thoughts we should be highly concerned about in a healthy society that talks about these things. One othe…

> That would be the moral thing to do.

The simplest explanation: when peope start at facebook/meta they leave their ethics at the door on the first day in the role.

It’s cynical, but does explain a lot: many people will pick the fat paycheque over their ethics any day, particularly in the US (where money is king)

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

#744

Post by petre »

redthnb wrote: post #727
miohtama wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Durov was robbed from his previous startup at a gunpoint by Putin’s thugs, and then he had to escape, so it is unlikely Durov co-operates with Russia: https://x.com/moo9000/status/1827651335476461813

That's just the half of the story and Pavel isn't an innocent victim

So what's the full story then?

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

#745

Post by numpad0 »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #613
devman0 wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a multi-national with a legal presence in that country you likely have the resources to engage local counsel in answering that question and to assist in understanding the legal risks of various business decisions.

I don't ask for legal advice, I ask you how do you imagine the "always remove illegal content, easy" part of your plan to work? There's no common definition of what is legal. E.g do you suggest removing content if it's illegal anywhere in the world?

I've never ran a web service personally, but to me it seems blocking access from UK, FR, DE is going to be the real long-term solution. Direct user participation from those regions are irrelevant anyway. That's going to narrow the problems down into actually working with police agencies in good faith and bypassing payment processors moral policing.

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

#746

Post by numpad0 »

pohl wrote: post #287
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually given up trying to post on Reddit for this reason. Whenever I've tried to join in on a discussion in some subreddit that's relevant(eg r/chess) my post has been autoremoved by a bot because my karma is too low or my account is "too new". Well how can I get any karma if all my posts are deleted?

Even those who farm accounts know the simple answer to your question. You have to spend a little time being civil in other subreddits before you reveal the real you. Just takes a few weeks.

IOW you're supposed to disclose identifying information and earn social credits, in Redditspeak.

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

#747

Post by nmfisher »

fallingknife wrote: post #409
Aurornis wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This distinction gets lost in these discussions all of the time. A company that makes an effort to comply with laws is in a completely different category than a company that makes the fact that they’ll look the other way one of their core selling points. Years ago there was a case where someone built a business out of making hidden compartments in cars. He did an amazing job of making James Bond style hidden compartm…

What do you mean "look the other way?" Does the phone company "look the other way" when they don't listen in to your calls? Does the post office "look the other way" when they don't read your mail? That guy who built the hidden compartments should absolutely not have gone to jail. The government needs to be put in check. This has gotten ridiculous.

The phone and post company definitively do not just look the other way. They all have procedures in place to cooperate with law enforcement requests.

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

#748

Post by hnfong »

devman0 wrote: post #541
xwowsersx wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrible takes notwithstanding, of which there are many, the issue I see with such arguments is that it's always possible to find legal violations that technically justify prosecution or imprisonment. However, the legal system only functions effectively if we trust that those handling the gray areas are motivated by the common good, rather than serving the interests of a select few or protecting an elite minority. Si…

It's important to note that he has only just been arrested, so there will be a case laid out, a defense offered, facts tried, and ultimately a conviction or not. I don't find a lot of sense in speculating about why or why it didn't happen as that will presumably be surfaced during the trial itself. Such events may or may not be followed up on HN as most of time these things turn out to not be wide ranging conspiracie…

The motivations for arresting/prosecuting a person does not usually come up in a trial. Trials usually just present evidence of why this person is supposed to be convicted/guilty, but seldom give insight to the broader picture of why this person was "chosen" while the others are not.

I also disagree with the characterization of the discussion as "wide ranging conspiracies"... voicing concern over a government arresting a major online platform that is well known for minimal censorship shouldn't be labeled as conspiracy theories.

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

#749

Post by pushupentry1219 »

itvision wrote: post #404
pshirshov wrote: post #245

My opinion would be extremely unpopular, but: 1) The guy was marketing an open-text messenger as an e2ee messenger 2) Because of (1) he was able to moderate it and help law enforcement with locating criminals but he was not cooperating 3) He was extremely cooperative with Russian "law enforcement", as multiple deanonymised activists with leaked chats, contact lists and location history found out So, a hypocrite got w…

> 1) The guy was marketing an open-text messenger as an e2ee messenger Citations needed.

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2024/08/25/telegram...

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

#750

Post by gitaarik »

whatsuphotdog wrote: post #203
mpeg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why are you assuming tech savy people care primarily about end-to-end encryption?

Maybe because tech-savvy people understand the need and importance of encryption? There's of course always the exceptions that say they don't care about privacy, but that is fortunately usually a small group, at least in the tech-savvy world.
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