Telegram CEO Pavel Durov just got arrested in France

This will be an interesting case to watch -- I don't believe there are any western nations that want non-locally-backdoored messaging of any sort -- but generally my understanding is that harassment on border entry has been the order of the day, rather than arrests.

Very interesting to see where it will all go.

I don’t understand how they’re going to convince French judges that he’s guilty for not being able to decrypt chats that he has no keys for…

> I wonder what caught up with him first: the undisturbed sale of hard drugs vIa telegram, or the undisturbed recruitment of freelancers for GRU's terrorist attacks across Europe.

Seems there could be some truth to the accusations.

https://x.com/SamidounPP/status/1827062901364208099

So not sure what's the non-cooperating about banning "terrorist" content is about, since various info channels definitely were getting blocked on telegram in EU over the last year.

I can't for the life of me as an EU "citizen" even figure out who asks for these bans on behalf of the EU. Kinda doubt it's someone in my country, because it's reported as EU wide ban in this case. Maybe it's done by some overbearing country on this particular topic, like Germany, and Telegram just blocked it EU wide, for some reason.

My pet tinfoil-hat theory is that he decided that staying in a French prison is safer for him than being out in the open and get some polonium, or whatnot.

In addition to drug trafficking, he is accused of collaborating with an organized crime group, covering up for pedophiles, fraud and money laundering.

I don't know how reliable this is, but I've seen in 3-4 sources that he's arrested for terrorism, child abuse, drug trafficking (not providing data to prosecutors).

I always found that guy's story of living 'in exile' from Russia a bit suspect. And now Russian government officials are calling for his release.

Need more information to make any kind of judgement. What I'm pretty sure of now is that this probably has nothing to do with encryption.

Why would anyone want to innovate and develop privacy technologies if this is what happens? So, your best bet is to work with government agencies if you want to work on this tech? What if the government isn’t one you agree with? No one has good answers for these, but criminals aren’t the only ones who need to use privacy-preserving tech.

> Telegram offers end-to-end encrypted messaging […]

Yes, just like McDonalds offers salads and other healthy food options.

Telegram has also tried to distance itself from TON crypto token, but it is so obvious how it still serves the original Durov's vision and controlled by a team of founders (aka initial token holders), now proofing their stakes for a supposedly decentralized blockchain to operate.

It's not a wise idea to run "uncensored" messenger where a lot of shit happens and also offer it's users built-in non-government-surveilled payment methods.

Even ProtonMail which wrongly claims to be a privacy safe heaven does so!

The lack of E2EE is actually what has got Telegram in trouble.

The same stuff that happens on Telegram also happens on WhatsApp and Signal - but because it's E2EE, it's harder for the police to find it, and when they do find it, WhatsApp and Signal have no way to comply - they can't see the chats! That said, they will provide details to LE that they do have access to (e.g. metadata) - of which WhatsApp holds a lot more.

In Telegrams case with public groups sharing illegal content out in the open - this is viewable to LE and they request logs from Telegram for their investigations. This stuff is publicly viewable on and to Telegram. Telegram can remove it. Telegram can provide chat logs to LE - but they refuse to. This is why they're in trouble.

Moral of the story - if you want to start an internet service - you either go E2EE no knowledge, or you moderate your shit and cooperate with LE, you can't avoid doing the latter unless you're doing the former.

- https://www.senat.fr/leg/tas22-148.pdf page 43 bottom, or searching "réquisition de toute personne"

- https://www.senat.fr/leg/pjl22-569.pdf with a good intervention from an LFI MEP, Ugo Bernalicis who is DEFINITIVELY worth to hear https://youtu.be/PDG9V01jPUs

Just to cite the relatively recent more stunning move. But there was many in the less recent past (starting from police surveillance, impunity and so on) not counting the current delay to DENIED the last legislative elections results...

Looks like a better alternative to all that centralized drek.

[1] https://turan.az/en/politics/putin-refused-to-meet-with-pave...

> Why was he under threat of a search warrant? > The justice department considers that the lack of moderation, lack of cooperation with law enforcement, and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) make him an accomplice to drug trafficking, pedo-criminal offenses and fraud.

In contrast, Signal does not have access to any chats or user information (except the timestamp of when users last logged in) and could not be forced to wiretap.

seems like the prosecutorial, sacrificial lambs in internet platform space are those who are big enough to afford private jets but not too big to become faceless. hope he has a decent judicial insurance in place.

However... the same governments, and here I'm talking primarily about the one I know the Netherlands, has absolutely ZERO accountability against severe human rights abuses. You will get absolutely nowhere trying to hold government abuse accountable.

