(Cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26559848/)
Some significant news for Telegram users!
See this article for some interesting backstory context on Pavel Durov and Telegram: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-telegram-billionaire-and-his-dark-empire-a-f27cb79f-86ae-48de-bdbd-8df604d07cc8
Since the post article is in French, here’s an auto-translation:
Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the encrypted messaging service Telegram, was arrested around 8 p.m. on Saturday evening as he got off his private jet on the tarmac of Le Bourget airport. The 39-year-old Franco-Russian was accompanied by his bodyguard and a woman.
The arrest was carried out by the gendarmes of the GTA (Air Transport Gendarmerie). Registered in the RPF (wanted persons file), Pavel Durov came straight from Azerbaijan. He had over his head a French search warrant issued by the OFMIN of the National Directorate of the French Judicial Police, issued on the basis of a preliminary investigation.
Why was he under threat of a search warrant?
The Justice considers that the lack of moderation, cooperation with the police and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) makes it complicit in drug trafficking, paedophile offences and fraud.
This search warrant ran if, and only if, Pavel Durov was on national territory. “He made a mistake tonight. We don’t know why… Was this flight just a step? In any case, he’s locked up!” a source close to the investigation told TF1/LCI. Since he knew he was persona non grata in France, Pavel Durov used to travel to the Emirates, the countries of the former USSR, South America… He travelled very little in Europe and avoided countries where Telegram is under surveillance.
And now?
Investigators from the ONAF (National Anti-Fraud Office attached to the Customs Directorate) notified him and placed him in police custody. He is expected to be presented to an investigating judge this Saturday evening before a possible indictment on Sunday for a multitude of offences: terrorism, drugs, complicity, fraud, money laundering, concealment, paedophile content…
“Pavel Durov will end up in pre-trial detention, that’s for sure,” comments an investigator to TF1/LCI. “On his platform, he allowed an incalculable number of misdemeanours and crimes to be committed for which he does nothing to moderate or cooperate,” said a source close to the case.
His pre-trial detention at the end of his indictment is indeed in no doubt. Pavel Durov, a billionaire, has substantial means to flee and his guarantees of representation will hardly convince the judges.
A net with international resonance
For the investigators, this international sweep has various objectives. First, it makes it possible to kick the anthill, impress and deter the perpetrators of crimes and offences who exchange, until now, freely on Telegram. Secondly, they aim to put pressure on European countries to step up joint work to make secure messaging on terrorist cases bend.
Indeed, Telegram is a hive of criminal content. At the moment, the platform is in the news with the illegal broadcasting of Ligue 1 matches. But on this encrypted messaging service, many accounts are used by organized crime. Beyond terrorism, the most dangerous pedophiles communicate on Telegram to exchange content. “It has become for years THE number 1 platform for organized crime,” comments an investigator.
I don’t care much for the guy, but the fact he gets arrested for the service is a bad sign for private messaging in Europe.
To add to that. Russian government was demanding to be able to access messages or will ban Telegram in the country.
Did not hear anything beyond that, but Telegram continues to operate there.
Durov was travelling to France from Azerbaijan, where he had been meeting with Putin. There’s a theory that he basically surrendered to the French authorities so as to avoid retaliation for saying no to Putin too many times.
There wasn’t any legal ban. RosCommNadzor slowed down TG like they recently did with YT (it can barely load a music track without VPN) without any court decision because they can, it went for a week or so, and then it was lifted. Nobody knows why, but there is a suspicion that TG started to cooperate with russian authorities, in a non-automatical manual manner. Some suspect it was a PR campaign to make it as popular as it is now.
It didn’t leak stuff as far as I know, that’s done by bots like Глаз Бога that accunulate all info on a person and frequently used in OSINT and deanon\bullying, but blocking popular bots and channels that are too annoying to Russia is what they do. From the top of my head: CleverVoting (Умное Голосование, УГ) channels from Navalny’s team*, channels for cooperation of protest of soldiers’ wives, separatist channels from Bashkortostan and other places. I’ve seen iranians also posted that they had their protest channels banned - and Iran and Russia banned free and popular VPNs at the same time, spoiling their cooperation.
* Durov’s public comment on that gave birth to a meme. He implied that there are just two ways: either banning it from TG or having TG banned on the whole territory of Russian Federation. As a copypasta it was transformed millions of times, and if it hasn’t lost it relevance, we could’ve probably seen a boykisser version of it.
