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Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

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Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#871

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A ~French~ Chinese citizen running a service in ~French~ Chinese is going to be subject to ~French~ Chinese laws and can expect to be arrested when they step into the country of ~French~ Chinese if they have charges pending. >This isn’t some grand conspiracy theory. Funny that when the wrong country does it it's tyranny. When a Western country does it it's the rule of law. Especially when they are the exact same thi…

There's nothing funny or wrong about this argument. In a democracy, law is a community consensus. In a tyranny it's just a rule set up by the tyrant for everyone to follow (but never followed by the tyrant himself and his gunmen). That said, even in democracy a law can be bad, and likely is in this case.

In a democracy two wolves and a sheep discuss what is for dinner.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#872

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Reasonabl…

I think private communications are a human right as well. But I don’t think every conceivable way of communicating must be private. You can always go outside and talk privately with your neighbour. To use your analogy: shouldn’t everyone look away when you drive by so that you can have private road usage?

There is tinted windows for that. I agree that not everything is private. But if two or more parties want to be able to communicate privately it most certainly shouldn't be the government making that impossible. It would be like mandating everyone must wear their state issued camera and microphone.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#873
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Durov has been shilling his crypto scams while shitting on all those services you're talking about (well, at least Signal) claiming they don't do anything for privacy. Considering how he's tarnished Signal, there is absolutely no reason for them or anyone else to back him up. What will be very funny is the fact that Telegram is pretty much not encrypted (yeah ok, "secret chats", whatever sure) and now that investigat…

> there is absolutely no reason for them or anyone else to back him up If you don't uphold the principles all you have to do is wait until it bites you too. What happened to "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

>What happened to "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Nothing. It still is the same fake Voltaire quote used to con overly idealistic adversaires into giving you some situational supprt against their better interest. No institutional actor ever followed it.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#874

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WUT? GDPR gives you controll of your data, which all those "saint" vc-blessed startups from siliconvale hate with passion... (and they can go * themselves :D)

I agree, I should have said "the thinking that gives us the GDPR on one hand (good) and mass surveillance on the other (bad)".

Phrasing makes worlds of difference :)

At any rate - the mass surveillance effort is just an idea pushed by some MEPs/comissioners... it would be nice to be able to dimiss those.

Besides, there was also a complain about "cookie" banners but the UE didn't mandate to make annoying popups - the intent was to force services harvest less data... as it shows - if the law is not explicit enough then private business will try to circumvent it and push users to hate the entity/the law ('buuuu, stupid EU'... no - it's stupid and abusive corporation). At any rate I do hope that there will be push to make the configuration a browser setting akin to "DNT" with various levels ("allow all cookies", "only functional", "no cookies"; maybe more) and make websites follow it...

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#875
post #474
post #85

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Private chats are a hassle to initiate and not multi-device. Most use normal chats. With anonymous accounts, using anonymous +888 numbers, whose price has increased from $16 to $1000+ in a matter of a year, it is indeed a very convenient playground for all sorts of activities.

Why would a criminal mastermind pay $1000 for an anonymous Telegram account when they could buy a burner phone with a prepaid SIM included for like $20 to register and throw it out? In my experience the people who buy those are more Durov superfan than Keyser Söze. And evidence of criminality on Telegram predates the Fragment numbers by a while - for instance in like 2014-2015 pretty much the only time Telegram was i…

"Burner phones" are a TV trope of the 90s and 00s. In most countries you cannot get a phone number without registering your ID with the telecom provider.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#876
post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram is not a behemoth like Facebook so doesn't have their resources to moderate everything. Even Facebook isn't particularly good at it. They mostly rely on software which often produces false positives. This arrest is completely preposterous and is just an attempt to get Durov to play ball with France's privacy destroying authorities.

lately when i see arguments like yours one thing keeps popping into my head. i’m not sure how i feel about the following yet but it’s been on my mind a bit for the past couple of years: if someone is incapable of making good faith genuine attempts to mitigate against atrocious things happening openly in the property they control, then isn’t this fairly solid evidence they’re just not capable of owning that property?…

>if someone is incapable of making good faith genuine attempts to mitigate against atrocious things happening openly in the property they control, then isn’t this fairly solid evidence they’re just not capable of owning that property?

