Arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, charges of terrorism, fraud, child porn

Recent and related:

Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested at French airport - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41341353 - Aug 2024 (968 comments)

A lot of really terrible takes in this comment section. Telegram didn't have encrypted groups by default, and telegram possessed a lot of content on their servers that they had been made aware was illegal and didn't cooperate. Nothing more, nothing less.

The comparisons to other providers is off base because either other providers are cooperating more when they possess actionable, unencrypted information and taking steps to detect or prevent such recurrences or they are like Signal and do not have access to the underlying material in the first place or store it for very long anyway.

One cannot legally run a hosted, unmoderated content platform in the developed world, one will always be required to remove illegal materials and turn over materials in cooperation with law enforcement.

This seems like the Kim Dotcom situation again.

Why are these service providers being punished for what their users do? Specifically, these service providers? Because Google, Discord, Reddit, etc. all contain some amount of CSAM (and other illegal content), yet I don't see Pichai, Citron, or Huffman getting indicted for anything.

Hell, then there's the actual infrastructure providers too. This seems like a slippery slope with no defined boundaries where the government can just arbitrary use to pin the blame on the people they don't like. Because ultimately, almost every platform with user-provided content will have some quantity of illegal material.

But maybe I'm just being naive?

French lawyer here, it's difficult to know anything as of now given that's all the information is covered by secrecy as long as he's in preliminary custody.

Neither him nor his lawyers have access to the procedure yet.

This will last for 48 hours from his arrest - it can be 96 hours if they decide his suspected crimes are about drugs or prostitution, and even 144 hours if it's about terrorism.

So we'll probably need to wait for a few days before understanding what this is really about.

Telegram is genuinely the best general communication platform I have ever used, by far. I really hope he has a good lawyer and this doesn't end up getting essentially murdered for creating it. When you create something that is objectively great, everyone will use it - including bad actors.

Many defend Telegram by likening it to a neutral platform, akin to TCP, claiming it merely provides a service without responsibility for the content. However, this comparison fails because TCP is a simple protocol with no ability to control or monitor content, whereas Telegram holds keys for most data and is capable of content moderation. Unlike E2EE platforms like Signal, which cannot comply with requests without breaking encryption protocols, and whose jurisdictions often prohibit forced backdoors, Telegram's refusal to cooperate, despite having the ability, shifts it from being unable to act to willfully aiding or sheltering criminal activity.

In this context, Durov's arrest isn't unjust - Telegram knowingly allowed illegal content to thrive while ignoring legal obligations to assist law enforcement. Refusing to provide data when you can, under lawful requests, is tantamount to facilitating or even protecting criminal activity. This dismisses the complexities of cross-jurisdictional law enforcement, but the general concept remains valid.

By the way, I’m not a fan of censorship, but I do believe that a platform’s baseline for moderation should be compliance with the current laws in each jurisdiction, rather than the founder’s personal moral judgment.

Surely we could have gotten a better source for this story than a sketchy crypto news site.

Here is some coverage from some more reputable sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg2kz9kn93o

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/25/telegram-messaging-...

I can only once again quote this section of Telegram's privacy policy verbatim:

> 8.3. Law Enforcement Authorities

> If Telegram receives a court order that confirms you're a terror suspect, we may disclose your IP address and phone number to the relevant authorities. So far, this has never happened. When it does, we will include it in a semiannual transparency report published at: https://t.me/transparency.

(from https://telegram.org/privacy)

And interacting with their "Transparency Report" bot yields this:

> [...] Note: for a court decision to be relevant, it must come from a country with a high enough democracy index to be considered a democracy. Only the IP address and the phone number may be shared.

In other words, they are cherry-picking the jurisdictions they are even choosing to recognize, and within those they are again cherry-picking "terror suspicions" as the only class of law enforcement requests they will honor.

If I were the CEO of a company maintaining such a position, I'd be a bit more careful on where to refuel my jet.

I really hope this doesn't become an "encryption bad" cudgel.

> The main accusation by EU authorities concerns Telegram’s encrypted messaging services, which were allegedly used to facilitate organised crime. One investigator stated that ‘Telegram has become the number one platform for organised crime over the years’, underlining the perceived link between the platform’s privacy features and criminal activities.

