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Founder and CEO of Telegram messaging service arrested in France (www.tf1info.fr)

submitted 3 months ago by Wilshire@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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[-] A_A@lemmy.world 58 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Pavel Valeryevich Durov

(Russian: Павел Валерьевич Дуров; born 10 October 1984)[4] is a Russian-born Emirati entrepreneur who is known for founding the social networking site VK and the app Telegram Messenger. He is the younger brother of Nikolai Durov. As of 29 September 2022, his net worth is estimated at US$15.1 billion. In 2022, he was recognized as the richest expat in the United Arab Emirates, according to Forbes. In February 2023, Arabian Business named him the most powerful entrepreneur in Dubai.

translation of major allegation :
"The (French) Justice system considers that the lack of moderation, cooperation with law enforcement, and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable numbers, cryptocurrencies, etc.) make it an accomplice to drug trafficking, pedocriminal offenses, and scams."

[-] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 89 points 3 months ago

What a fucking horseshit excuse for law enforcement.

Encrypted communication should be a human right.

[-] einkorn@feddit.org 61 points 3 months ago

The issue I see with Telegram is that they retain a certain control over the content on their platform, as they have blocked channels in the past. That's unlike for example Signal, which only acts as a carrier for the encrypted data.

If they have control over what people are able to share via their platform, the relevant laws should apply, imho.

[-] xnx@slrpnk.net 40 points 3 months ago

I agree but its not even an encrypted messenger. Almost no one uses the weak encryption and im pretty sure they offer decryption to governments considering they were threatened to be banned in russia and avoided it

[-] sugartits@lemmy.world 33 points 3 months ago

What has encryption got to do with it?

Most of telegram is not encrypted. There are unencrypted channels on telegram right now hosting child pornography. Telegram never removes them.

[-] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

Telegram and VK are both CSAM cesspits. Most of Russian social media has this problem, but VK and Telegram are where you'll end up exposed to shit just by browsing.

[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

Good. They shouldn't.

Unencrypted channels are the ones that are easiest to trace, and the easiest ones to successfully base a prosecution on.

The most correct response is to report them to law enforcement. Unencrypted channels make amazingly effective honeypots. It's fairly easy to bust people using unencrypted channels, esp. because people think they're anonymous and safe. It's much, much harder to bust people once they move to .onion sites and the real dark net away from their phone. When you shut down all the easy channels, you push people into areas where it's much harder, almost impossible, to root them out.

[-] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 7 points 3 months ago

Look, if you're going to knowingly host child porn, and not take it down even after you have been made aware, you get what's coming to you.

The idea that Telegram would somehow better serve their customers by staging law enforcement stings in unencrypted channels is completely divorced from Telegram's core mission.

This has nothing to do with freedom of speech or the right to encrypt. Child Pornography is a criminal matter. Failure to cooperate with law enforcement while providing comms and distribution to child pornographers is going to land you in deep shit eventually.

[-] whereisk@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

What if telegram refuses to cooperate with law enforcement in a timely fashion to provide details of the people sharing that material? What should law enforcement do then?

[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago

At that point they’re willingly hosting it for no reason other than to host it for their customers and they’re complicit, no?

[-] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I think that holding the executives and BoD in criminal contempt of court is a good place to start.

EDIT: AFAIK Telegram doesn't use warrant canaries.

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[-] kescusay@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Yes, but... I mean, it is being used for all of that.

[-] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 months ago

It doesn't matter in the slightest.

Making a tool that provides a private communication service literally everyone should have unrestricted access to does not make you an accomplice to anything.

[-] Deceptichum@quokk.au 14 points 3 months ago

So is the Internet, better go arrest my ISP.

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 9 points 3 months ago

The ISP will absolutely cooperate with law enforcement though, unlike telegram. That seems the nature of the issue in that there is a lack of moderation and oversight, which anonymity is not mutually-exclusive from flagging nefarious activities, ideally. I REALLY am not too keen on giving safe harbor to the likes of pedos and traffickers and what have you.

[-] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 9 points 3 months ago

I REALLY am not too keen on giving safe harbor to the likes of pedos and traffickers and what have you.

Secure communication between individuals is a fundamental right. That nefarious activities can be conducted over secure channels can never be justification for suspending that right.

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[-] stupidcasey@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Why? They happily hand all your data over to whoever asks and so does everyone else that’s why they can single them out because you’re already bought and paid for.

[-] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 8 points 3 months ago

It is but so are phones and computers in general. Same with cars, many crimes require transportation.

[-] fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc 7 points 3 months ago

As always, there's a lot of nuance which is lost on Lemmy users.

It's a question of exactly what telegram is being used for, what telegram the company can reasonably be aware of, what they've been asked to do, and what they've done.

[-] ravhall@discuss.online 17 points 3 months ago

Gotta add that “pedocriminal” thing so people don’t argue against it. Don’t wanna be seen “supporting pedocriminals” by supporting encrypted communications

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[-] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 months ago

I'm pretty sure that telegrams do collaborate a lot when it comes to crimes.

Pretty sure that this is a copyright thing as always. I get several scams tries each month on WhatsApp and phone call. But they don't care about people trying to steal actual money, they just care if I use telegram to watch a TV show without letting Disney murder my wife.

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this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024

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