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Founder and CEO of Telegram messaging service arrested in France

www.tf1info.fr INFO TF1/LCI - Le fondateur et PDG de la messagerie Telegram interpellé en France | TF1 INFO

[VIDÉO] Selon nos informations, le fondateur et PDG de la messagerie sécurisée Telegram a été interpellé ce samedi soir à l'aéroport du Bourget. Pavel Durov, franco-russe de 39 ans, était accompagné de son garde du corps et d'une femme. - INFO TF1/LCI - Le fondateur et PDG de la messagerie Telegram ...

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www.tf1info.fr /justice-faits-divers/info-tf1-lci-le-fondateur-et-pdg-de-la-messagerie-cryptee-telegram-interpelle-en-france-2316072.html

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Founder and CEO of Telegram messaging service arrested in France

www.tf1info.fr /justice-faits-divers/info-tf1-lci-le-fondateur-et-pdg-de-la-messagerie-cryptee-telegram-interpelle-en-france-2316072.html

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Founder and CEO of Telegram messaging service arrested in France

www.tf1info.fr /justice-faits-divers/info-tf1-lci-le-fondateur-et-pdg-de-la-messagerie-cryptee-telegram-interpelle-en-france-2316072.html

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What crimes did he personally commit?
- From translating TFA:
  Justice considers that the absence of moderation, cooperation with law enforcement and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) makes it complicit in drug trafficking, child crime offenses and fraud.
  Same reason Russia wanted to arrest him, failure to do the government's bidding.
  
  By that logic we should arrest all Car company CEOs for being complicit in crime lol, it's not exactly his choice what people do with his product
  
  Not really comparable because the illegal content is hosted and distributed through his servers. Which is why most sites are moderated to a degree. This dude basically said "fuck off" whenever takedowns were issued. It's hardly a surprise that he's been arrested.
  
  Illegal content is distributed through snail mail and telephones too, but those are common carriers so they aren't liable. Why should Telegram be any different?
  
  The analogy works if you lease or rent.
  Rent a car, commit a crime, boom — rental company is on the hook apparently. Moronic.
  
  The rental company, on the other hand, is more than willing to turn you in to not be considered liable. Which they probably would be if they impeded an investigation.
  
  Your modified analogy is broken, since it is impossible for an encryption service to provide the information being subpoenaed by definition. You wouldn’t claim Hertz is “impeding an investigation” by failing to use telepathy. Damn but authoritarians are stupid.
  
  So... you're saying your own analogy is disanalogous...
  
  Most analogies are, its better to stick to facts
  
  But, have you noticed that after committing a crime, criminals and felons usually escape.... using a car?
  
  This is more like arresting the getaway driver, not the car manufacturer.
  
  Except the getaway driver is just a cabbie who will drive anyone who gets in. He didn't know he was part of a heist.
  Would you hold the CEO of lyft responsible if one of their self-driving cars were used in a heist?
  
  If the CEO of Lyft got repeated warnings that this very thing was happening and ignored them willfully, then yes. In the end he has nobody to blame but himself. It's no different from hosting a file sharing platform without ever vetting the content and wondering why the cops show up one day. The stupidity of going to France knowing that you're a wanted man in a number of countries is just the cherry on top.
  
  Not sure. I was just bored and was making a funny comment.
  
  Not really comparable because the illegal content is hosted and distributed through his servers.
  landlords should be prosecuted for crimes commited by tenants in houses they rented out to the tenants.
  
  If the landlord knows it's happening and let it happen then yeah, that's what being complicit is all about
  
  how are you meant to know, by impeding on your tenant's privacy constantly?
  
  Well, telegram has public and private conversations. So in this example, you'd know because they were having trafficking parties on their front yard and the police of multiple countries notified them to let them know. And then you were aware of this issue so you purposely avoided being in numerous countries that want to arrest you. Seems like he knew.
  
  I mean depending on the crimes, yeah. If a child porn ring runs out of your building and you're alerted to its continued existence, and the police are asking who lives there and you don't tell them and keep renting to them? Yeah.
  
  People need houses to live. Taking stuff off your own server doesn't throw someone out onto the streets and leave them to the elements. Come on lol
  
  The criminals ate bread before the heist, better round up all the grain farmers
  
  Next they'll charge oil executives for damage to the planet
  
  Next they’ll make encrypting your own files illegal. Absolutely preposterous. Do better police work!
  
  Next up, outlawing pencil erasers and flammable paper
  
  So your pro arresting gun and ammo manufacturing company CEOs?
  
  I'm all for it. Time to end the guns supply chain.
  
  Oh for fucks sake I'm so tired of this bullshit.
  Governments nowadays are constantly acting like a tech platform has a responsibility eliminate privacy for users because if they have privacy, then they can't be tracked. It's infuriating.
- Told Russia to fuck off, and now France is complicit.
  Tells us a lot about how governments view Telegram.
  
  has nothing to do with Russia, according to the linked article
  Pourquoi était-il sous la menace d'un mandat de recherche ?
  La Justice considère que l’absence de modération, de coopération avec les forces de l’ordre et les outils proposés par Telegram (numéro jetable, cryptomonnaies…) le rend complice de trafic de stupéfiants, d’infractions pédocriminels et d’escroquerie.
  Ce mandat de recherche courait si, et seulement si, Pavel Durov se trouvait sur le territoire national.
  