It's unclear to me how much this "perceived link" is on behalf of the author of the article, as opposed to the prosecutors themselves.

My opinion would be extremely unpopular, but:

1) The guy was marketing an open-text messenger as an e2ee messenger

2) Because of (1) he was able to moderate it and help law enforcement with locating criminals but he was not cooperating

3) He was extremely cooperative with Russian "law enforcement", as multiple deanonymised activists with leaked chats, contact lists and location history found out

So, a hypocrite got what he deserved.

The overall trend of EU attacks on privacy is very concerning, but Tg is not a private messenger, it just was marketed as one.

> jpost.com

> • 5 hours ago

> Pavel Durov, Telegram founder, arrested by France following warrant - The Jerusalem Post

> The alleged offenses include: terrorism, narcotic supply, fraud, money laundering and receiving stolen goods.

For those unaware, all channel on telegram are NOT ENCRYPTED. They are stored in plaintext on telegram servers. All chats that are not 'secret chat' mode (single device to single device) are NOT ENCRYPTED (stored in plaintext on server).

This is not about encryption, it is about the plaintext data and the organized crime happening in these channels.

Signal group chats ARE ENCRYPTED by default. It is actually not possible to send an unencrypted message on signal. This will not pivot into an E2E issue, and will not affect signal which has set itself up to not store unencrypted content on it's servers.

EDIT: Also possibly this may be a factor in the decision to arrest:

> finance.yahoo.com

> • 2 weeks ago

> Telegram adds new ways for creators to earn money on its platform

> Today's announcement comes as Telegram reached 950 million active users last month, and aims to cross the 1 billion mark this year. Earlier this year, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the company expects to hit profitability next year and is considering going public.

Totally irresponsible to cut off the next part of the headline that makes clear he is accused of not cooperating with the authorities on these things. He’s not accused of doing them himself.

If you’re going to edit the headline you’re taking a responsibility. Words and sentences and paragraphs can’t just be cut in arbitrary places any more than code can.

I find it ironic. As a kid growing up with the start of the internet, many Europeans and Australians implied the US would soon be an authoritarian surveillance state. I even deleted all my comments and accounts because I believed it (as a kid). Now, about 20 years later, I would wager Europe/Australia will reach that point first.

I sometimes wish I could bring a crystal ball back in time and see how people would react to the future... I think they would be horrified at how far we've let corporations and governments into our lives.

If people were using my backyard to sell drugs or CSAM, I knew it, and did nothing about it, I would absolutely be guilty of facilitating these crimes. I fail to see how the situation is different for Pasha.

Whoa, it's absurd if true... I fail to see how being responsible for not cooperating with authorities can be turned into being accused of these crimes. And I don't care for the legal gymnastics which makes this possible - the law exists to serve the public interest and is of no inherent value.

France was the country of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and now you have an autocracy in a semi-democratic vest:

- All protests in support of Palestine banned https://www.politico.eu/article/france-gerald-darmanin-aims-...

- Head coverings banned

- Run a messaging app but the French state finds stuff on it that it disapproves of? You are a Terrorist

It's sad to see this backsliding in Europe.

What is the difference between telegram and cell phone providers other than encryption in relation to these charges?

Some time ago many people in Russia wished that Russia will become a normal European country. I guess the wishes were granted, but not in a way we wanted.

Two days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41328688

Probably an unrelated coincidence.

I'm genuinely curious to what would happen with Signal if the same bad actors moved to their platform. Would France also be arresting its creators for not properly moderating and giving backdoors?

Why did he enter a country with an arrest warrant on his name? I don't understand it

It's interesting that he chose to fly to France knowing fully well that he will be arrested. It is also not surprising, because he has French citizenship and France does not extradite its citizens. Looks like a tactical move on his part when his legal team told him he ran out of options and he much preferred to spend time in a French prison than in a Federal prison in the US.

This is what happens when you refuse to hand over the keys.

A friend was just dragged of the plane and arrested in Paris recently for “money laundering”. It was completely baseless using falsified evidence. They wanted information but didn’t want to obtain a warrant or subpoena to get it. Eventually they let them go. Sad because this person was a total Francophile. Not any more. Sad state of affairs over there really.