Russia banned Telegram, everyone (incl. the government) continued to use it, Russia unbanned Telegram - that’s how it looks from here. A government official told me Telegram being unbanned was just a matter of time when it was still banned.
Yes, they do, but it’s very inconvenient. You can’t access such chats on desktop, no cloud syncing…
They use a custom encryption protocol and there’s been bugs that look like a backdoor.
I think you and most people in this thread have been mislead by the article because of the closing remark.
Beyond terrorism, the most dangerous pedophiles communicate on Telegram to exchange content.
But it isn’t the private stuff he is being prosecuted for though AFAIK (although it might have been reported by “traitors” within those chats).
Unlike Signal, there are public chat groups and channels and I presume these are the ones which got him into trouble for propagating illegal activity.
From another article…
terrorism, narcotic supply, fraud, money laundering, receiving stolen goods and others… he allowed an incalculable number of offenses and crimes to be committed, which he did nothing to moderate
The platform has faced issues of misinformation and hate speech, especially antisemitic speech following October 7, 2023.
So platforms are now liable for everything people post? This seems like a free pass to censorship and authoritarian control.
What do you mean ‘now’? Even 4chan had to remove illegal things, this isn’t new.
If you don’t care for the guy, you will nearly certainly lose privat messaging in Europe. Maybe, it’s even too late by now.
No. Pavel Durov is a nut and he is not out there saving private communication. Signal is offering the most accessible e2ee messenger right now. Telegram has questionable security on their optional e2ee chats which is also not the default.
But the people trying to save e2ee in europe are activists and politicians. Patrick Breyer has done excellent reporting on the chat control plans of the EU.
Durov is just some dude peddling his mid messenger
Wasn’t Signal revealed to have NSA backdoor or I am confusing it with something else?
Signal is offering the most accessible e2ee messenger right now.
Doesn’t matter. In the reach of EU, some law about Chat Control. If they make this into law, no provider within the EU will have a choice in this matter.
Telegram is good for citizen journalism (like what’s going on on the ground in Gaza and Ukraine), funny videos and memes, tech support, and casual conversation. Never privacy though.
The fact that governments want to shut down Telegram and arrest its founder shows that Telegram is pretty good for privacy.
Why not both? Telegram is bad for privacy, and governments still want to arrest the founders of systems they cannot control?
What should be alarming is what thus means for other services. Can you get arrested for running a Matrix server in France? It seems like this is very slippery
I personally don’t like Telegram as it is centralized, not private and is to close to the Russian government. However, it should be allowed to exist.
If you own a house, can see crime is being committed there and take no action to stop it you are a criminal and should be arrested. If you own a farm, can see crime is being committed there and take no action to stop it you are a criminal and should be arrested. If you own a school, can see crime is being committed there and take no action to stop it you are a criminal and should be arrested. If you own an office building, can see crime is being committed there and take no action to stop it you are a criminal and should be arrested. If you own an internet service provider (ISP), can see see crime is being committed there and take no action to stop it you are a criminal and should be arrested. If you own any land, can see crime is being committed there and take no action to stop it you are a criminal and should be arrested. If you own a public forum, can see crime is being committed there and take no action to stop it you are a criminal and should be arrested. If you own a public messenger (because Telegram is very much not private or encrypted) can see crime is being committed there and take no action to stop it you are a criminal and should be arrested.
I don’t see this as a slippery slope.
Why not? Unlike whatsapp and signal, telegram private chats are not synchronized. So if you lost your phone and started a new one, the chats will not magically recover as in whatsapp. Because recover is unsecure. So the telegram is quite private.
or do you mean that encryption is not enabled by default in every chat? This is not an indicator of the messenger’s privacy.
Although Tox takes them all by the head, of course.
Russia banned Signal, but not Telegram, to make sure their citizens couldn’t plan any subversive activities against the state.
That’s all we needed to know for sure.
On the other hand, Durov was arrested in Europe, but the developers of the signal somehow does not.
Well, for some unknown reason, drug dealers still choose telegram. And they don’t just have an unfounded choice, but the profit depends on the messenger. Or say you that Durov was arrested for no reason?
P.S. in Russia now testing system for ban all messengers don’t hosted in Russia. They next after youtube. Telegram too. Information from first hands. =)
Unlike whatsapp and signal, telegram private chats are not synchronized. So if you lost your phone and started a new one, the chats will not magically recover as in whatsapp.
