I'm already never travelling to England. Will I also add France to that list? We'll see.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
281–290 of 1001 posts
Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
#282Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
#283Funny story - there were some protests in my country some months ago. We're a semi-autocratic country on the verge of becoming a dictatorship. During the protests, the government used masked 'civilians,' or what you'd call 'titushkis,' to beat up activists at their home addresses or elsewhere in public. We were also getting calls from fake numbers on our personal numbers with threats. A channel was created on Telegra…
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Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
E2EE should be a human right. Period. There are other ways to capture and ensnare criminals. Sacrificing our privacy for the "greater good" is a bridge too far. As one counter point, think about all of the completely fine human behaviors that instantly become kompromat when the powers have access to your every communication. That is way more dangerous to democracy, freedom, and liberty than a slightly smaller chance…
Famous quote that if you sacrifice freedom for security, you will get neither.
*sigh* Dude, if it's really that relevant and compelling at least quote it properly. It's 2024, finding and copy-pasting is barely slower than typing a bad paraphrase.
> Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
-- A committee which included Benjamin Franklin
_____________
That said, this quote is typically misused, or at best being used wayyy outside its original context. [0]
The Penn family, the local semi-nobility of Pennsylvania, are offering the government a one-time "donation"... in exchange for getting a perpetual exemption from all taxes.
A committee of elected representatives--among them Franklin--are strongly opposed to it, since they believe the democratic legislature's "essential Liberty" to impose taxes for its citizens is way more important than any "temporary Safety" of a one-time lump sum.
[0] https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-01...
Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
#285Not clear right now if France thinks he was actively complicit with the four horsemen listed, or if just the act of running Telegram makes him complicit in their eyes, or something in the middle, e.g. they asked for help and Telegram turned them down. This will be an interesting case to watch -- I don't believe there are any western nations that want non-locally-backdoored messaging of any sort -- but generally my un…
But here's the thing. If your app is known to be uses heavily by criminals ranging from Pedo's to drug dealers. You are liable. You run a carrier service. Much like the owner of omegle found out, yes you do have a duty of care. You can't just provide a service that knowingly provides a platform to criminal activity and do jack shit. You live in fairytale land if you think you can.
I upvoted your comment so that it has a bit of visibility because I know some people think this, but I disagree with it, very strongly.
First, your analogy is broken -- roads, telephones, pen and paper, motor vehicles all fit your description just as aptly.
Second, you propose your preferred moral economy as one that only curtails harms. In fact, you create another harm implementing what you think is right.
Reasonable people disagree about which is worse -- the creation and public support of a technocratic oligarchy in control of how humans communicate or the proliferation of some harms that take advantage of unfettered communication. But please don't be simple minded, pretending to yourself or others that there aren't real costs, social and physical, on both sides of this.
For myself, I think private communications are a human right and a massive good for society, and I don't condone criminal acts undertaken using messaging.
Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
#286the EU is becoming a parody >we've got to save democracy by restricting free speech and enforcing laws and regulations created by unelected officials
Unelected officials = experts
We don’t expect our politicians to dedicate their lives to scientific research so this perspective is inherently flawed.
Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
#287Funny story - there were some protests in my country some months ago. We're a semi-autocratic country on the verge of becoming a dictatorship. During the protests, the government used masked 'civilians,' or what you'd call 'titushkis,' to beat up activists at their home addresses or elsewhere in public. We were also getting calls from fake numbers on our personal numbers with threats. A channel was created on Telegra…
This and the sexual blackmail the network fully permits. Although it's my understanding they have been doing slightly better when it comes down to children (the fact it was made possible in the first place is unbelievable though).
Not counting the pro-Israeli channels posting details of anti-genocide activists and encouraging violence (and sometimes openly putting bounties on activists' heads). All constantly reported yet no action is taken.
There have been so many things this guy has allowed for years, believing he could act (or fail to act) with total impunity because of his fortune. Hell, he got offered a French passport because Macron used to be a big Telegram fan (might still be). It's absolutely incredible he was so brazen he would just travel to France because there is absolutely no way he wasn't aware he could be held liable (especially considering recent EU legislation), he probably just believed he was above the law.
Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
#288Not directly related to the arrest, but to Durov: His Telegram channel is somewhat odd. It's a mix of what you'd expect (updates / general stuff about Telegram), some slightly weird stuff (highly praising countries he visited or talking about his oh-so-high-quality sperm and how he's the biological father of "over 100" kids), and then there's just shilling for some random watch-ads-to-get-coins things or whatever tha…
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Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to which source?
The one this HN post links to
See sibling comment for a more accurate description https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41341848
Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport
#290the EU is becoming a parody >we've got to save democracy by restricting free speech and enforcing laws and regulations created by unelected officials
Ever since von der Leyen became president. Typical for her since she also tried the same shit in Germany.
Sadly, this isn't the case.
I keep bringing it up since people forget about it: in 2006 the EU adopted the Data Retention Directive that forced all ISPs to save the browsing history of everyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
It was eventually declared invalid by the European court of human rights, but it was still in effect for many years. Countries that did not implement this (eg Romania because their constitutional court found it illegal) were sued by the EU commission.
The EU's attempts to spy on people go back decades. You'll also note that government gets exemptions from all the privacy stuff the EU pushes.
I hope the EU changes course on this, but as with their handling of other tech... I'm not holding my breath.