It's so beyond my mind that people are finding reasons and excuses for the authority to justify the arrest. Let it be crystal clear that this is purely politics motivated. There's probably 20 other ways to address the concern of the platform. Let me ask you this, will France do the same if it's a US company or the founder is a US citizen?

Telegram has always been just one slip away from this kind of stuffs because it's a centralized service. Depending on how laws are read, it could be seen as complicit in various crimes, and it's politicians who decide how to read those laws, not tech people. It might be the end of those good days where things were so simple and easy.

Meanwhile Jihadists roam the streets stabbing people in the neck let in by Politicians the West needs people because of Demographics etc. Should those Politicians be held responsible for the actions of people they let in? Equal standards should apply should they not?

In the meantime French government is promoting Olvid that claims “Your exchanges leave no digital trace. No one will ever know who you’ve discussed with.” How does it make any sense?

There is so much oddness surrounding this.. First, I don't really see how you can prosecute ideas, because as much as authorities will try and narrowly-define this case as being about moderation (of a platform), and cooperation with authorities, ultimately this is really an attempt to prosecute the idea/concept of publicly available 'e2e' encrypted communications. Second though... How does that list of charges only amount to a maximum of 20 years ? lol

Interview of Durov from Carlson some time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ut6RouSs0w

In the end, it is not the evil ones who arrested him for very evil reasons (Russia, Iran, etc), but the good democratic countries who did so for good inclusive progressive reasons. </sarcasm>

This is bad.. I really hope he prepared everything that Telegram is able to continue without problems.

Is there any information what will happen to the platform yet?

I'm generally very pro EU, but this anti-encryption stuff they try to pull these last couple of years needs to stop. If it's proven that Pavel Durov is facilitating bad actors with purpose, that's a different story, but creating a secure messaging platform by itself should not constitute a crime.

He very likely refused to play ball with NATO, and the software is working as intended, meaning no backdoors.

I think we should have and open and decentralized version of this kind of "criminal" communication system.

We should show them what Streisand effect really means.

A anecdote about Pavel in a HN comment from few weeks ago (not that I have a stance anything in this situation):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41149755

What I genuinely don't understand is that Pavel Durov didn't see it coming.

Why do so many criminals use Telegram over signal, I don’t get it, it’s obviously a worse choice, so much more data is up for grabs on the telegram servers.

Or is it just a reputation and signal is just as popular?

Previous discussion, 900+ comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41341353

Active discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41341353 (964 comments)

Terrorism and child porn? Seems a little on the nose.

I don't know anything about this guy or the basis of these charges but if he is only "guilty" of operating a messaging platform with the option of end-to-end encryption, thus can't let law enforcement tap into private communications when customer's enable that option, how can he be held responsible for the criminal actions of those customers when he isn't even aware of the actions and physically cannot tap into them himself?

This seems like some heavy-handed government coercion.

Feels like PR from his side.

He will be released as part of some trade. Yesterday Moscow arrested someone from the West with 1 kg of heroin will label "for distribution" . That's what drag dillers do lol

Telegram is a darknet, masked as a messenger , no matter what you think about it. The great proper way to solve such problem should be AI, that monitors illegal activity and acts as a legal mediator, if it found something bad, red flag, and in this case, release the conversation to authorities.

Fascism is rising.

I think people are missing the fact that this could be just a power play situation and intel gathering at intelligence services level. We don’t know everything, and the stakes may be high right now, so maybe the French and more broadly the west, are trying to gather info and see what is really going on while trying to get an advantage. So a larger geopolitical power play here and way less about morals, laws, ethics, precedents, comparable other cases etc, etc…

By this logic the hardware manufacturers or even almighty God can be found responsible. God should have stopped them.

I think we need a constitutional right to immoral speech. This madness and the mob that supports it has to stop

European authoritarianism is an embarrassment and a betrayal of their claimed values of freedom and democracy.

