To make things even stranger, Durov was apparently invited to lunch by Macron. Instead of a presidential welcome, he was arrested on arrival.

Source: https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1828529272539304278

> It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not communicating user information to the french intelligence services.

If you ignore the missing human rights activists were using telegram and then suddenly disappeared.

as pointed out before, telegram is utterly compromised security wise. Its really advantageous that "naughty people" are documenting their stuff there as it leaves a loverly indelible trail of actions.

Well you are looking at crimes by former intelligence officers here, also you'll find two complete rookies, had just got in and clearly they were in some weird gung-ho state. If you look for those stories you'll be finding plenty of ex cops, even SO team members, having gone for illicit easy money one way or another thanks to the potent mix of impunity and stupidity...

Russia has been HEAVILY relying on telegram for military operations.

It would be a huge stretch of imagination to say Telegram is savings lives.

> - There is the murder of racing driver "Laurent Pasquali" who is presumed to have been killed by a french intelligence officer. The plot involved over 20 people with several of them being french intelligence officers. In fact they got his personal information and address to plan the murder plot through the french intelligence database.

The guy who is presumed to be the murderer is an ex-intelligence officer, not currently employed by the intelligence services.

> It is even possible that Durov has saved lives by not communicating user information to the french intelligence services.

And exactly how many did he condemned by letting criminal network run wild on his platform, with little to no moderation, and no collaboration with police forces ?

> Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content. Telegram, on the other hand, has decryption keys for the messages and media sent in group chats, meaning they can identify and remove illegal content if they choose to.

I feel like I must emphasize this because it's repeatedly missed. Telegram has mainly 3 different components. The first is a server-side encrypted messaging platform, which is unremarkable, and as-secure as Discord or Slack. The second is its "E2EE" system, secret chats, which don't sync, and have not been broken (though people have raised some concerns historically about it). The third system is channels, which are basically subscription feeds from users. Channels are as secure as Slack or Discord or Twitter or Facebook. The whole point of Channels is that you can subscribe to channels and get messages in Telegram from them, but they're basically open access. A good example is Durov's channel: https://t.me/s/durov

Now I say all of this because the vast majority of people believe that E2EE would solve the problem here. The reality is that channels doesn't make sense to be E2EE since anyone can join, and channels are where are a large amount of the "interesting" content to law enforcement occurs. Abuse definitely occurs to some degree on all 3 components, but channels simply don't exist in Signal, as an example.

> Platforms like Signal can get away with this because they are properly E2E encrypted, and cannot identify illegal content.

Signal isn't magically protected by proper E2E encryption. When the time comes to take them down legally, all that's needed is evidence from end users phones demonstrating illegal activities occurring over Signal. But - for now - Signal seems to have better friends and or be upsetting less authorities than Telegram.

To me it's pretty clear reason why they've gone after Telegram is the Channels and Groups. Seen from a certain perspective Telegram channels are an alternative to Reddit, and have been popular medium during COVID and the Ukraine war for "alternative news". By now Reddit is properly controlled and subdued but Telegram isn't.

That's the deal: ISPs aren't responsible for hosting child abuse content, phishing sites, crime ring messaging infrastructure, or pirated content, as long as they work with the relevant authorities to take such content down or hand over relevant evidence.

ISPs hand over phone records and anything else they have on people. They set wiretaps, they can triangulate users, you name it. When the government asks Telegram for information, they get a history dump. When they ask a carrier for information, they get a history dump (for anything stored on ISP servers, such as email or some text messages, depending on the warrant) _and a live copy of every bit of information that flows over the connection_.

Email inboxes get handed over all the time, and server hosts must take down content within days to hours depending on how illegal the content reported is. Services like Google have been handing out information like "what users were in this general area at this time" because they track that stuff (which is why Android's location history has degraded significantly; Google moved that stuff to on-device storage for this reason).

As for data collection: in some places, the government can force you to collect data. Some "logless" VPN/email providers have been compelled to turn on logging for certain accounts, for instance.

The alternative, which was almost a thing in the early internet, was that ISPs were responsible for all content on their systems.

> how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services?

