• LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Telegram has always had the sketchiest people on it. I refuse to use it because it feels like I’m talking with human traffickers. Doesn’t surprise me he was arrested.

    • THX-1138@lemmy.ml
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      25 days ago

      I refuse to use it because it feels like I’m talking with human traffickers

      I, too, prefer spending my time on subs related to things I neither own, used nor enjoy!

      So never used the app, but flat out make that assumption. Check. lol

  • obbeel@lemmy.eco.br
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    26 days ago

    And some people think Brazil is being extreme on putting fines for X (Twitter) to pay for not blocking some accounts.

    This guy is accused of being accomplice to crime just for creating and maintaining the platform where criminals do their dealings.

    The road is downhill, my friends.

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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      25 days ago

      If somebody runs a market hall and allows stalls to be set up where narcotics and CSAM is being sold, and profits from it, and ignores police requests to stop it, I would like something to happen against that person. That person is complicit.

      What I can’t understand is why telegram doesn’t just set up the some moderation systems. Most of their growth surely doesn’t come from drug dealers and pederasts? It feels like it would be a tiny element of it and not worth the hassle.

      I suspect Durov doesn’t like dealing with big teams and can’t be bothered.

      I’m a heavy user of Telegram (average about 1h of screen time every day, and pay for Telegram Premium) entirely because all my friends are on it and that’s because it is the best messaging client BY FAR. I’d love not to share this platform with criminals.

      Since when did fighting crime become a “totalitarian state” thing to do?

  • sun_is_ra@sh.itjust.works
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    26 days ago

    Firefox french translation, not perfect but usable.

    Why was he under threat of a research mandate?

    The Justice considers that the lack of moderation, cooperation with the forces of law and order and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) makes it complicit in drug trafficking, paedo criminal offences and fraud.

    This research mandate ran if, and only if, Pavel Durov were in the national territory. “He made a pellet tonight. We don’t know why… Was this theft just one step? In any case, it is ready-made”, slips a source close to the investigation to TF1/LCI. Ever since he knew himself persona non grata in France, Pavel Durov used to travel to the Emirates, to the countries of the former USSR, to South America … He had travelled very little in Europe and avoided the countries where Telegram is under surveillance. What now?

    Investigators from the National Anti-Fraud Office attached to the Customs Directorate (ONAF) notified him and held him in police custody. He should be presented to an investigating judge this Saturday evening before a possible indictment on Sunday for a multitude of offences: terrorism, narcotics, complicity, fraud, money laundering, concealment, child-criminal content…

  • HarriPotero@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    Looks like France is enforcing chat control 2.0 a bit prematurely.

    The EU council is meeting to discuss it again on October 10. A new vote is likely in mid-December. Many parties and countries have turned their coat to support the proposal.

    The fight is not over.

    • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      I have not followed this at all. Seems okay at face value. Is that the point, that “protect the kids” a is pretext to creep towards eventual screening of everything?

      The meme says the big internet companies are already doing this. Isn’t it a legit problem that this sort of harmful child sexual abuse material just moves around the internet like whack-a-mole?

      The Democratic nations of the world have all gone to Telegram and begged for help to address human trafficking, to address terrorism, to literally prevent wars, and they are told to fuck off. Seems criminal to me.

      • HarriPotero@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        I think you got the point. Criminals use the same services as the rest of us. CSAM is being used as pretext to outlaw or bypass end-to-end encryption.

        It’s a noble cause, but it puts all of us in a vulnerable position. As post-communist countries know from past experience, once these measures are in place the next government will use it for surveillance of all kind when it’s their turn.

        Yes, I know. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. I’m not doing anything illegal at the toilet, but I still prefer to keep the door closed - even if I’m home alone.

        Chat control 1.0 has been voluntarily inplemented by big platforms, but it has not been fruitful. Lots of false positives and not enough resources to look at the true positives. The delegates preparing this have demonstrated poor technical understanding.

        Whistleblowers won’t have confidence in anonymity. A journalist asked the author (Ylva Johansson) of the proposal if he, as a journalist, would still be able to receive tips from whistleblowers with secrecy. She stumbled ln her answer and said that CSAM should be illegal.

        Police and officials are of course exempt from chat control 2.0. Secrecy for me, but not for thee. . .

  • whereisk@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    Unlike other chat services Telegram has a “social” aspect and search capabilities for locating public discussion channels.

    Furthermore E2EE is optional and most people don’t turn it on and is certainly not on in public channels.

    While techies are freaking out about an attack on encryption the articles I’ve read so far don’t mention anything about encryption or otherwise it seems that French police is concerned about moderation or attempts at moderation of those public channels, that Telegram specifically refuses to moderate.

    Perhaps this will be an attack on encryption by stealth but at this point that’s not what it looks like.

    As a personal anecdote when I installed Telegram a few years ago and searched for my city’s name the top 20 results where channels offering to sell you heroin - which I thought was so blatant as to be certain it was police sting operations - but who knows.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      Unlike other chat services Telegram has a “social” aspect and search capabilities for locating public discussion channels.

      That’s the good part. I hope something else takes the niche.

      But it being very insecure and positioned as secure is bad.

