WilshireFounder and CEO of Telegram messaging service arrested in France
bfg9kWhat crimes did he personally commit?
snooggumsAs 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.
Edit: explaining the logic behind something isn’t the same as agreeing with that logic
lacaio 🇧🇷🏴☠️🇸🇴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.
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.
They could be wrong, but this is part of the process of finding out.
Spotlight7573Isn’t the main problem that most people don’t use the E2E encrypted chat feature on Telegram, so most of what’s going on is not actually private and Telegram does have the ability to moderate but refuses to (and also refuses to cooperate)?
Something like Signal gets around this by not having the technical ability to moderate (or any substantial data to hand over).
HubiExactly. Telegram has a ton of public channels full of content that is illegal in most EU countries and refuses to comply with any local laws on hate speech. They know perfectly well what their platform is used for, they just don’t care. It would be a wildly different case if everything were E2E encrypted by default.
Also they use a custom encryption protocol that had bugs that look like a backdoor.
grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/113020871978942265
GrapheneOS (@[email protected])
A major example of how Telegram's opt-in secret chat encryption has gone seriously wrong before: https://words.filippo.io/dispatches/telegram-ecdh/. The practical near term threat is for the vast majority of chats without end-to-end encryption: 100% of Telegram group chats and the regular 1-to-1 chats.
only take halfhearted measures
Like what exactly?
Moderation that doesn’t do anything. Have terms and conditions that aren’t enforced. General ‘we care’ things that aren’t actually effective.
How do you moderate something you can’t know about?
I assume that proving they can’t know about it would be part of the defense if it goes to trial.
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.
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.
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.
Cryptagionismisogynist“Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army. You know what I mean?”
-Dimension20