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The Courts

Telegram CEO Indicted in Paris Court (yourerie.com) 111

Posted by msmash from the breaking-news dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Following the arrest of Telegram CEO and co-founder Pavel Durov Saturday, the 39-year-old billionaire, Drov has been indicted on multiple charges after appearing in front of a Paris Court on Wednesday. He has been indicted on charges of Complicity in the administration of an online platform to enable an illicit transaction, by an organized gang. This charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and a fine of $555,000.

He was also indicted on charges of refusal to communicate at the request of authorities; Complicity in the offenses in particular of making available without legitimate reason a program or data designed to an attack on an automated data processing system, organized gang dissemination of images of minors of a child pornography nature, drug trafficking, organized gang fraud, criminal conspiracy with a view to committing crimes or offenses; Laundering of crimes or offenses by organized games; Provision of cryptology services aimed at ensuring confidentiality functions without compliant declaration. Durov has been placed under judicial supervision with an obligation to provide a deposit of 5 million euros and he must report to the police station twice a week and is banned from leaving France. From earlier today: Telegram CEO Released By Police, Transferred To Court For Possible Indictment.
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Telegram CEO Indicted in Paris Court More

Telegram CEO Indicted in Paris Court

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  • In a statement he said, "Putin- er... Telegram thanks you for your continued trust in private messaging services."

  • What about WhatsApp? (Score:3)

    by Flavianoep ( 1404029 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @04:12PM (#64744540)
    Doesn't WhatsApp also provide an encrypted service that is used to share CSAM, without any moderation? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Any popular service that is allowed to operate in the US and claims to have complete encryption, doesn't. Holds true for the Five Eyes as well, and even moreso for Russia and China. We've known this for certain since Snowden, and suspected it since the USA Patriot Act, but at that time it was "well they could if they wanted to, but come on, that much effort? That's a tin foil hat theory."

      • I use asymetric encryption, 4096 bits. I also understand the mathematics that makes RSA encryption practically unbreakable given our race's current level of technical sophistication. I may need to go to a scheme that is proof against quantum computing. Problem is that while I understand the mathematics of RSA encryption, I honestly don't have the mathematical background to understand the three encryption schemes recently published by NIST.

        • Dude, if they want the data, they'll attack the endpoints security and ignore the transport. Even if its air gapped, its possible and has been done in the past.

          • Essentially, you're saying they'll either get it from my end before its encrypted, or from the other end after it's decrypted? The encryption's E2E, 4096-bit RSA. You wanna explain just how the government's going to get in there, short of lead-pipe cryptography? I'll admit, I've never come up with a defense against lead-pipe cryptography. That's not what's happening here, though.

            Also, if the government can do that, why would they bother demanding escrow technology from vendors?

            • What are you asking exactly? How the NSA can gain access to a computer whiteout the owners permission? Thats their whole thing. How often do they do it, I have no idea. I'd like to hope that its not very scalable, but I don't know that it isn't. Take a look at what's possible for other state actors: Break into fortune 500 companies, and encrypt all their data before they notice. The NSA very likely has similar capacity, but doesn't go for ransom money.

          • So why aren't they doing this with Telegram, instead of shooting the messenger?

            • They really are interested in stopping the spread of criminal activity. They already know what's being said, posted, etc but targeting each individual doing it does not scale and encourages others to join in the illegal activities. The easiest fastest way to squash all the bad actors is to target Telegram. But that doesn't mean that you mr super secure haxor encryption knowing guy is safe from any interference for all time. If they want you badly enough, they can get you with the tools they have.

            • One small part of the accusation is "refusal to obey wiretapping order" which is a case where the police identified two guys and want to know what they say in encrypted messages. In this limited case, they should indeed attack the endpoint (hack into their phones). But this is only a small part. Most of the accusation is about public channels that don't use encryption at all. Most of Telegram is about public channels like Facebook groups. What the police want is Telegram to shut down the drug dealing channe

              • What if the War on Drugs causes more usage due to the forbidden fruit effect?

