He is being charged with W R O N G T H I N K.
Hell yeah. I always hated Telegram, because of its countless false promises, misleading claims, bad encryption (which isn’t even enabled by default) and shady background.
That bad encryption was not cracked for now. The other one, that is used to process chats between 2 users in end to end mode, can’t be enabled by default because it assumes no history is kept and no support for group chats.
Also, the arrest doesn’t seem to be related to any of the things you mentioned. If anything it shows there are no ways for (certain) governments to affect the messenger, for now.
That bad encryption was not cracked for now.
There’s no need if you control the server.
End to end encryption was created specifically so that the server could not access the data.
That bad encryption was not cracked for now
There is no encryption by default if you haven’t noticed. There only the pseudo-E2EE which has been proven to have critical weaknesses: https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1177.pdf
can’t be enabled by default
Yes it can, every proper E2EE messenger works like that. Signal, Threema, hell even WhatsApp uses E2EE by default.
no support for group chats
Signal has had group chats for many years now. WhatsApp uses the same encryption protocol and it also works just fine. Stop spreading misinformation, and use Signal if you want an actual secure, end-to-end encrypted, open and transparent messenger.
has been proven to have critical weaknesses
Those are not critical, just some aspects being below some arbitrary expectational values. Also it seems there is still no proofs those vector attacks are being used at all.
Yes it can
They chose to target convenience over max security. Shoving strongest options to every user by default is agaiantt that. Reasons include: no history is being saved in this mode, and the desktop client doesn’t support it.
Signal has had group chats for many years now
Just because it was implemented by others doesn’t mean it’s a way to go for everyone. From what I understand, e2e in group chats means that there is going to be a transaction of keys between all members of the chat on adding any new member, and/or on new message, which excessively increases the burden on clients and servers in case of big active chats.
You can ask telegram to implement that, but you can’t blame it for keeping it behind some gates. Telegram got implemented e2e between 2 users before other messengers got it working in any form of group chats.
and use Signal
I’ll think about it if they ditch electron.
2015: A Russian performance artist, Pyotr Pavlensky – notable for some high-profile actions, like nailing his scrotum to Red Square with a nailgun – is arrested after he sets fire to the door to the headquarters of the FSB.
France extends him political asylum.
2017: Pavlensky is arrested after he sets fire to the door to the Bank of France.
There’s a certain degree of symmetry with Pavel Durov.
TF1 and BFM both said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on Telegram
I would vaguely imagine that they aren’t going to be very happy about the Threadiverse when they discover us. There’s no global moderator team to make moderate things.
At some point the Fediverse is going to have to protect itself from Europe.
There’s moderation per community and per server. There’s no “fediverse moderator”, of course, but I think you’re vaguely worrying for nothing.
Telegram isn’t either. Certainly not by default, and definitely not public channels.
It certainly is against the GDPR to federate with US instances. US law enforcement could get their hands on our data!
It certainly is against the GDPR to federate with US instances.
considers
I don’t think that it is, even for EU instances, in that the GDPR regulates businesses, so it’s out-of-scope for the GDPR.
In theory, I suppose that GDPR implications might come up if someone starts selling commercial Threadiverse access at some point, though.
There might be some interesting questions providing Usenet or maybe XMPP, though, as there are commercial providers of those services, and they are federated and transfer data all over the world.
kagis
Hmm. This has some people talking about it for XMPP. At least this guy’s first pass is that it might apply:
https://mail.jabber.org/hyperkitty/list/operators@xmpp.org/thread/F5EGKYVPD42PPHOW72VBOS5E6OZTA22M/
Under UK GDPR (not sure about the EU one) the only grounds for exemption is “Residential use” (other than police and national security, which are also exempt), quoting from the ICO:
“Domestic purposes – personal data processed in the course of a purely personal or household activity, with no connection to a professional or commercial activity, is outside the UK GDPR’s scope. This means that if you only use personal data for such things as writing to friends and family or taking pictures for your own enjoyment, you are not subject to the UK GDPR.” [1]
(For those who don’t know who the ICO is, they are the British data protection authority, see [2])
At first, at least in my case, this seems pretty easy. The data is stored domestically, it is used with me and my friends for communication, there shouldn’t be any more to it… right?
