• A_A@lemmy.world
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    4 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.”

      • sugartits@lemmy.world
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        4 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.

        • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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          4 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.

          • whereisk@lemmy.world
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            4 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
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              4 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?

          • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            No. You can say that about so many laws being made, but telegram simply hosts the most vile shit.

            • ravhall@discuss.online
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              4 months ago

              So you’re saying we should shut down any service that allows encrypted communication? Because any service that offers encrypted communication is going to be enticing to someone who commits crimes.

                • ravhall@discuss.online
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                  4 months ago

                  We should shut down any organization that doesn’t cooperate with police when people are breaking laws or just the laws you want them to help enforce?

                  • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
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                    4 months ago

                    No, that’s not what the person is saying in the slightest. Just read their comment again, it’s actually very clear.

      • XNX@slrpnk.net
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        4 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

      • einkorn@feddit.org
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        4 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.

        • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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          4 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.

          • lennybird@lemmy.world
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            4 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
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              4 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.

              • lennybird@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                I’m not sure I yet agree with that. People can have secure communications; that’s called meeting in person and in a private room. That line gets blurred with intercontinental mass-communication that ultimately is beyond the use of the average citizen and is more frequently utilized to nefarious ends. If the damage outweighs the benefits to society, then clearly a rational limit perhaps should be considered.

                Ultimately, what matters is respecting the house rules; and if the house rules of France were broken, why in the world would he travel there?

                • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                  4 months ago

                  That line gets blurred with intercontinental mass-communication that ultimately is beyond the use of the average citizen and is more frequently utilized to nefarious ends.

                  I reject the premise of your argument: secure communication is not more frequently used for nefarious purposes than non-nefarious purposes.

                  But even if I accepted that premise, I would still reject your argument. The underlying principle of your argument is misanthropy: humans are inherently evil. They will always choose evil, and therefore, they must never have an ability to effectively dissent from totalitarian control.

                  The dangers posed just by the French government greatly exceed the dangers posed by every single person who ever has or ever will “nefariously communicate” over every communications platform that has ever been or ever will be invented.

                  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    Yeah I haven’t committed to one side or the other yet. For me it’s less about misanthropy and more about transparency and accountability. The nature of the French democratic government means it is by extension held accountable to some albeit imperfect extent by the people. After all, the laws are by Transitive Property an extension of the people. But who holds accountable the sex trafficker that cannot be tracked? Conversely we can always say, “if you’re doing nothing wrong, then why do you need to hide it?” An age-old dilemma. There probably should be a reasonable middle-ground between privacy and accountability.

    • ravhall@discuss.online
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      4 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

      • stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com
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        4 months ago

        The catch-22 is that it’s impossible to make this tool freely available as-is without also enabling the child abuse. You can’t pry the apart, or at the very least nobody has managed to yet.

        So do we accept the abuse and let it proliferate, in the name of privacy? Or do we sacrifice privacy to make sure theres not a safe place for abusers?

        There is no answer where no one gets hurt. It sucks when the interests of good align with the interests of bad, and it’s a shit show one way or the other.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          4 months ago

          The catch-22 is that it’s impossible to make this tool freely available as-is without also enabling the child abuse.

          The catch-22 is that it’s impossible to make roads freely available as-is without also enabling road rage.

          The lack of implanted radio telemetry devices in our dicks “enables” rape.

          Basically, fuck off with that idiotic horseshit.

          • stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com
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            4 months ago

            But roads are heavily regulated and monitored. In fact, they’re directly managed by the government. If I experience road rage I can call the police with the license plate number and there’s databases of drivers with pictures and VINs etc. This is not the point you think you were making.

            the lack of implanted radio telemetry …

            Absolutely wild that you’re accusing others of idiotic horseshit

        • ravhall@discuss.online
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          4 months ago

          The Catholic Church abuses kids, so… ban that. Ban adults alone in a room with a child—something could happen. Oh, sometimes they get abuse at school… so, that’s gotta go. Oh no, they get abused on the internet… bye bye internet.

          You can’t say “this could be used to abuse a child” because you could abuse a child with a spoon, but I’ll be damned if I’ll eat soup with a fork.

          • stonerboner@lemmynsfw.com
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            4 months ago

            The Catholic Church should absolutely face dire consequences for the abuse they perpetuate and defend. Loss of tax status, prison for all abusers and those who assisted them in avoiding jail. You are making a great parallel.

            It’s not that it “could be” used to abuse a child, wtf. It’s that is has already been widely adopted. It’s currently happening. Same as the Catholic Church.

            You’re really trying hard to make this about “possible” crimes while ignoring the material ones.

            • ravhall@discuss.online
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              4 months ago

              No I’m not. Stopping private conversations will only hurt people. Kids will continue to be abused regardless. They were before Telegram, they will be after. Any “protect the children” by removing rights is never about the children.