Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

prestonbyrne.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 228 posts

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#61

Post by bigiain »

mjevans wrote: post #34
danpalmer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it interesting to read that their approach is supposedly to split encryption keys across jurisdictions. It sounds like they believe that they should therefore not be able to be compelled to reveal any plaintext because the keys are not in the jurisdiction asking for data, but as far as I can tell this is obviously rubbish, because a computer is not subject to the law, an individual is, and in this case an ind…

Usually it's a power or money profit motive. Just think what tasty things some large corporation or government could do with that data. They could sell ads! Or hold dissidents hostage. All sorts of things.

Or train LLMs...

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#62

Post by willsoon »

hackcasual wrote: post #7

Trying to understand his legal situation by analogizing with US law understanding strikes me as some real Dunning-Kruegering. Surely someone like Preston Byrne has someone he can reach out to to get a better understanding of the actual French legal situation Durov is in.

[flagged]

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#63

Post by tptacek »

intunderflow wrote: post #59
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

That user seems to be misinformed, and appears to be discussing client-server encryption, not end-to-end encryption. That's unsurprising, because, among the many decisions Durov has made that have baffled cryptographers, attempting to confuse users about the implications of E2E vs. client-server encryption is one of the most notorious.

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#65

Post by NdMAND »

NayamAmarshe wrote: post #32
danpalmer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it interesting to read that their approach is supposedly to split encryption keys across jurisdictions. It sounds like they believe that they should therefore not be able to be compelled to reveal any plaintext because the keys are not in the jurisdiction asking for data, but as far as I can tell this is obviously rubbish, because a computer is not subject to the law, an individual is, and in this case an ind…

> that there aren't really technical blockers to E2E encryption anymore There are several disadvantages, and Telegram would lose its key features: 1. Cloud Sync 2. Instant Multi-device login 3. The ability to create large group chats, like thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in a single place. 4. Sending files up to 4GB.

Yes and no.

[1] Signal is working to support an encrypted "cloud backup feature" (some hints on this are on their code base), as per "sync" that's already done in the forward direction by Signal (by sending all new messages to all your devices) I'm sure you could provide some sort of backward sync as well. [3] Signal already supports groups up to 1000 people iirc, I'm sure a read-only channel larger than that could also be doable. [4] I'm not sure why that would not be possible.

I'm not sure exactly what [2] refers too but nevertheless I have some doubts that would cause a blocker.

I used Signal as an example since it's a well known encrypted messenger; although I must acknowledge it's not really a Telegram competitor and vice versa (one is a secure messenger and the other is a social media app).

That said, (proper) E2E encryption makes everything harder to do - again, you can take Signal as example and their development speed. But, I'd argue, is not impossible

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#66

Post by NdMAND »

ks2048 wrote: post #14
truman01 wrote: post #5

Telegram’s End to End Encryption by default is disabled, only available for one-to-one conversation. My ‘guess’ is that most of group conversions are pretty accessible on telegram servers, which might be the case here.

This article repeatedly referred to Telegraph as "encrypted" ("have full encryption on their services", "when you’re running a globally accessible encrypted platform"), which seems misleading, if by default, it is not end-to-end encrypted.

I think the idea is that Telegram servers are encrypted with keys that Telegram itself has access to (just distributed to different countries) - as opposed to e2e encryption.

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#67

Post by boudin »

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…

In a way ot reminds me of the Phantom Secure story. If you are suspected to purpusefully facilitate crime, you can be held responsible. This seems to be true as well in the US.

In the phantom secure story the intent was crystal clear. In the Telegram case it seems that the refusal to cooperate with investigations cast enough doubts to arrest the CEO and put him in similar shoes.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/phantom-secure-takedown-031...

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#68

Post by JoelJacobson »

Strange, I haven't found any articles that mention the "Find People Nearby" and "Make Myself Visible" features, which seems to be core features criminals use to sell drugs/sex, finding new random clients in the area.

The public non-encrypted aliases or bio of users often contain wordings that explicitly spell out they sell drugs or sex.

For instance, one alias is "WEED COKE MDMA SPE..."

I don't have a clear opinion on whether drugs or selling sex should be illegal or not, can see pros/cons, but my opinion is irrelevant, my point here is that Law Enforcement, might find this very problematic, that there is obviously no moderation here.

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#69

Post by tptacek »

boudin wrote: post #67
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…

In a way ot reminds me of the Phantom Secure story. If you are suspected to purpusefully facilitate crime, you can be held responsible. This seems to be true as well in the US. In the phantom secure story the intent was crystal clear. In the Telegram case it seems that the refusal to cooperate with investigations cast enough doubts to arrest the CEO and put him in similar shoes. https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/phant…

It's so much worse than that (at least under US law, but I assume French law, which has fewer speech and evidentiary protections, is worse still). By putting himself in the position where he was clearly and straightforwardly able to furnish assistance to criminal investigations, he likely acquired some form of accomplice liability (or whatever equivalent they have in France) as soon as he refused to comply with a lawful order: the refusal itself is a purposeful facilitation.

That's a distinction between end-to-end encrypted applications and cosmetically "secure" apps like Telegram.

Re: Thoughts on the Durov Arrest

#70

Post by akira2501 »

cedws wrote: post #6

The speculation on this situation is crazy. People are losing their minds over the idea of Durov being arrested over crimes committed on his platform, but we don’t even know the details. For all we know he could have been completely complicit. Hold your horses people.

> the idea of Durov being arrested

I don't know him but the idea that an individual CEO would be handled in this way seems extreme and calls into question the actual motives of the French government.

> For all we know he could have been completely complicit.

I guess he could be an international terrorist drug dealing pimp.

> Hold your horses people.

The French governments actions and communication on the subject has created this environment. They can easily alter it if they choose.

Post reply on HN