Why do so many criminals use Telegram over signal, I don’t get it, it’s obviously a worse choice, so much more data is up for grabs on the telegram servers.
Or is it just a reputation and signal is just as popular?
Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
821–830 of 878 posts
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#822Earlier quoted context omitted.
The motivations for arresting/prosecuting a person does not usually come up in a trial. Trials usually just present evidence of why this person is supposed to be convicted/guilty, but seldom give insight to the broader picture of why this person was "chosen" while the others are not. I also disagree with the characterization of the discussion as "wide ranging conspiracies"... voicing concern over a government arresti…
The motivation can come up discovery though. If there is something nefarious, you would expect the defense to bring it up during pre-trial motions (which are public, just not presented to the jury). The defense also has wide lattitude to bring up such issues to the jury (although they are often limited in what they can argue about it). In some cases, selective prosecution is itself a defense; but (as you allude to) t…
I guess you have a point, but I think the specifics depend on jurisdiction.
That said, the defense can say whatever they want about what they perceive as selective prosecution... but how do they know? It's not like they would have more knowledge about the prosecution's thought process than the average conspiracy theorist?
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#823Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nothing more, nothing less. A lot more and a lot less than that. Arresting this CEO in France is largely a political decision, not a politically neutral enforcement action against the Telegram platform. They don’t perform the same enforcement against other entities they could go after.
He holds French citizenship, apparently broke French laws, and got arrested on French soil. How is that a political decision?
So, Russian citizen being arrested in Russia for breaking Russian laws against privacy and encryption wouldn't be political?
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#824Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I sell shovels, it's not a self-imposed techical limitation that I don't have a way to detect and prevent anyone from doing something illegal with a shovel. Even after the technological means exist to include an intetnet connected spy device in every shovel. Secure message passing is no different. The "shovel", the thing one might sell, is just the application of some math which does something and not any of the i…
It's not a shovel he's selling. It's aching to hosting a gallery portraying disgusting crimes done to actual children. Digital or ink, Durov can't just go behind freedom of speech in this matter.
This isn't about Durov or Telegram, it's about "E2EEing everything would give you a free pass not to moderate anything, which seems very naive"
An e2e communication system is just a shovel, or a car, or a saw, or any other tool that does a specific thing for which there is any valid need, which there absolutely is. Thinking that there is any logically valid way around that is what is very naive.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#825Earlier quoted context omitted.
The motivations for arresting/prosecuting a person does not usually come up in a trial. Trials usually just present evidence of why this person is supposed to be convicted/guilty, but seldom give insight to the broader picture of why this person was "chosen" while the others are not. I also disagree with the characterization of the discussion as "wide ranging conspiracies"... voicing concern over a government arresti…
The motivation can come up discovery though. If there is something nefarious, you would expect the defense to bring it up during pre-trial motions (which are public, just not presented to the jury). The defense also has wide lattitude to bring up such issues to the jury (although they are often limited in what they can argue about it). In some cases, selective prosecution is itself a defense; but (as you allude to) t…
The actual cause of the investigation is unlikely to come up during discovery or the trial. This is because of Parallel Construction [1]. Here is the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article to explain:
> Parallel construction is a law enforcement process of building a parallel, or separate, evidentiary basis for a criminal investigation in order to limit disclosure as to the origins of an investigation.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#826Earlier quoted context omitted.
The motivation can come up discovery though. If there is something nefarious, you would expect the defense to bring it up during pre-trial motions (which are public, just not presented to the jury). The defense also has wide lattitude to bring up such issues to the jury (although they are often limited in what they can argue about it). In some cases, selective prosecution is itself a defense; but (as you allude to) t…
The actual cause of the investigation is unlikely to come up during discovery or the trial. This is because of Parallel Construction [1]. Here is the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article to explain: > Parallel construction is a law enforcement process of building a parallel, or separate, evidentiary basis for a criminal investigation in order to limit disclosure as to the origins of an investigation. 1. https://e…
Parallel construction is about hiding methods, not motives or the actual transgression. What you’re describing is simply abuse of power: the cops don’t like the beat you’re reporting so they start ticketing you for going two over the speed limit.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#827Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's important to note that he has only just been arrested, so there will be a case laid out, a defense offered, facts tried, and ultimately a conviction or not. I don't find a lot of sense in speculating about why or why it didn't happen as that will presumably be surfaced during the trial itself. Such events may or may not be followed up on HN as most of time these things turn out to not be wide ranging conspiracie…
> I don't find a lot of sense in speculating about why or why it didn't happen Yet you've started your comment with a strong speculation on why (and it's also a bit naive to presume such things are surfaced during trial)
It's not speculation if that's literally what the charges are, as per the court documents.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#828Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The chats instantly appear after login. " I agree, that is very convenient. Also for the secret police officer.. I use telegram as social media, but I really would not use it to organize protest somewhere. Then the whole safety depends on whether Durov made a deal with the secret police, or them infiltrating the servers to know everything about anyone involved. What they liked at what time, what pictures they shared…
> them infiltrating the servers to know everything about anyone involved That's not a possibility. Split-key encryption doesn't allow such a thing to happen.
How does it allow me to access all my chats from a new device then, without providing any encryption key?
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#829Earlier quoted context omitted.
Suppose you knit mittens and sell them for cash out of your garage. The IRS expects you to report and pay taxes on the income. How do they check that the sum you specified is correct?
Not sure how it works in the US. In Germany you are supposed to have a cash register or issue an invoice on each purchase, and sometimes (though really rarely given lack of personnel) they can randomly check of your reported numbers make sense together.
It's not clear how that sort of thing would even help, it seems like just a trap for the unwary. If you're an honest person selling your mittens and paying your taxes without knowing you're supposed to have a cash register, you could get unlucky and get in trouble for innocuous behavior. If you're a drug dealer then you get a cash register and ring up all your drug sales as mitten sales. Or, if someone wanted to report less income, they would have a cash register and then use it to ring up less than all of the sales. Whether or not you have the cash register can't distinguish these and is correspondingly pointless.
Re: Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn
#830Earlier quoted context omitted.
The actual cause of the investigation is unlikely to come up during discovery or the trial. This is because of Parallel Construction [1]. Here is the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article to explain: > Parallel construction is a law enforcement process of building a parallel, or separate, evidentiary basis for a criminal investigation in order to limit disclosure as to the origins of an investigation. 1. https://e…
Parallel construction is about hiding methods, not motives or the actual transgression. What you’re describing is simply abuse of power: the cops don’t like the beat you’re reporting so they start ticketing you for going two over the speed limit.
I would argue that hiding methods is one way to obscure motives of those building the case against a defendant.
The specific discussion was related to a "wait-and-see" attitude in regards to the motives of the justice system of France (not the motives of the alleged perpetrator). The suggestion was that if this was politically motivated then that motive would be revealed once the discovery process began. However, if the French legal systems wants to hide a political motivation then they can use parallel construction to hide their methods, thus obscuring their motives.
Also, I didn't "describe" anything. I pointed to a Wikipedia article that, in part, declares parallel construction as supported by the Supreme Court of the US. So, at least in US law, it is not at all an abuse of power but rather a totally valid approach that law enforcement can take to build a case against someone. The entire reason I even know the terms is because it showed up so often in the TV show Law & Order.