EU is becoming more clearily authoritarian with cases we only used to hear about in Russia, China and Iran

OP's article is from a crypto blog and I think it misses the big picture. The Spectator [0] is imho more enlightening:

  There has been speculation that Durov’s arrest is linked to his most recent 
  trip to Baku, Azerbaijan, where he reportedly attempted to meet with Vladimir 
  Putin during a state visit last week. In recent weeks the Kremlin has begun 
  suppressing access to Youtube and WhatsApp in Russia in the wake of Ukraine’s 
  Kursk incursion. There is speculation that Durov may have been attempting to 
  persuade Putin to leave Telegram alone – but the Russian leader refused to meet 
  him. The fact that Durov flew from Baku to Paris in his private plane, knowing 
  that the French had a longstanding warrant out for his arrest, is one of the 
  unanswered mysteries of this story.

So it seems the mystery has a reasonable explanation. There are lots of accidents in Russia, and Pavel probably chose France as the safest option.

There are now also rumors that Russian officials got instruction from above to delete all their communication from the platform.

We will have to wait for more information.

EDIT: I will add that Pavel already lost control over VKontakte in 2014 to the state. By then he had already started Telegram, and so he left Russia back then. (Being denied a meeting with Putin gives Prigozhin saga vibes.) I think he knew the net is closing.

___

0. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-arrest-of-pavel-duro...

I'd gladly donate to his legal campaign, as long as he makes his statements public.

This is how censorship works in developed democracies. Telegram was the last platform where point of views different from sanctioned by the powers that be could be expressed (to a limit--it is still in app store after all). You've done nothing for dissidents until you are charged with CP.

Why not just have Apple & Google remove the app? Problem solved!

Kim Dotcom being extradited and this one now coming out of left field...Shit just got real.

I suspect this is just the beginning. Western governments are losing control of their "narratives" and no one is buying the propaganda. This is deeply unsettling for those in authority, so it is only logical that they would go after social media that they cannot directly coerce/control for their agenda. But not just the companies, their owners in particular.

Also likely this is a message for Elon and others - comply or go to jail.

Its hard to argue this is tinfoil nonsense when Meta has been accused of child exploitation [1] yet Zuckerberg never went to jail - bc he complied. [2]

Its time to get our collective heads out of the sand and acknowledge that governments are NOT democratic anymore - they serve only to preserve themselves, not us!

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/06/facebook-content-enabled-chi...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62688532

I was fully expecting him to be arrested by a third world dictatorship somewhere but, no it's my home country, France. I'm ashamed of my country.

Most of the traffic on Telegram is not even encrypted...

EDIT: Yes, reading more about it, nothing to see here, it's not about encryption...

I was talking with someone VC-ish, about my frustration with all the endpoint hardware and communication software being hopelessly insecure for various real threat models.

But that, even if I somehow managed to pull off a successful superior solution, as a startup or an open source/hardware project, I didn't want to see all the worst criminals flock to my service.

Also, I didn't want to be in an adversarial relationship with my own government at times, nor to secretly compromise the solution.

(Probably the compromise-compromise I'd choose would be proactive: I'd have to backdoor for my government from the start, and publicly disclose that there's a backdoor, so I'm not misrepresenting to my users. Which would mean dramatically less adoption, a lot of privacy&secury people cursing it/me, and eventually the backdoor would also be exploited by parties other than the intended.)

And also, I don't have the stomach for adversaries that would include foreign state dirty-tricks agencies.

Most ostensible security solutions on the market are obviously weak, or just plain BS. The ones that might not be, I don't see how they don't run into the same barriers.

other countries do this and wonder why they aren't centers of technical innovation. why would anyone working on a privacy-centric tool, after seeing this, base themselves in .fr?

So let's say I open up a night club. I have to abide the laws and regulations, and make sure things like the following: Minors aren't getting in or being served alcohol, that people aren't selling drugs there, that prostitutes aren't doing business there.

If undercover agents come by, and discover that minors are purchasing alcohol - the business will get fined, and likely banned from selling alcohol for some time.

If I, the owner, continue to ignore authorities and flat out refuse to cooperate, and there are new busts - I would expect to face charges. The joint would likely get shut down, and I could be liable. If things are severe enough, I'll likely be investigated for running a criminal enterprise there.

Obviously there are differences in how things are regulated in the different countries - but in countries where the CEO assumes total responsibility, and the buck stops there - it would make sense that the CEO will get charged with those sort of things, if the company has not done enough to cooperate or moderate their product and users.