                Why are they distracted by Telegram when they should think hard about why they want to ban things like speech and drugs and cause much worse problems than the speech or drugs in the first place?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

          I use asymetric encryption, 4096 bits. I also understand the mathematics that makes RSA encryption practically unbreakable given our race's current level of technical sophistication. I may need to go to a scheme that is proof against quantum computing. Problem is that while I understand the mathematics of RSA encryption, I honestly don't have the mathematical background to understand the three encryption schemes recently published by NIST.

          You're absolutely the guy that this [xkcd.com] was written for.

          • But . . . why would anybody care about Telegram, when lead-pipe encryption is such a tested and highly reliable technology?

          • You're absolutely the guy that this xkcd comic was written for.

            Transport encryption solves one class of secrecy problem. No one sensible thinks it solves them all. No one sensible thinks it useless *because* it does not solve them all.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dougmc ( 70836 )

            Exactly what I was thinking.

            And what makes it even better is that Randall even pegged the encryption -- "4096 bit RSA" -- that this guy would claim today, 15 years later. (That comic was written Feb 2009.)

            I mean, I'm using 4096 bit RSA for stuff too, but I'm under no illusions that the government can't get past it --either via a multi-million-dollar cluster or a $5, no ... $20 (inflation, don't you know, and the alt-text for the comic suggests that Randall even predicted that) wrench or some backdoor in so

        • No need for all of that. Communicate securely out in the open. Go on a cooking forum and post something you made for dinner. The right audience will know what you meant.

          • I'm surprised some modern variant of alt.anonymous.messages has never appeared. A good interface and enough regular users like in its heyday would make it very difficult to analyze. Anonymously passing the first public key might be difficult but updated keys could be embedded in the messages.

          • No need for all of that. Communicate securely out in the open. Go on a cooking forum and post something you made for dinner. The right audience will know what you meant.

            Damn it, I made my previous post before seeing this. Now I probably will end up on some watch list and we really are just discussing dinner.

          • "With kings and rulers of the earth, who built for themselves places now lying in ruins." --Job 3:14

        • I know the "if you've got nothing to hide" thing is cliche, but if the NSA really wants to spy on my partner and I discussing our dinner plans, I'm not losing any sleep over it.

        • If you're only using RSA then I'll have to inform you that you're doing it wrong.

    • It doesn't matter how many other bad people get away with how much bad stuff. Mister Durov has been indicted. The illogical strategy of justifying one person's bad behavior by pointing out somebody else's bad behavior has worked quite well recently; but not if anybody is paying attention. Only small minds are fooled by such a logical fallacy.

      I was paying attention. Who cares about WhatsApp? This is about Pavel Durov and Telegram. WhatsApp has nothing to do with this.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        >It doesn't matter how many other bad people get away with how much bad stuff.
        It doesn't matter at the case level. It does matter at a greater societal level; because capricious, unequal application of the law is not justice.
        "The law is the law! He's been indicted!" Have you never heard of a law you disagreed with?
        Let's see how the case unfolds.

      • How is refusing to moderate bad behavior? What if moderation causes bad behavior because it is so inevitably unfair and results in false positives that vote you out or go underground and come back in much more virulent form than if your moderators had just tried to engage instead of merely ban speech they disagreed with for whatever mood-affiliated reason?

      • Yes it does. You attack the endpoint, not generate MITM attacks by requiring every intermediate entity to steal keys. Attacking end points is what they already can and do. This case is entirely fictitious.

    • It all depends on if you use the proper backdoor libraries or not.

    • Doesn't WhatsApp also provide an encrypted service that is used to share CSAM, without any moderation? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]

      Meta is a member of the organisation in your link https://www.iwf.org.uk/members... [iwf.org.uk] and do takedowns. This BBC article has Metas reply https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com] and additional details but it's not clear to me exactly what IWF is requesting. It seems like they want E2EE chats to have built in scanning of images, which I don' think is directly relevant to the case with Durov.