Even if true, what then? It doesn't follow said property can be ethically transferred to anyone else; otherwise you've just thrown out all semblance of property rights. You've sold off the world to the HOA's, as it were; now anyone who objects to the way you maintain your grounds has a button to push to make sure you are deprived of any grounds you keep. Be they real, or digital.

If I make a platform that shuffles bits around, and a bunch of users start using it for CP and terrorism (lets assume perfect enforcement/investigative capability up until piercing the platform, so probability 1 on the CP/terrorism front); I don't think the choice then is "lets shluff this to someone responsible to admin/make a tap". The only ethically tenable approach would be "well, no more moving bits around by anyone for anyone else anymore". And at that point we've unmade computing essentially.

No one, and I mean "Not One Single Entity, government or otherwise" can be trusted to not to abuse privileged access; and once put into the position to abuse, abstain from doing so. Abuse is probability 1. This is part of why I believe Stallman was right. The concept of the user account has been a disaster for the human species. As it is by the prescribing of unique identifiers to discern one operation on behalf of someone from another that has created a world in which we can even imagine such horrifying concepts as a small group unilaterally managing the entirety of the rest of humanity, for any purpose.

For me it is a sobering thought on the impact of automated business systems. I've practically 180'd on actual character of my own life's work. It's got me in a spot where I'm strongly considering burning my tools. Extreme? Maybe. Sometimes though, you have to accept that there are extremely unpleasant consequences out there that cannot be satisfactorally mitigated.

So I have a return question for you. Are you sure that the question you asked is the one you should be asking, or should you be asking yourself, "how many lives are acceptable casualties in order to continue operating within the bounds of my assumed ethical envelope?" Because there is a counter of people effected; you may not be able to read it or write it, but it's there.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#877
post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they crack down on Telegram? They tolerate it, as long as the high profile channels are broadcasting pro russian points of views. (everyone above a certain viewer size MUST register with the state, that goes for any site)

> everyone above a certain viewer size MUST register with the state, that goes for any site this is false, it's kind of funny you are using all caps to lie. Something that resembles what you described may happen in November, but doesn't exist yet.

https://news.sky.com/story/russian-bloggers-forced-to-regist...

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#878

A bunch of people in comments here seem to misunderstand what telegram is. It is not just a messaging app, it is essentially a platform like twitter, with channels, hundreds of thousands of subscribers to those. While I fully support E2EE communication with no back-doors, I think it is perfectly fair for governments to have some control to take down large channels that are clearly against the law. I do not know the t…

It's also perfectly fair to believe that no written (or spoken) word should be illegal

There is no place on earth which has laws that abide by this principle.

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#879

What about Signal? What about Messenger and Whatsapp, also end-to-end encrypted? Will they be arrested? Is this the end of end-to-end encryption chats?

Telegram is not E2EE (with the exception of phone-only 1-on-1 Secret Chats, which are also questionable security-wise). Telegram has access to everything ever shared on their services, even if users delete it. Signal by design can't moderate their service. Telegram by design has full access, but doesn't act on it.

Yes, I know this, as I have said in another comment. Sorry.

Me: >Also Telegram is not E2E by default. You need to activate it per chat. By default and in groups it is only server encrypted.

But if it was fully E2EE, would this arrest not have happened?

Re: Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport

#880

What about Signal? What about Messenger and Whatsapp, also end-to-end encrypted? Will they be arrested? Is this the end of end-to-end encryption chats?

telegram isn't e2ee

Yes, I know this, as I have said in another comment. Sorry.

Me: >Also Telegram is not E2E by default. You need to activate it per chat. By default and in groups it is only server encrypted.

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