  En effet, Telegram est une ruche pour les contenus criminels. En ce moment, la plateforme fait l'actualité avec la diffusion illégale des matchs de Ligue 1. Mais sur cette messagerie chiffrée, de nombreux comptes sont utilisés par la criminalité organisée. Au-delà du terrorisme, les plus dangereux pédocriminels communiquent sur Telegram pour échanger des contenus. "C'est devenu depuis des années LA plateforme numéro 1 pour le crime organisé", commente un enquêteur.
  even if it's not about telegram, this might help to understand ☞ https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/12/15/encryption-discussion-during-the-8-december-trial-from-myth-to-reality/
  Several of the defendants were questioned about their use of tools and software such as Signal, Tor and Tails, and about the encryption of their computers and hard drives. The questioning followed the same pattern as the prosecution’s investigations, which we revealed a few months ago: a huge amount of confusion as to the technical understanding of these tools combined with a suspicious approach to their actual use. Three defendants were questioned about their motivation for using such software, as if a well-argued justification was needed, even though the tools are perfectly normal, legal and ordinary.
  “It is possible and not forbidden to have these tools, but we can ask ourselves why dissimulate information” the president of the court stated. Suspicion of clandestinity coupled with little knowledge of the subject was evident in their questions: “You explain that the use of this ‘kind of network’ [Signal] was to preserve your privacy, but are you afraid of being monitored?”. Or: “Why did you think it was important or a good idea to find out about this ‘kind of environment’ [the Tails operating system]?”.
  
  Thanks for that.
  So basically, "Why are you hiding from us? Only criminals hide, so you must be hiding criminal activity!"
- From the article
  The Justice considers that the lack of moderation, cooperation with the forces of law and order and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) makes it complicit in drug trafficking, paedo criminal offences and fraud.
  But a lot of people are speculating they just fabricated claims to arrest him because Telegram is russian.
- As the CEO he should be responsible for anything he was facilitating as part of his business, and that would include crimes committed using telegram that he was aware of and both did nothing to remove from his service and made it harder for law enforcement to prosecute. You know, like how a warehouse owner who knowingly sells space to pedos and does what he can to keep the police from searching the warehouee is complicit.
  There are some circumstances where they are unaware or only take halfhearted measures, but in this case it looks like he is being investigated for actively working to enable criminals, including pedos. As the head executive, he doesn't have to do it personally if he is directing staff to make it happen.
  Edit: explaining the logic behind something isn't the same as agreeing with that logic
  
  I'm sorry, but it's a private messaging app! Not even the owners are supposed to know what is going on in the chats. It's not a moderation situation - I don't know if he rejected a request to ban accounts, but it isn't how things are supposed to be.
  
  Isn't the main problem that most people don't use the E2E encrypted chat feature on Telegram, so most of what's going on is not actually private and Telegram does have the ability to moderate but refuses to (and also refuses to cooperate)?
  Something like Signal gets around this by not having the technical ability to moderate (or any substantial data to hand over).
  
  Exactly. Telegram has a ton of public channels full of content that is illegal in most EU countries and refuses to comply with any local laws on things like hate speech. They know perfectly well what their platform is used for, they just don't care. It would be a wildly different case if everything were E2E encrypted by default.
  
  Also they use a custom encryption protocol that had bugs that look like a backdoor. https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113020871978942265
  
  Well, the French police seem to be saying the way he is running the company involves being knowingly complicit, not that they just happen to be hosting/facilitating communication without the company's knowledge.
  They could be wrong, but this is part of the process of finding out.
  
  only take halfhearted measures
  Like what exactly?
  
  Moderation that doesn't do anything. Have terms and conditions that aren't enforced. General 'we care' things that aren't actually effective.
  
  How do you moderate something you can't know about?
  
  I assume that proving they can't know about it would be part of the defense if it goes to trial.
  
  That is the point of E2EE. If anyone but the sender and receiver can see the messages then it's not E2EE. This is the part that politicians and governments don't understand (or just ignore). The idea that some designated authority can look at the messages when needed is entirely at odds with E2EE. It's as valid as true = false or 2 + 2 = cat.
  
  Although Telegram does use end-to-end encryption, it isn’t the default option. Many users don’t know this; they automatically assume their conversations are 100% secure.
  On the other hand, the app does nothing to inform them about the “Secret Chat” option. Once a user kick-starts a new chat, Telegram stays silent about options other than the default.
  Look, if this was an app that allowed for E2EE on all communication and did not store any of the communication on some company's servers I would be saying France is completely 100% wrong. France is wrong in saying the encryption is the problem, but they are partially right about Telegram not complying with legal requirements as it does not encrypt all communication and it should be obligated to comply with criminal investigations just like they would be obligated if they were a mail delivery service.
  Just because something is on the internet doesn't mean it isn't subject to warrants. If a company can be compelled to provide written documentation in their possession, the same is true for electronic. That company should not be obligated to undermine their own encryption though.
  
  By this logic, the US Navy should also get into legal trouble for creating the Tor project.
  Selective enforcement of law is a tool of oppression. Happens all the time in oppressive regimes.
  
  “Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army. You know what I mean?”
  -Dimension20

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