The link is blocked in India....is it? Tata Play is the ISP

Is "decripto.org" really a reliable source?

So money laundering, drugs, terrorism and child porn plus some others for good measure. Were they deliberately trying to invoke all four horsemen of the infocalypse, or is that a side effect?

Had they sticked with just one I may have been less likely to view it this as an authoritarian attack on privacy and freedom of speech.

Bet he wishes he added those back doors now.

Telegram is being partially punished for allowing non main stream media flourish: German #RKIfiles today proof that vaccination pressure and lock downs where politically motivated, but criticized by RKI’s scientific personal. I learned this already 4 years ago, from Telegram channels where scientists and journalists where not censored! Now Durov has to pay that bill. But maybe Durov should have also cooperated with crime investigations! But we all know that this power to read chats would have been abused by governments! What’s poor Durov going to do???

The reason he was arrested was because he created privacy for non-US citizens. Certain Intelligence Agencies won't allow that lol

Bullish situation, Durov is being targeted mainly because it's not explicitly and collaboratively affiliated with the NATO block.

Terrorism, fraud and child porn are as present on Whatsapp, Facebook and other platforms, Facebook even instrumental in the Myanmar genocide (2017) and yet I haven't seen Zuck ever being detained anywhere at any time.

As a Telegram user, however, Telegram is just great as a chat app. It's lightyears ahead of everything else.

“ French authorities believe that Telegram, under Durov’s leadership, became a major platform for organised crime due to its encrypted messaging services, which allegedly facilitated illegal activities. ” One could replace Telegram with any other products and find abuse by users of the products to concoct a reason to arrest anyone. This is what an authoritarian regime would do. It’s shocking to see it becomes part of the playbook of the French government.

France is arresting people for providing end-to-end encrypted communications?

What could possibly go wrong!

This could easily pivot into “all e2e not officially sanctioned is bad because think of the children”if those public channel users use e2e to get the nasty bits done and it’s provable. They (5 eyes countries) really want this to happen, even above all the stuff they already tap into legally at switching centers, network nodes, and social media companies.

So he left Russia over political interference on his companies, but then he is arrested in France and the Russian state intervenes in his favour? What gives, does he want government interference or not?

Just another guy to be traded to Russia in the next prisoner swap.

It's interesting to me how the bots are working overtime downvoting comments and plastering the same lawfare justification against the CEO of Telegram to anyone who disagrees with this arrest.

What ever the laws of an increasingly authoritarian France; Isn't it fascinating to note that Dictatorships like China and Iran and Saudi Arabia at least are content with jailing their citizens that post "illegal" things while putting up a firewall?

Yes, he was a French citizen. So what. Even if French law demands of a digital public square provider to moerate a billion people at the behest of its governmental censors, we shouldn't support France in its decision to arrest its citizen for providing us with a platform that protects privacy and free speech.

We should protest and fight or him.

I hope I’m wrong, as I didn’t even know who Pavel Durov was until now, but the first thought that came to mind was that it’s a show of power to intimidate Elon Musk.

Really embarrassing being European nowadays.

Country Blocked

India

assagne me twice, shame on me,assange me thrice, propably a monday

Awesome. Now do Musk and Zuck.

good on France.

more billionaire CEOs should be arrested.

Boy is the comment section ever glowing.

By all accounts, this looks to me like it's nothing else but a politically motivated decision - and it gives ever more credence to my take that there is no freedom of speech in Europe

As a side note, this is somewhat reminiscent of how the Catholic Church operated at the height of its power - do what we say or burn at the stake. We should then not be surprised that no longer does technological innovation happen in Europe - at least one that's actually important or has the potential to be

Law enforcement is so ill equipped in this digital age. It’s embarrassing. Instead of evolving, they are punishing the people creating services that benefit everybody.

Reminds me of the Tornado Cash service. Used by normal citizens to anonymize transactions on the blockchain; and used by a smaller percentage of criminals. Law enforcement is inept in this digital age. So instead of catching the actual criminals they pursue the people making the service.

It’s all for nothing of course. People were apparently brought up on charges. None of them actual criminals as I recall. Just got thrown the book at them. US government even issued “sanctions”, but they were useless.