    • Doesn't WhatsApp also provide an encrypted service [...]

      Hold up: the one is not like the other. Telegram has unfettered access to the vast majority of their messages because Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted by default [platformer.news]. In other words, Telegram knows what its users are sending and can provide that information to the police, whereas WhatsApp doesn't and can't. That's a huge difference, because it gives WhatsApp plausible deniability. Plus, in many jurisdictions the police can't compel you to add a backdoor, but they can demand that you use the one you already

      • What if you are against moderation because you believe it will create worse outcomes?

        What if the police went into the Telegram group chats they want to know about and just collected the content themselves? What if they told everyone, hey we are listening and we are going to get you?

        Why do you need moderation? Pure laziness?

        • What if you are against moderation because you believe it will create worse outcomes?

          Easy: either don’t operate where you are obligated to do so in a manner that is contrary to your conscience, or else do so only to the degree required by law. This is why companies leave places like China and Russia.

          • Why shouldn't the law follow the US Constitution's free speech protections?

            What if going after speech instead of actual crime is ultimately futile because you simply drive the speech elsewhere, underground, where it festers and comes back in a much more virulent form?

            If you rely on censorship to defend whatever system you are so mood-affiliated with, is that system really pretty fragile and vulnerable, if mere words alone can tear it down?

            • Why shouldn't the law follow the US Constitution's free speech protections?

              Well, most obviously, because we aren’t talking about the US and the US isn’t involved in the least?

              What if going after speech instead of actual crime is ultimately futile because you simply drive the speech elsewhere, underground, where it festers and comes back in a much more virulent form?

              I have no interest in arguing what-ifs or what ought to be the case. You can grapple with those questions if you want, but a company has no choice but to navigate the laws in the jurisdictions in which they operate. A failure to do so has consequences, regardless of what they think the law ought to be. That’s what’s happening here.

    • This. Why aren't they arresting Zuckerburg (WhatsApp is owned by Meta) or Apple's CEO?

      This is entirely politically motivated. They ought to doxx these "judges". See how they like it when their personal info is up for grabs.

      • BTW, compare this to the time France forced all SSH traffic to use weak encryption in France, so that Linux distros had to create special, weak SSH versions. We ignored that.

        Also compare this to the special chip France wanted to force everyone to use (in the 90s or so) that they could decrypt.

        These people are fucking Nazis. We need to stop them, and we will. Time for some doxxing so they can see what loss of privacy means.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        WhatsApp cooperates with law enforcement. They will hand over details of accounts when legally obliged to, and when notified of illegal material being shared will close accounts.

        Telegram ignored both legal requests from law enforcement, and notifications that illegal material is being shared. Since Telegram is not E2E encrypted in 99% of cases, they can easily verify such reports if they want to, or actively scan for illegal material.

        Telegram can't claim ignorance or that they take any reasonable measures t

    • Doesn't WhatsApp also provide an encrypted service that is used to share CSAM, without any moderation? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]

      No. WhatsApp has moderation including in encrypted chats by way of client side scanning for particular content which is then flagged unencrypted for review. This also includes chats in which pictures are sent. For example in the USA alone WhatsApp reported to the NCMEC 1.3 million messages related to or including CSAM content. They are ranked as one of the most openly reporting organisations providing chat services, along side Snapchat.

      For source of this see the CSAM Data Fact Check of European Statements f

  • Common Carrier (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @04:21PM (#64744580) Homepage Journal

    He was indicted for being a common carrier.

    That is, not censoring based on content.

    These psychos would have executed Alexander Graham Bell.

    • Re:Common Carrier (Score:5, Informative)

      by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite ( 721679 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @04:35PM (#64744642)

      He was indicted for being a common carrier.

      That is, not censoring based on content.

      These psychos would have executed Alexander Graham Bell.

      Afaik phone companies regularly comply with court orders: phone tapping, metadata etc. I don't see any obvious similarities.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Afaik phone companies regularly comply with court orders: phone tapping, metadata etc.