But there is. I regularly connect and talk in many MUCs for open source projects, such as Ignite Realtime (which this was initially discussed until Guus suggested moving it to operators, thanks Guus :) ).
IP addresses, are considered identifiable information, logs will store said information, this therefore means my server is storing identifiable information on other servers, in this case, servers which could be considered for commercial purposes.
It needs to be noticed commercial purposes doesn’t necessarily mean paid services, charities and non-profits are included within the definition. Open source projects COULD be considered commercial purposes because, although contributions are provided free of charge, it is still a “donation” of sorts in the way of code.
The definition of “professional” does not seem to be clarified anywhere on the ICO page, nor in their legal definitions [3]. It doesn’t seem to be within the UK GDPR legislation [4] (I will admit I did not read all of this, I tried searching for keywords and found nothing, if someone read it all and knows where this exception is clarified, please let me know). Professional could mean a lot, but I will assume it is to do with some sort of “work”, which therefore would include open source contributions.
This therefore could break the “no connection to professional or commercial activity”, to be honest the easiest thing to draw from this is if it involves someone who is not family or friend (or yourself), you are very likely to not be exempt.
For those who will suggest a zero storage solution, where the XMPP server doesn’t store any data, it still comes under GDPR due to PROCESSING of data, simply processing it, even if you don’t store it, will have GDPR requirements.
Failure to pay when you are required to results in fines.
This is really cracking open a huge can of worms, it isn’t so much of “ah £45/yr is no big deal”, once you are exempt you must follow all the legal requirements of GDPR, and for a hobby? Is it worth it?
I am 100% sure, an XMPP server which does not federate, which is used to communicate with friends would be exempt. But I have my doubts whether a federated server can still use the same exemption clause.
the GDPR regulates businesses,
The GDPR regulates everything and everyone, including individuals and non-profits. See Article 2. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679
For example: If you keep a personal journal and write about your friends and acquaintances, that’s out of scope. [ETA: As long as the journal is private. When it’s shared outside the household, it is in scope and probably a violation.] But when the Jehovah’s Witnesses go door to door and make notes who opens etc, that’s in scope. [ETA: And has been ruled a violation by the ECJ.]
I’m not joking. It’s legally very questionable. It matters little if all the data is public.
Have you heard about that $1.3 billion fine that Meta got under the GDPR? That was for sending data to US servers where the US government can get to it. It was the highest fine ever under the GDPR and it happened because Meta complies with US law. For that matter, the option to embed images into posts is a violation, as well.
Unless you dox yourself what kind of personal information are instances sharing? On top of that stuff that isn’t due to the normal functioning of the site as a public message board?
What’s questionable is embedding images, lemm.ee mitigates that with proxying, but ultimately the web is the web and you can’t proxy the whole web. Clicking a link will still lead you somewhere else and if your browser pre-loads links then that’s up to you.
I’ll quote the definition from the GDPR:
‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;
Little of the information that instance share is not personal. Identifiable is also very broad. It’s enough that it would be possible for someone with the right tools and access to other information to identify you. EG Your ISP could be subpoenaed to reveal the customer behind a dynamic IP-address, making it a personal datum.
It’s an extremely broad definition. If it wasn’t, tracking cookies would not be a big deal unless you had the real name of someone connected to the cookie ID.
ultimately the web is the web and you can’t proxy the whole web. Clicking a link will still lead you somewhere else and if your browser pre-loads links then that’s up to you.
That’s exactly what my first reaction was. But the law sees it differently. No one is required to use an ad-blocker, VPN, or know anything about the internet. When you make a website or something, it is up to you to make sure that no one’s rights are violated. In fairness, if it was otherwise, tracking pixels would be fine.
We’re not at a point yet, where outgoing links must come with a warning, but it would be safer. Someone is always the first to lose a court over something. I noticed news media use rel=noreferrer. I think that’s the least one needs to do (“data minimization”).
Don’t expect me to defend the GDPR. It’s neoliberal/conservative bullshit; even an abandonment of enlightenment values. But it’s the law nevertheless and a lot of people on Lemmy positively love it.
Unless you dox yourself what kind of personal information are instances sharing?
Don’t IP addresses get associated with posts?