  • maxinstuff@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    This shit is why end to end encryption is so important.

    All platforms, no matter how trustworthy, can be corrupted. No e2e, no privacy.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      But this is intentional. TG’s ToS forbids alternative clients with their own E2EE.

      Also he’s the VK founder, which kills any idea of “trustworthy” immediately.

      It’s part of TG’s business model, I think, something in the price list for governments. And the way they treat alternative clients in reality also hints that maybe backdoors are as well. Say, a new message format of the day (they add them really often) arrives in a new official Telegram version, somehow it’s nowhere to be seen in the channels and groupchats you’re in, but some day a DM arrives with harmless text and some code runs on your client machine.

      I use Telegram, but trusting it would be asinine. Even trustworthy services can be abused, and TG doesn’t even pretend to be that.

      I think he got arrested because happening to be in Baku for a couple weeks and then still be there at the same time with Putin-Aliyev meeting, and their agreements apparently having intersections with Durov’s activity, is openly weird.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          Well, yes.

          The idea was fine, until it spread to normies which don’t understand that “proprietary software” means a whole city or factory which they won’t be able to study and understand in 10 years, while “free and open source software” means the same, but with a map. And that in the latter case there is at least a category of interested people who’ll look for traps there, and it’s built by such people, while in the former it’s all commercial company’s property.

          And that TG desktop’s sources being open doesn’t mean that there’s a confirmed lack of traps.

          People severely underestimate the complexity of what they use. Maybe they just shouldn’t, if valuing privacy.

          I really think there’s a niche for some “luddite machines” running Forth with an operating system a normie can grasp.

          Or we are going to have something worse than most examples of anti-utopia I’ve read\seen.

  • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    26 days ago

    can’t believe that letting criminals and paedophiles run amuck on your service with no moderation would have consequences.

  • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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    25 days ago

    My plug is on Telegram. Afaik (at least in France) it’s mostly used to sell drugs. I’m not surprised the police would like their cut

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    26 days ago

    Sounds like French law enforcement wants a police state that supercedes the civil rights of the public.

    You know, the French public have a reputation for getting ugly when the state gets uppity.

    That sword over Damocles is swaying in the breeze.

    • simple@lemm.ee
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      26 days ago

      From the article

      The Justice considers that the lack of moderation, cooperation with the forces of law and order and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) makes it complicit in drug trafficking, paedo criminal offences and fraud.

      But a lot of people are speculating they just fabricated claims to arrest him because Telegram is russian.

    • snooggums@midwest.social
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      26 days ago

      As the CEO he should be responsible for anything he was facilitating as part of his business, and that would include crimes committed using telegram that he was aware of and both did nothing to remove from his service and made it harder for law enforcement to prosecute. You know, like how a warehouse owner who knowingly sells space to pedos and does what he can to keep the police from searching the warehouee is complicit.

      There are some circumstances where they are unaware or only take halfhearted measures, but in this case it looks like he is being investigated for actively working to enable criminals, including pedos. As the head executive, he doesn’t have to do it personally if he is directing staff to make it happen.

        • snooggums@midwest.social
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          26 days ago

          Moderation that doesn’t do anything. Have terms and conditions that aren’t enforced. General ‘we care’ things that aren’t actually effective.

              • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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                25 days ago

                That is the point of E2EE. If anyone but the sender and receiver can see the messages then it’s not E2EE. This is the part that politicians and governments don’t understand (or just ignore). The idea that some designated authority can look at the messages when needed is entirely at odds with E2EE. It’s as valid as true = false or 2 + 2 = cat.

                • snooggums@midwest.social
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                  25 days ago

                  Although Telegram does use end-to-end encryption, it isn’t the default option. Many users don’t know this; they automatically assume their conversations are 100% secure.

                  On the other hand, the app does nothing to inform them about the “Secret Chat” option. Once a user kick-starts a new chat, Telegram stays silent about options other than the default.

                  Look, if this was an app that allowed for E2EE on all communication and did not store any of the communication on some company’s servers I would be saying France is completely 100% wrong. France is wrong in saying the encryption is the problem, but they are partially right about Telegram not complying with legal requirements as it does not encrypt all communication and it should be obligated to comply with criminal investigations just like they would be obligated if they were a mail delivery service.

                  Just because something is on the internet doesn’t mean it isn’t subject to warrants. If a company can be compelled to provide written documentation in their possession, the same is true for electronic. That company should not be obligated to undermine their own encryption though.

      • just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        25 days ago

        By this logic, the US Navy should also get into legal trouble for creating the Tor project.

        Selective enforcement of law is a tool of oppression. Happens all the time in oppressive regimes.

      • obbeel@lemmy.eco.br
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        26 days ago

        I’m sorry, but it’s a private messaging app! Not even the owners are supposed to know what is going on in the chats. It’s not a moderation situation - I don’t know if he rejected a request to ban accounts, but it isn’t how things are supposed to be.

        • snooggums@midwest.social
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          26 days ago

          Well, the French police seem to be saying the way he is running the company involves being knowingly complicit, not that they just happen to be hosting/facilitating communication without the company’s knowledge.