        Sure.. However if a French court tries to tell an American phone company to wiretap somebody. The phone company has likely told them to pound sand. This order has to be authorized by a local court that has State jurisdiction over the phone system.

        In a similar manner.. France ordering surveillance of customer data from a server located in Dubai should be a non-starter.

        • "In a similar manner.. France ordering surveillance of customer data from a server located in Dubai should be a non-starter."

          No. does not follow. If a company does business in country, it has the right to make laws for that business to operate. I have my own ideas on what kinds of moderation should be required, and obviously some governments requirements may violate human rights. If any country has laws that require moderation that stops short of human rights abuses, then so be it.

          For anyone not in the kn

        • Afaik phone companies regularly comply with court orders: phone tapping, metadata etc.

          Sure.. However if a French court tries to tell an American phone company to wiretap somebody. The phone company has likely told them to pound sand. This order has to be authorized by a local court that has State jurisdiction over the phone system.

          In a similar manner.. France ordering surveillance of customer data from a server located in Dubai should be a non-starter.

          I'm pretty sure this would have ended by now if the French court lacked jurisdiction. Possibly it's Durovs mysteriously granted French citizenship that's bitten him but that's pure speculation.

        • If a person lives in France, their phone company is probably a French company, so wiretapping can be done under the French justdicction, and this is a non-issue. Granted, that person could have a phone plan in another country, but that will cost more and it will probably be difficult even to get a phone plan (hint: many US bank verification systems require a phone number in the US, to limit fraud, so there must be at least a statistical reason for this). Probably does not make it impossible constitutes a fi

      • Afaik phone companies regularly comply with court orders

        Not just that, they all allowed NSA taps. All but one, anyway [wikipedia.org].

    • Re:Common Carrier (Score:5, Informative)

      by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @04:38PM (#64744648)

      From what I understand, not really.

      Telegram is both a private messaging platform, AND a social media like Twitter or Facebook.

      Due to Telegram's mixed nature as both a private communication method and a social media-like platform with mass groups and channels, along with its minimal restrictions on content with only calls to violence, illegal forms of pornography[19] and scamming forbidden, the platform has been used by organizations and large groups for recruitment and spreading of their agenda

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      So the problem is likely not that telegram was used as a common carrier for transmitting illegal content on private encrypted messages, but more that they are hosting illegal content on their server, and they did nothing about it.
      It's like if Facebook allowed child pornography and scammers by saying "it's not out fault, it's our users who posted that". It's especially a problem if that illegal content becomes an important part of Facebook. No sane country would let Facebook make 30% of their advertising revenues from advertisements on this illegal content they refuse to remove.

      Now I'm not saying Durov is in the wrong here. He deserves a fair trial and may be convicted or not. But it is not as simple as saying he didn't do anything wrong or that he was arrested for political reasons in the violation of freedom of expression. This case looks more complex than most slashdoters would like it to be.

      • From what I understand, not really.

        Telegram is both a private messaging platform, AND a social media like Twitter or Facebook.

        Due to Telegram's mixed nature as both a private communication method and a social media-like platform with mass groups and channels, along with its minimal restrictions on content with only calls to violence, illegal forms of pornography[19] and scamming forbidden, the platform has been used by organizations and large groups for recruitment and spreading of their agenda

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        So the problem is likely not that telegram was used as a common carrier for transmitting illegal content on private encrypted messages, but more that they are hosting illegal content on their server, and they did nothing about it.
        It's like if Facebook allowed child pornography and scammers by saying "it's not out fault, it's our users who posted that". It's especially a problem if that illegal content becomes an important part of Facebook. No sane country would let Facebook make 30% of their advertising revenues from advertisements on this illegal content they refuse to remove.

        Now I'm not saying Durov is in the wrong here. He deserves a fair trial and may be convicted or not. But it is not as simple as saying he didn't do anything wrong or that he was arrested for political reasons in the violation of freedom of expression. This case looks more complex than most slashdoters would like it to be.