In the Netherlands, it took around 25,000 victims before any kind of traction was gained and primarily due to one politician, Peter Omzigt. And others turned against him.

Even now, you have princess Laurentien coming under heavy fire for trying to help the victims of the government abuse here.

So infite powers and less than zero accountability? No thanks. It's actually less than ZERO accountability because attempting to hold someone accountable will bring you under attack.

https://element.io/case-studies/tchap

It’s really chilling to see the steps EU gobs are taking against free speech. In some ways they seem more authoritarian than even China and Russia. It’s like “free world” is becoming a farce.

FWIW I really like Telegram, I hope it will get cleared up soon.

You can have end to end encryption without a phone number. To require it means you're opening up possibilities of State and location tracking.

What about Messenger and Whatsapp, also end-to-end encrypted?

Will they be arrested?

Is this the end of end-to-end encryption chats?

I just can't make sense of these serial entrepreneurs otherwise. Thousands of similar apps were launched which were the same or better than those ones. Why were these ones allowed to gain traction? Why these people were chosen?

Whenever I've met people who've had success in tech, it was clear that there were some weird dynamics behind the scenes which made them act in ways which were highly counter-intuitive and often involved sabotaging their own projects in some ways.

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-to-staff-switc...

>The European Commission has told its staff to start using Signal, an end-to-end-encrypted messaging app, in a push to increase the security of its communications.

> Of course he is complicit. I imagine most people in tech would argue the good outweighs the bad, but to provide E2EE without any backdoor is to turn a blind eye to the horrendous things for which some people will use it.

> There has been a constant in the tech community, since forever, of stupid idealism. For example, I remember the apoplexy when Napster had to stop facilitating mass piracy. Yeah, what a head-scratcher that was. And now the tech community has convinced itself that E2EE without a backdoor is some viable. Your neighbors won't consider the overall harms worth the benefits, and neither will their governments.

PGP is more than 30 years old. What do you mean by "now the tech community has convinced itself that E2EE without a backdoor is some viable"? What is "now"?

Throwing these people to jail horner, preventing them from wine and dine in destinations they actually want to go to, that puts a price they have to pay personally.

We need to do more of that.

He'll make a deal.

Why do you want your country to control what you can see, read or say? Why do you want your country to have access to your private thoughts and opinions? Stop being a coward and fight this fascist overreach. And spite yourself if you support it.

„Putin and Telegram Founder Durov in Baku at the Same Time“

https://x.com/JAMnewsCaucasus/status/1825889800634733025

However, Telegram might be involved in cooperating with criminals; for example by not deleting channels related to protests against government at govt's request, by not blocking channels of allegedly spreading misinformation Western media like BBC. This is indeed illegal in Russia.

A channel was created on Telegram by a government propaganda journalist, where they basically dox every activist, posting their addresses, phone numbers, and other private details, at times when these details are actively used for beating people to near death. That's the only content that Telegram channel produces.

I was one of the people whose details were posted on that channel. My phone number, home address, etc., were posted there, along with the private details of tens of others. I contacted Telegram support multiple times, we mass reported the channel - not once have I gotten an answer, and the entire channel is still up, for nearly 4 months.

So, hearing that he's arrested for lack of moderation? Good. I'm very happy. Hope he learns a lesson.

EDIT: Country is Georgia

Pavel Durov tries to play the “victim” to create a legitimate image for himself and Telegram.

There is no info about why exactly he was arrested but it looks like that French police had a warrant for him.

But it looks like it is because that he is accused of being an accessory of a lot of things like traffic, drugs, pedopornography, anything bad you can image because he would not have done anything to combat that on Telegram.

If it is real, it would really be the same kind of political crime abuse on an individual of the same level as what happened to Julian Assange.

I can easily guess that assholes in secret service would probably like very much to use that to blackmail him to add backdoors to telegram. So sad.

And instead they arrest the CEO of a company that provides a mechanism for people to talk to one another.

>we've got to save democracy by restricting free speech and enforcing laws and regulations created by unelected officials

His Telegram channel is somewhat odd. It's a mix of what you'd expect (updates / general stuff about Telegram), some slightly weird stuff (highly praising countries he visited or talking about his oh-so-high-quality sperm and how he's the biological father of "over 100" kids), and then there's just shilling for some random watch-ads-to-get-coins things or whatever that totally aren't scams built on Telegram's new mini-app thing and TON (which is Telegram's cryptocurrency that they can't legally sell as theirs). You can take a look for yourself here: https://t.me/s/durov

Hope he rots in jail