Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport • Hacker News Board

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#331

Post by garrettgarcia » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:42 PM UTC

gtvwill wrote: post #55

vessenes wrote: post #19

Not 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.

Why stop there? By your logic, the owners of every ISP that provides a pathway for those criminal bits also should be in jail. Every single organization in that pathway would be liable from the registrars to the developers of web libraries or other app services. The governments themselves would be liable in many cases where the government has nationalized internet services.

There is a principle in the free world that one is not criminally liable for the speech of others. This is the principle that allows ISP's, newspapers, web forums, Google, etc. etc. to exist. You demand that the principle be violated and the Internet be destroyed. I disagree.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#332

Post by codedokode » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:43 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #290

sunaookami wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bec…

Is that directive the reason why website operators do not want to implement ECH (Encrypted Client Hello) which allows to encrypt server name in TLS connection? I tried googling this, but Cloudflare blog only says that they disabled ECH without disclosing the reasons: [1]

[1] https://community.cloudflare.com/t/early-hints-and-encrypted...

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#333

Post by a0123 » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:43 PM UTC

gtvwill wrote: post #83

codedokode wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "knowingly providing a service to a criminal"? Is Elon Mask then guilty for providing access to Twitter for Trump?

Well much like the owner of omegle found out you can't provide platforms for criminal activities and make no effort to curb it. It only takes a 30 second google before you find telegram rooms offering all kinds of illegal stuff. You don't find that on Twitter. Twitter is atleast mildly moderated. Telegram could have moderation built in to catch illegal activities but it chooses to do nothing. See the difference?

The fun fact is that while Telegram won't make use of something akin to PicDNA to automatically detect CSAM, it will very happily take down your channel or group if you distribute copyrighted material.

They do know how to respond to copyright complaints. Not so much about other, far more serious sort of illegal activities. Just on that point, they should have expected something to be done against them.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#334

Post by gck1 » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:43 PM UTC

cypress66 wrote: post #275

gck1 wrote: post #258

Funny 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…

What you call moderation is also a tool dictatorships use to censor people. It goes both ways.

Since perchlorate's comment is now dead, and yours is similar, going to reply here.

I do agree to some extent. Having tools to challenge a dictatorship that cannot be silenced can indeed become invaluable. However, there is a significant difference between responsible moderation, which aims to protect individuals' safety, and full-blown censorship. While it can be a slippery slope, the absence of moderation shouldn't leave users defenseless against doxxing and threats, which can have real, harmful, and even deadly consequences. There must be some form of balance. From my experience, it feels like Telegram lacks any moderation whatsoever, which represents another extreme. I assume, though, that they must be enforcing some level of moderation for things like CP, since governments typically, really do not tolerate a no moderation policy in such areas.

I would say that being on this extreme end, Telegram has actually opened itself up to government scrutiny. If there had been some form of responsible moderation, governments might not have found enough grounds to justify their actions. The absence of any moderation means that governments can use full force and indeed justify it, potentially damaging the very area of free speech that Telegram aims to protect.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#335

Post by kkfx » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:44 PM UTC

aucisson_masque wrote: post #161

kkfx wrote: post #81

Many people outside AND INSIDE France still have not much understood that the current government have transformed a step at a time the Republic in a ready-for-a-full-coup fascist state, for those who can read french I suggest trying: - https://www.senat.fr/leg/tas22-148.pdf page 43 bottom, or searching "réquisition de toute personne" - https://www.senat.fr/leg/pjl22-569.pdf with a good intervention from an LFI MEP, U…

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/le-vrai-du-faux/le-...

I've linked the laws actually existing, anyone can read what's in and take a personal conclusion. These laws are clearly a base for a coup, no matter how PR rhetoric can try to justify that.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#336

Post by tw04 » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:44 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #103

The detainment order was outstanding for some time, and Durov certainly knew that. Still he plainly landed in France and was detained. Why? My pet tinfoil-hat theory is that he decided that staying in a French prison is safer for him than being out in the open and get some polonium, or whatnot.

>and get some polonium

Why would he get some polonium? There are endless official Russian state telegram channels. Putin clearly has no issue with it or he would have banned it.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#337

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:45 PM UTC

a0123 wrote: post #297

chucke1992 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't believe there are any western nations that want non-locally-backdoored messaging of any sort But that's what exactly they want no? EU is literally implementing a regulation that will allow to "circumvent end-to-end encryption to address child sexual abuse material". I believe it failed to pass recently, but they will try again - and nothing stops countries to implement it independently. I think France is th…

To be clear, the legislation in France and in the EU that is most likely behind this arrest is that companies have to at least try to do some moderation. There is an understanding that not everything can be moderated (obviously, the entire Internet would be banned otherwise) but there has to be a genuine attempt. Which every company does more or less. The fact that Telegram doesn't reach this extremely low, very low…

[deleted]

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#338

Post by kernal » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:45 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #103

The detainment order was outstanding for some time, and Durov certainly knew that. Still he plainly landed in France and was detained. Why? My pet tinfoil-hat theory is that he decided that staying in a French prison is safer for him than being out in the open and get some polonium, or whatnot.

> staying in a French prison is safer for him than being out in the open

This is probably the most ridiculous theory I’ve read all year.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#339

Post by NoxiousPluK » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:45 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #321

a0123 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, the legislation in France and in the EU that is most likely behind this arrest is that companies have to at least try to do some moderation. There is an understanding that not everything can be moderated (obviously, the entire Internet would be banned otherwise) but there has to be a genuine attempt. Which every company does more or less. The fact that Telegram doesn't reach this extremely low, very low…

Telegram allows to report illegal posts; I suggest that France arrests those who saw the posts but didn't report them instead.

To be fair, anyone that has used Telegram for a while know that this is just a mock option to fool regulators. You can report all you want; zero action is taken. There are dozens of accounts that joined groups I'm in to spam CSAM. We've reported them, kicked/banned them from the group. Months later you can look them up and they're still there and still active. They even post CSAM in their public (visible for everyone on their profile) stories.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#340

Post by squidbeak » Sat, Aug 24, 2024, 10:45 PM UTC

jfim wrote: post #323

dang wrote: post #303

We changed the URL from https://www.tf1info.fr/justice-faits-divers/info-tf1-lci-le-... to an article in English. If there's a better article in English, we can change it again.

One detail that's missing from the English article is why he got arrested. The French article mentions: Why was he under threat of a search warrant? The Justice considers that the absence of moderation, cooperation with law enforcement and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable numbers, cryptocurrencies...) makes him an accomplice to drug trafficking, child-crime offenses and swindling.

> TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram, and that police considered that this situation allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.

(From the reuters link)