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Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

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Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#51

Post by guappa »

maeil wrote: post #20

> If, however, the French are simply saying that Durov’s failure to police his users or respond promptly to French document requests is the crime (which I suspect is the case), then this represents a dramatic escalation in the online censorship wars. What it means is that European states are going to try to extraterritorially dictate to foreign companies what content those companies can and cannot host on foreign-bas…

There have been several arrests of drug dealers using whatsapp over the years.

Do you have any official source that criminals on telegram are more? Or is it just a feeling you have?

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#52

Post by fragmede »

cperciva wrote: post #39
daliusd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO second answer does not hold water. If you will end up in situation where you are tortured they will torture you until you will you say how to add the backdoor.

I could be coerced into adding a back door in future versions of Tarsnap, yes. But I can't be coerced into adding a backdoor into past versions of Tarsnap, because I don't have a time machine.

Coerce you into sending something like "All users must upgrade to client version xyz because of a backdoor discovered by the NSA in the encryption used in older clients. I'm not allowed to tell you what it is, however, rest assured, the latest versions do not have this vulnerability." (but do have a backdoor that I've been tortured into adding).

And then wait for a scheduled backup with the backdoored client.

Though XZ says that's impossible, so I won't lose sleep over that scenario.

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#53

Post by cperciva »

whs wrote: post #44
daliusd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO second answer does not hold water. If you will end up in situation where you are tortured they will torture you until you will you say how to add the backdoor.

It could be designed that doing so will generate some alarm to other people. For example, the backdoor do not exists and it has to be developed, so the attacker has to keep them hostage for some period of time and loved ones may report a missing person. The software then might have to be signed with a key that generate alert to the whole engineering team, which someone else in the company may investigate the unauthor…

Surely some three letters organization probably could pull that off, but it add risk to their operation that the operation could be leaked.

This is basically a point I've made in a few of my talks about security and cryptography: The point of cryptography isn't to guarantee that your data is safe; it's to raise the cost of an attack to the point where a potential attacker decides not to attack. In particular, there's usually a human involved somewhere (sending or receiving information, or both) and humans are squishy and fragile; but torturing people attracts far more adverse attention than torturing data.

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#54

Post by medo-bear »

Another danger here is that other governments (eg Russia China) might respond assymetrically (or even exactly the same) against other CEOs of companies that give agency to narratives they are not happy with. For example by kidnapping them and constructing some bogus charges, using this instance as a precedent.

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#55

Post by guappa »

uxhacker wrote: post #4

Is this an unintentional war by Europe on facebook, signal, etc? What will the outcome be? Will these services leave Europe? Will Europe change the rules ?

No it's a NATO war against unaligned companies that don't only cooperate with NATO.

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#57

Post by bigiain »

biztos wrote: post #15

This is a take I keep seeing, more or less, and yet Telegram is not an encrypted messaging service for the most part, and so Durov could have moderated but actively promoted his not doing so; and the crimes this article leads with, as examples of things that’d get you in trouble in the US too, are said to have been prevalent on Telegram. (Also, maybe it’s nitpicking, but there are very obvious reasons why it’s better…

> there are very obvious reasons why it’s better to have the Taliban using WhatsApp and the US getting all that metadata and maybe more, rather than the Taliban finding some other channel

There are some very obvious opportunities when the Taliban (or enemy de jour, like drug cartels) feel the need to be "finding another channel".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Trojan_Shield

"Hardened encrypted devices provide an "impenetrable shield against law enforcement surveillance” and are in high demand by TCOs (transnational criminal organizations), thus the shutdown of Phantom Secure in March 2018 left a vacuum for TCOs in need of an alternative system for secure communication.

Around the same time, the San Diego FBI branch had been working with a person who had been developing a "next-generation" encrypted device for use by criminal networks. The person was facing charges and cooperated with the FBI in exchange for a reduced sentence. The person offered to develop ANOM and then use his contacts to distribute it to TCOs through existing networks. Before the devices were put to use, however, the FBI, and the AFP had a backdoor built into the communication platform which allowed law enforcement agencies to decrypt and store the messages as the messages were transmitted."

I'm still seeing drug busts here in Australia that're attributed to An0m (or which look extremely likely to have used An0m as part of the investigation).

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#58

Post by cperciva »

fragmede wrote: post #52
cperciva wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could be coerced into adding a back door in future versions of Tarsnap, yes. But I can't be coerced into adding a backdoor into past versions of Tarsnap, because I don't have a time machine.

Coerce you into sending something like "All users must upgrade to client version xyz because of a backdoor discovered by the NSA in the encryption used in older clients. I'm not allowed to tell you what it is, however, rest assured, the latest versions do not have this vulnerability." (but do have a backdoor that I've been tortured into adding). And then wait for a scheduled backup with the backdoored client. Though…

I am confident that if I sent a message like that, the top application security and cryptography experts in the world would collectively descend on the Tarsnap source code to figure out what changed.

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#59

Post by intunderflow »

tptacek wrote: post #3

This analysis leaves out the fact that Pavel Durov is, with Telegram, in approximately the same position Ladar Levison was with Lavabit. Unlike Meredith Whitaker, Durov actually is in a position to furnish documents to the French government, where he has citizenship. He's in that position because he has repeatedly made deliberate product decisions, to the bafflement of cryptographers around the world, to keep himself…

As another HN user pointed out Telegram does not store messages in plaintext: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41348228

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#60

Post by uhryks »

NayamAmarshe wrote: post #33

The fact that the French president invited Durov to dinner and then arrested him, is so strange. They want to control Telegram, the arrest is just an excuse.

Judiciary power is (somewhat) independent from executive power. Thank god people can still do things without needing Macron's approval.
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