Very far. but france is a civil law system. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_Fre...)

if you don't comply with legally valid requests, then you are going to be held liable for it.

But thats the same in common law as well. If an hosting provider in the USA refuses to act on reports of hosting copyrighted material, then they are liable for damages. Safe Harbour has its limits.

but that's exactly what's happening. They have the data and they don't comply. Phone companies and ISPs get court-ordered to release data all the time and they do it or go to jail too

CEO's of ISP's who reject providing the information to the courts and the law enforcement will certainly go to jail.

That's why we don't have network operators for criminals. We have seen the demand for it in the crypto(as in cryptocurrency) space and many went to prison for running networks and tools for criminals, especially people running cryptocurrency tumblers were caught, prosecuted and imprisoned.

I don't believe in a CEO that takes on the law enforcement for higher morals or even money, that's mafia's line of work. In some cases maybe its possible to have high moral outlaws but they will have to shoot at the police when they are coming to make an arrest.

Somewhat - ISPs and phone companies (and web(site) hosting companies) tend to be less liable because they don't engage into editorializing :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41390173

(Algorithmic feeds are very popular amongst platforms, not sure that Telegram does that too though ?)

> If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services?

> This is a very slippery slope.

I wonder what is hard to understand. Is there CP/violent content in Instagram? Nope. In Facebook? Nope. In YouTube? nope.

Why? These companies are held responsible for the public content, published in clear, on their platforms and they enforce moderation to remove illegal content.

Telegram is in clear and has public content violating the law. They should have done the same, they did not.

> ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services?

If you host illegal content from your home network, the police alert your ISP, and the ISP did nothing, you can be sure the police will arrest them too.

>how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services?

They are already liable unless they follow the law to enjoy certain exemptions.

Agreed. But Telegram seems to have this data unencrypted.

> If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services?

er...did you miss the last twenty years?

the US government destroyed a website for prostitution ads: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/backpage-principals-convicted...

the US government has destroyed every darknet market they could find, despite most of them not selling any drugs themselves.

CSAM is taken extremely seriously and any web site that hosts it will be pursued to the end of the earth.

etc.

this is not a new thing at all.

> However if a company does not have this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect such data.

Telegram deliberately and suspiciously encrypts approximately nothing in a way that helps anyone, so this is completely irrelevant.

The "slippery slope" is a logical fallacy.

From the horse's mouth, in French and English, the official press statement from the Prosecutor's office (it's a PDF):

https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files...

It's a laundry list of accessory to commit crimes + a few interesting associated ones like organising to commit crimes, and laundering the proceeds of crimes.

"Telegram has played a role in multiple criminal cases in France tied to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online hate crimes, but has shown a “near-total absence” of response to requests for cooperation from law enforcement, Ms. Beccuau said."

That's not little low on details.

In 2022 and beyond, Durov has posted very publicly about Ukraine, inclduing support for Ukraine and reiterating parts of his history with the FSB at VK [0].

Telegram was also blocked in Russia for a period of time while they argued about compliance [1].

I think it is far more likely that Russia understands that Durov is one of the most influential people that acts as an emissary to their country. His past altercations around VK and subsequent compliance with various investigations in Russia probably mean they have at least a semi-amicable relationship now. The reality is that, for better or for worse, Telegram is widely used by a large number of people. In just the same way that US agencies can compel investigations with US companies, I'm sure that Russia exerts some amount of control on Telegram for investigation purposes. But this is what I would expect about any messaging platform that isn't fully E2EE.

The fact of the matter is that Telegram's flagship product for many people is NOT the messaging system, it's the non-encrypted channels system, which has been used widely by various people to act as a social network. This system is valuable to investigate for a lot of people. Encrypted messaging aside, companies usually are compelled to do a minimum amount of compliance work with authorities for jurisdictions they operate in.

[0]: https://t.me/durov/179

[1]: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/whats-...

> Since his "exile" - he has travelled 50-60 times to Russia

That "fact" is disputed. The source of that information appears to have relied on unverified information, among other issues.

I do find it odd that Russia is working so hard to get him out of France, though.