        I think you're basically correct and I believe it's the simplest explanation.

      • Yes, but: what is illegal? In Europe, free speech is being increasingly restricted, despite governments being signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "Hate speech" is whatever some politician doesn't like. Recently, someone was supposedly arrested for calling a politician "fat".

        I can make a group phone call to hundreds or thousands of people. Yet, they don't apply these laws to phone companies. I could create posters and plaster the city, yet they don't go after the manufacturer of the p

        • Yes, but: what is illegal? In Europe, free speech is being increasingly restricted, despite governments being signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "Hate speech" is whatever some politician doesn't like. Recently, someone was supposedly arrested for calling a politician "fat".

          Hate speech is another debate (Some parts of Europe has a sad history with antisemitism which explains those laws), but is not relevant in the arrest of Durov.
          He wasn't arrested for hate speech. Not even for hosting hate speech of others.

          I can make a group phone call to hundreds or thousands of people. Yet, they don't apply these laws to phone companies. I could create posters and plaster the city, yet they don't go after the manufacturer of the printer. Why should they prosecute someone who makes an app?

          Because the phone companies are not recording and hosting the calls for millions of people to listen to. Telegram is not just an app. It's also a social network like Twitter and Facebook. With content hosted on servers owned by Telegram.
          Both Twitter and Facebook apply moder

    • You're right. This "you transported contraband" idea for carriers is also what keeps the big ISPs and phone companies in business. If the USA had strong protections for carriers, nobody would bat an eyelash at participating in a coast-to-coast Wifi mesh along the lines of a B.A.T.M.A.N. setup or something better (802.11ax has some built in mesh protocols, IIRC).

      However, nobody is going to risk that they get the door kicked in for CSAM just by running a repeater or participating in the network operation. T
      • Hey, I don't care if all your effects are CGI and you get Matt Damon to play the lead role. No amount of work can make this script believable. The American viewing public isn't very smart, but there's no way we're going to sell them this script as entertainment. It's just too unbelievable. The average viewer may be willing to suspend disbelief, but that's just plain ridiculous. There's no way that's going on the air.
        • What in the actual fuck are you talking about?
          • I mean, come on . . . no intelligent adult is actually going to believe any of that claptrap. Like I said, don't bother making a pilot, it ain't goin' on the air.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sfcat ( 872532 )
              Would intelligent adults look at a country with 330,000,000 people and say that our 2 candidates are the best choices to lead the country? I can find better choices at most community gatherings and you probably could too. I think you are right but look at how hard the media press on this is right now. Its a bit scary how terrible our media is and how easily they will roll on anyone they don't like with out any real regard for the truth. Journalists should love this guy but instead they want to hang him.

              • And sometimes ChatGPT can write a better script than half the crap on TV. A lot of people are in the positions they are because they were in the right social circles or did a really good job sucking up to those who are, rather than being particularly adept at doing their job. At the end of the day, politicians are still just basically another form of celebrity.

            • You need medication.

        • Huh? You seem not to be in the same headspace as the rest of us. Maybe you should try re-posting whatever it is you were trying to say after you sober up.

    • Or (like a sizable segment of the American population) you choose not to understand. Your post shows a complete ignorance if what is happening. He's wasn't indicted for being a common carrier. Read any of the TFA's completely. Then come back here.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sfcat ( 872532 )
        If you had followed the war, you would know how silly these charges come off as. If Russia was using Telegram for secure communications, then why did the Duma just bad soldiers from having cell phones just to prevent them from posting on Telegram? The charges don't really pass the smell test, they why people are reacting how they are. The details don't support the charges. What does support the charges is yet another government overreach to shutdown a source of criticism they don't like. I mean, just w

    • Why do you feel there is always someone underlying threat happening? Like at any moment “globalists” will send cops to arrest you?

      No one is coming for your guns. No one is coming for your steaks. No one is going to force you to eat bugs.