That’s not true. Signal stores all messages on device.
or do you mean that encryption is not enabled by default in every chat? This is not an indicator of the messenger’s privacy.
Encryption on Telegram only works in 1 on 1 chats and is turned off by default meaning no one use it.
That’s not true. Signal stores all messages on device.
Ok. Signal win one point.
Encryption on Telegram only works in 1 on 1 chats and is turned off by default meaning no one use it.
so, I use the telegram crypto chat to get a credit card pin from my bank. do you want to do this with signal? =)
in 1 on 1
and in turn, this means that the FSB log collector is not connected in the third place. =)
P.S. Do you understand the absurdity of the situation? telegram is not safe enough, but for some reason it is preferred by drug dealers. The lives of these people literally depend on the messenger. and the European Union was so unable to cope with this that it arrested the developer for complicity.
Chats are only synchronized in Signal on actively linked devices. If you link a new device, your chat history will be completely blank at first.
and this does not prevent you from connecting the FBI log collector in the background. He will always be active.
I live in a country where, when crossing the border, they can request a phone for check chats, so I can roughly imagine how it works. Government has a much higher level of access. if the account is restored via SMS, this means that any FSB employee can connect your account to himself. if the conversation is not one-on-one, it means that the FSB log collector is somewhere in third place. This is the reality. I don’t understand why you think that your government collect data somehow another. may be from really bad people’s, but with same methods.
P.S. on telegram you have only one-by-one crypto chats. Protocol can’t connect anyone else.
This is a global push to destroy systems the government’s can’t control. He fact he was arrested says everything.
He was not arrested for privacy, there are huge open groups on Telegram for piracy, csam and cyber criminals.
These groups are not encrypted, everything is stored in plain text on their servers. He is being arrested for not removing/moderating this content.
Well, he caused this himself in the end, he failed to deliver on the part of secure and private messaging because default chats are insecure and secret chats are a buggy joke. If he delivered in the promise of providing a real secure and private messenger and did real effort to fight against spam, then things mind have turned out differently. Decentralization should also have been part of it.
In the end, he chose for fancy features instead.
How so? Telegram isn’t a great choice if you’re looking for privacy: E2EE is disabled in 1-on-1 chats by default in Telegram, so it’s technically possible for Telegram employees to read majority of messages sent on their platform. Group chats and channels have no E2EE at all.
Just ask chatgpt, it’s really easy to understand actually
https://chatgpt.com/share/2ea4cddf-d28b-41af-b221-0a6bb5637247
Picture this moment, but in 1994 wherein Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn are taken into custody for developing TCP/IP, a protocol that inadvertently enabled drug dealers to communicate.
He is not arrested for having developed the Telegram protocol and apps, but for failing to moderate his platform, where he could totally do so as the messages are not encrypted (except for secret chats which doesn’t even support groups) on his servers, which he has control over.
You know you are an authoritarian country when you arrest CEOs of messaging apps.
But’s not just a messaging app. Telegram is a public forum (non-private and unencrypted btw) where they know crimes are being committed and are taking no action to mitigate them.
If you let people commit crimes in your house you are a criminal. If you own a mall and let people commit crimes in it, you are a criminal. If you own a boat and let people commit crimes in it you are a criminal. Same concept here. Pavel Durov created a public forum and not only allows crime to happen, but lies to people telling them its secure and private.
If I were a tinfoil wearing kind of person, I’d think Pavel was in on the whole thing and helping some 3-letter agency because Telegram has been a “privacy” scam from the beginning and it seems criminals are too dumb to realize they fell for playbook similar to Anom, just on a bigger scale.
Does that mean if you provide an E2EE service, you are a criminal too, because you let people to commit crimes on your platform, you’re just unable to see them? It’s like having a mall with no surveillance or security.
Does that mean if you provide an E2EE service, you are a criminal too …
Nope! Not if you believe privacy is a human right.
It’s like having a mall with no surveillance or security.
It’s more like renting an apartment or office space and not being liable for crimes that you cannot see. Malls are generally viewed as a public space (think unencrypted chat rooms). If you own a Mall and have no surveillance and security and continue to allow crime to happen after you’ve been asked to remediate the issue, you are aiding criminals, much like Pavel and Telegram if you consider that Telegram is not encrypted and they have the ability to view everything going on in their platform.
Apartments and business offices are more like “encrypted” chat rooms. You can’t be held liable if you’re unable to see crimes being committed.