Interesting that this comment is down-voted. I think it's worth noting that Telegram LLC—as organisation itself—is anomalous to the point where it's consistent with Russian "cover" doctrine. For example, you wouldn't find ex-Telegram employees on Linkedin, Telegram itself seemingly doesn't invite people for interviews, there's no ex-Telegram people in the industry. Their open source software is developed using fake-umbrella accounts such as John Preston, DrKLO, Ilya Laktyushin (Telegram Desktop, Android and iOS clients respectively.) There is no executive layer in the company, too. Telegram doesn't seem to compete for engineering talent on labour market, Telegram employees don't go to conferences, are never seen on mailing lists of open source projects, etc.

We're simply led to believe that Telegram (a 950M user base) is developed by a Pavel, his brother, and their "friends" in Dubai. There's no evidence of any physical office in Dubai, too.

In short, there's very little evidence to corroborate their story.

He also has a French citizenship despite having no connections to France, which he somehow magically gotten due to "merit foreigner" status in 2021.

Le Monde couldn't figure out why he gotten that citizenship, there is very little detail.

>Durov was naturalized as a French citizen in August 2021, giving him European Union citizenship. Le Monde described the naturalisation as "mysterious", since Durov had not resided in France apart from brief visits. Le Monde suggested that Durov was naturalised via the rarely used "merit foreigner" procedure that is awarded directly by the French government to people viewed to have contributed exceptionally to France's international influence or international economic relations.

Yeah and Telegram is also the biggest source of disinfo. Total Russian operation.

>Telegram is used by Russia, terror groups, and so on.

As well as a lot of people in CIS countries (including Ukraine), people fed up with Meta and probably 95% of Android custom ROM communities (wild guess, do not quote me on that).

Not to mention platforms like, for example, Discord. Also used in Russia. Also probably used by terror groups. But it's okay because we are supposed to like "our" platform.

>It's always funny to hear people talk about free speech in that situation.

Just because something is law does not mean it should be law. Not all legal responsibilities should be legal responsibilities. There is no way in which we will accept that what the French government is doing is legitimate merely because it's legal for them to do it in France.

What France is doing is unjust. They should stop. If their laws are not just they should be repealed.

> According to the logic in France, since criminals use Windows, the CEO of Microsoft could also be blamed

What a superficial take. Following the same logic, highway management would be held accountable if a killer used one of their roads to go and commit a crime.

But for platform providers, they (the providers) have the responsibility to moderate the content that is hosted publicly on their platforms. Which most of the content on Telegram is. And if some illegal material is there, they (the providers) have the responsibility to take it offline.

Do you have any idea how much, let's say Meta, spends in terms of money and manpower to prevent this? How much moderation goes on for most of the platforms? Read about regulations in France (SREN law IIRC).

Maybe these websites cooperate unlike Telegram? First paragraph or second one from the article:

"Telegram has played a role in multiple criminal cases in France tied to child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online hate crimes, but has shown a “near-total absence” of response to requests for cooperation from law enforcement, Ms. Beccuau said."

> According to the logic in France, since criminals use Windows, the CEO of Microsoft could also be blamed.

That's a very bad take. The charges are because of Telegram repeatedly refusing or being too slow to take down illegal content (illegal in France, that is): child pornography, drugs ads, etc. Meta and X both remove illegal content when a notice from authorities is made, unlike Telegram which drags its feet.

If Telegram was encrypted e2e, Durov would not have been able to know of the existence of that illegal content, and could have plausible deniability. As it stands though, Telegram was notified of publicly available illegal content, and refused to remove it, which is a crime in France, where Durov is a citizen.

Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, X(Twitter), Instagram, Snapchat, Whatsapp

They all cooperate with governments: https://www.engadget.com/authorities-reportedly-ordered-goog...

In fact, google is partly CIA/NSA

https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...

I have not read the charges, but do you mean the charges are literally like that?

Or that the charges are false?

Or that the charges are true but only enforced because they want him for other reasons?

> Is there any website owner with a million users who can't be held accountable for the same crimes?

Go and look at "Safe Harbour" rules. Its not a blank cheque to say "oh it wasn't us, it was the users". your protection from being sanctioned is contingent on complying with requests to take down posts(be that copyright or other).

The same thing applies here