      Stop living in fear of some imaginary boogeyman always lurking in the shadows. In the grand scheme of things you’re nothing and the government doesn’t care what you do.

      • They're not coming for you, it's just a tinfoil hat theory.

        And even if they're coming for you, there's nothing you can do, so don't bother.

        And even if there is something you could do, you shouldn't, because you deserve what's coming.

        The govt owns you, you peasant, so lie down and hope you don't draw the attention of your betters.

  • Let's face it... That's what is going on here.

    Because they aren't cooperating to have backdoors planted in their software the users have privacy.

    The US, UK, Canada, France and Australia have ALL lost their collective minds recently...

    • That would make a good conspiracy theory, though. Keep saying it, I'll bet there are all sorts of people who will believe you even though there isn't a shred of evidence to support your allegation.

      If this were the case, Mister Durov would still be in custody. I'm pretty sure drugs, electricity and violence would all have been involved by now. Just sayin'.

    • Re:Guilty of Privacy (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @07:05PM (#64745016)

      Because they aren't cooperating to have backdoors planted in their software

      You might have a point if Telegram was end-to-end encrypted, but it isn't. The vast majority of messages on Telegram are not E2EE. Only "secret" DMs—which are not enabled by default and which are estimated to be dwarfed by several orders of magnitude by standard messages—are E2EE on Telegram. Everything else is encrypted-at-rest, with Telegram holding the keys. As such, they are perfectly capable of providing that information to the police, yet they refuse to do so as a business practice. They even brag in their FAQ about what basically amounts to creating shell corporations around the world to make things harder for the police to lawfully request data that the company is known to have in its possession and can provide in an unencrypted format (emphasis mine):

      To protect the data that is not covered by end-to-end encryption, Telegram uses a distributed infrastructure. Cloud chat data is stored in multiple data centers around the globe that are controlled by different legal entities spread across different jurisdictions. The relevant decryption keys are split into parts and are never kept in the same place as the data they protect. As a result, several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data.

      And then a bit later:

      To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments.

      Again, this is about data they have access to. By keeping the data within their reach, they're making themselves accountable for its content and are obligating themselves to being responsive to lawful requests for it, both of which they've refused to do. Three guesses why they're in trouble.

      Hint: it has nothing to do with creating a backdoor. They have yet to remove the front door.

    • Telegram does not provide privacy. Not by default for private chats - it's something which needs to be explicitly enabled on a per-chat basis, and not at all for group chats.

  • No criticism of France for pursuing this tech bro, but it does seem odd they won't extradite Roman Polanski back to the US for him to finish out his sentencing for the charge he plead guilty to of "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor." Sure, the scale of the crime here is much different, but I'd still like to see Polanski finish his days behind bars.

    • Ok you have one example. A few others, in France as well, actually come to mind, maybe because I am french. One the other side, the US has plenty of "friends" of Jeffrey Epstein and I don't see anyone worrying about their past association with him. Same with the UK. So maybe a more correct narrative is that powerful people are generally safe from common people law, regardless of the country. With exceptions of course.

    • No criticism of France for pursuing this tech bro, but it does seem odd they won't extradite Roman Polanski back to the US for him to finish out his sentencing for the charge he plead guilty to of "unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor." Sure, the scale of the crime here is much different, but I'd still like to see Polanski finish his days behind bars.

      Extradition has nothing to do with it. France arrested its own citizen (Durov) on its own soil.
      France also doesn't extradite its own citizens. You can argue for or against this policy, but they shouldn't make an exception for Polanski, who is French as well.

  • No matter if he's guilty or not, one thing we know is that Durov is not a freedom fighter.

    Telegram is one out of many messaging apps, and it is not innovative or better than the competition. His success is as a business man, he got so many people to register to his platform. But there is no technological miracle in Telegram. Any decent team of programmers could clone it in a couple months.

    Encryption is not even on by default on Telegram, so it's not even the privacy conscious platform some would like to bel

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