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Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

nytimes.com

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Re: Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

#71

Post by ramblerman »

thefz wrote: post #45
sschueller wrote: post #19

If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? This is a very slippery slope. I don't see a problem with requiring a company to cooperate with a court order to release data. However if a company does not have this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect such data.

> If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? > This is a very slippery slope. I wonder what is hard to understand. Is there CP/violent content in Instagram? Nope. In Facebook? Nope. In YouTube? nope. Why? These companies are held responsible for the public content, published in clear, on their platf…

> I wonder what is hard to understand

The fact that you can't understand the difference between facebook/youtube and an ISP.

An ISP would have to vet every site they open up to their users. Which would effectively incentivize an AOL like internet with just 5-10 websites.

Re: Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

#72

Post by BlueTemplar »

Shank wrote: post #30
Arch485 wrote: post #27

There seems to be a lot of arguments citing that "$otherPlatform should be held liable for the same things!" The main takeaway here is that Durov is not being arrested strictly because his platform contains illegal material. He is being arrested because (allegedly) - he is aware of the illegal material, and - he refuses to cooperate with law enforcement to remove that material. So the French authorities are charging…

> Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content. Telegram, on the other hand, has decryption keys for the messages and media sent in group chats, meaning they can identify and remove illegal content if they choose to. I feel like I must emphasize this because it's repeatedly missed. Telegram has mainly 3 different components. The first is a s…

Also Telegram behaves better than you would expect from a platform : they still provide(d?) a quite open interface for others to crawl :

https://www.wired.com/story/the-kremlin-has-entered-the-chat...

(The downside of course is that it's then also open to «bad actors».)

Re: Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

#73

Post by Unbefleckt »

polotics wrote: post #70
janmo wrote: post #15

It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not communicating user information to the french intelligence services. Recently have been a bunch of scandals where french intelligence officers where involved in murder plots. - There is "Haurus", a french intelligence officer who sold personal information on the darknet, in one case he sold personal information including the address of a drug dealer. Something that…

Well you are looking at crimes by former intelligence officers here, also you'll find two complete rookies, had just got in and clearly they were in some weird gung-ho state. If you look for those stories you'll be finding plenty of ex cops, even SO team members, having gone for illicit easy money one way or another thanks to the potent mix of impunity and stupidity...

Plausible deniability

Re: Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

#75

Post by gdsfg534 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #38
janmo wrote: post #15

It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not communicating user information to the french intelligence services. Recently have been a bunch of scandals where french intelligence officers where involved in murder plots. - There is "Haurus", a french intelligence officer who sold personal information on the darknet, in one case he sold personal information including the address of a drug dealer. Something that…

> It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not communicating user information to the french intelligence services. If you ignore the missing human rights activists were using telegram and then suddenly disappeared. as pointed out before, telegram is utterly compromised security wise. Its really advantageous that "naughty people" are documenting their stuff there as it leaves a loverly indelible trail of acti…

> If you ignore the missing human rights activists were using telegram and then suddenly disappeared.

What human rights activists? What kind of gaslighting is that?

Re: Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

#76

Post by BlueTemplar »

emptysongglass wrote: post #55
NiekvdMaas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make things even stranger, Durov was apparently invited to lunch by Macron. Instead of a presidential welcome, he was arrested on arrival. Source: https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1828529272539304278

I find it deeply uncomfortable that the HN contingent is rushing to defend the French government on this matter. The European Union has been angling for more comprehensive access to messaging platforms with proposal after proposal. Everyone here loves to sing the praises of the EU but broad regulatory powers is not a clear cut value proposition: European governments and those governed have a long history of oppressio…

And by this point, platforms also have a decently long history of being evil (and Telegram seems to have a mixed history in trying to combat this natural tendency), so why wouldn't we ?

Re: Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

#77

Post by bananapub »

sschueller wrote: post #19

If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? This is a very slippery slope. I don't see a problem with requiring a company to cooperate with a court order to release data. However if a company does not have this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect such data.

> If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services?

er...did you miss the last twenty years?

the US government destroyed a website for prostitution ads: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/backpage-principals-convicted...

the US government has destroyed every darknet market they could find, despite most of them not selling any drugs themselves.

CSAM is taken extremely seriously and any web site that hosts it will be pursued to the end of the earth.

etc.

this is not a new thing at all.

> However if a company does not have this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect such data.

Telegram deliberately and suspiciously encrypts approximately nothing in a way that helps anyone, so this is completely irrelevant.

Re: Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

#78

Post by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B »

yorwba wrote: post #60
NiekvdMaas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make things even stranger, Durov was apparently invited to lunch by Macron. Instead of a presidential welcome, he was arrested on arrival. Source: https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1828529272539304278

Non-copypasta source: https://x.com/canardenchaine/status/1828438807697408059 (When Zlatti_71 signs off with "Remylind23" and can't spell the name of the French newspaper they're attributing, doesn't that make you a bit suspicious? And Le Canard enchaîné is a satirical newspaper, so it's not inconceivable that the story is made-up.)

It has a sarcastic tone but it is one of the best newspaper for the sources. Other newspapers regularly cite them.

Re: Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

#79

Post by maeln »

gdsfg534 wrote: post #68
maeln wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - There is the murder of racing driver "Laurent Pasquali" who is presumed to have been killed by a french intelligence officer. The plot involved over 20 people with several of them being french intelligence officers. In fact they got his personal information and address to plan the murder plot through the french intelligence database. The guy who is presumed to be the murderer is an ex -intelligence officer, not c…

> The guy who is presumed to be the murderer is an ex-intelligence officer There's a "he resigned two weeks ago" meme in Russia. Every time a police officer or someone else from the government is caught red-handed committing a crime, it "turns out" they have allegedly resigned a few weeks prior to the incident. It seems Putin's regime is not an aberration, they're trailblazers.

Except the guy was working for the DCRI, which has turned into the DGSI since 2014. So it has been out of the police forces for at least 10 years. Not a few weeks ago.

You can find a lot of information on french media, like https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/reseau-franc-macon-de...

What would be more concerning is that current member of the DGSE were planning a murder (in the same article). But then again, they were arrested, and this is why we know what likely happened to Pasquali. This is not Russia where the FSB can run wild.

Finally, I do find it strange to argue with a brand new account who basically just post to defend Telegram.

Re: Telegram founder charged with wide range of crimes in France

#80

Post by ralfn »

harryf wrote: post #63
Arch485 wrote: post #27

There seems to be a lot of arguments citing that "$otherPlatform should be held liable for the same things!" The main takeaway here is that Durov is not being arrested strictly because his platform contains illegal material. He is being arrested because (allegedly) - he is aware of the illegal material, and - he refuses to cooperate with law enforcement to remove that material. So the French authorities are charging…

> Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content. Signal isn't magically protected by proper E2E encryption. When the time comes to take them down legally, all that's needed is evidence from end users phones demonstrating illegal activities occurring over Signal. But - for now - Signal seems to have better friends and or be upsetting less auth…

>To me it's pretty clear reason why they've gone after Telegram is the Channels and Groups. Seen from a certain perspective Telegram channels are an alternative to Reddit, and have been popular medium during COVID and the Ukraine war for "alternative news". By now Reddit is properly controlled and subdued but Telegram isn't.

This is full on speculation. Right now the reality is you can buy underage people, drugs and weapons on telegram. ISIS recruitment channels, etc.

Playing the "free speech" card is disingenuous.

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