Pavel Durov (Telegram CEO and founder) arrested in France

2

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  • edited August 26

    Reposting from Telegram Info English (unofficial news channel):

    Pavel Durov Suspected of 12 Crimes

    “Novaya Gazeta Europe” has obtained access (https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/08/26/v-prokurature-parizha-zaiavili-chto-durov-podozrevaetsia-v-12-prestupleniiakh-news) to a press release from the French prosecutor's office, highlighting several of the alleged offenses:

    • Complicity in administering an online platform for conducting illegal transactions by organized groups.
    • Refusal to provide law enforcement agencies with information or documents required for investigation and prosecution.
    • Complicity in storing child pornography.
    • Complicity in drug distribution.
    • Complicity in cybercrimes.
    • Complicity in fraud committed by organized criminal groups.

    TASS, a Russian news agency, reports (https://t.me/tass_agency/268578) that the investigation against Pavel Durov began on July 8. According to the agency's information, the entrepreneur may remain in custody until August 28.

    Emmanuel Macron was the first from the entire French government to issue an official statement (https://fxtwitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1828077245606342672), emphasizing the independence of the judiciary system and stressing that Pavel Durov's arrest is not politically motivated but is in accordance with the legal framework protecting citizens' rights.

    In response to a request from RIA Novosti, the European Commission said (https://t.me/rian_ru/258774) they are monitoring the situation and are ready to cooperate with French authorities. The United Nations does not yet have (https://t.me/rian_ru/258787) sufficient information. Previously, in response to an inquiry from TASS news agency, the European Commission declined (https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/66cc5abf9a79475d8db3b109) to comment: “This is a national investigation, we do not intend to comment on it, you should refer to the French authorities.”

  • bikegremlinbikegremlin ModeratorOGContent Writer

    @treesmokah said:

    https://x.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1828077245606342672 (archive)

    France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication

    Can't stop laughing, the very same people who criminalize speech and want to ban End to End Encryption.

    Samuel Paty for example, was beheaded by an Islamist invader and people were put in prison for talking about it. "World-renowned" organizations even talked about it. Actions of French police included intimidating 10 year old kids and accusing them of hecking racism.
    https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/11/france-is-not-the-free-speech-champion-it-says-it-is-2/
    Of course its not all, but gives you a pretty good idea how "democratic" France is.

    It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on the matter.

    Yeah, about these judges... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/world/europe/france-justice-minister-corruption-trial.html

    I don't have to repeat what I think of France and French "people".

    This topic is getting close to being locked (or moved to the rubbish bin), and posts like this one could result in a ban.

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  • The press release is now up (in French and English): https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files/2024-08/2024-08-26 - CP TELEGRAM .pdf

    Telegram Info English has also posted a response to it:

    What legal framework is Emmanuel Macron referring to?

    The full version of the press release from the French prosecutor's office has been published (https://www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr/sites/default/files/2024-08/2024-08-26 - CP TELEGRAM .pdf) online.

    The document is written in French, and @tginfo (https://t.me/tginfoen) editors used a translator to review it.

    Formally, the case has been initiated against an unidentified individual, who is largely accused of being an accomplice in various legal violations.

    The French government claims that Pavel Durov was arrested under the French legal framework. The purpose of the arrest is to question Durov.

    No charges have yet been filed against any identified individuals, as the case is still in its early stages. If the interrogation provides sufficient grounds, @tginfo (https://t.me/tginfoen) editors believe that Pavel Durov could move from being a witness to a suspect.

    If formal charges are not filed against the entrepreneur by August 28, he must be released from custody.

    In addition to the previously mentioned allegations, the full document includes the following accusations:

    • Money laundering from crimes or offenses as part of an organized group
    • Providing cryptographic services intended to ensure confidentiality without proper notification
    • Providing cryptographic tools not solely used for authentication or integrity checks without prior notification
    • Importing cryptographic tools not solely used for authentication or integrity checks without prior notification

  • @JeDaYoshi said: The purpose of the arrest is to question Durov.

    This indicates that if Durovs advocate is good - he will be released in no time.

  • edited August 28

    From Telegram Info English:

    Pavel Durov Has Been Charged and Must Remain in France

    Pavel Durov has been accused of participating in organized criminal activities, money laundering, and refusing to provide data upon the authorities' request. This information was disclosed (https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/08/28/pavlu-durovu-byli-prediavleny-obvineniia-po-piati-prestupleniiam-on-budet-otpushchen-na-svobodu-pod-zalog-i-sudebnyi-nadzor-news) in a press release from the French prosecutor's office, obtained by "Novaya Gazeta Europe".

    As a result of these charges, Durov is now under judicial supervision: he is prohibited from leaving France and must post a bail of 5 million euros. He will be released on bail but will be required to report to a police station in person twice a week.

    The list of charges includes six crimes:
    • Conspiracy to manage an online platform used for illegal transactions as part of an organized group;
    • Refusal to provide information or documents requested by authorized bodies necessary for lawful wiretapping;
    • Complicity in crimes by allowing Telegram access to users involved in distributing child pornography, trafficking drugs, fraud, and other criminal activities;
    • Money laundering resulting from crimes or offenses as part of an organized group;
    • Providing cryptographic services without proper declaration;
    • Importing cryptographic tools to ensure confidentiality without prior declaration.

    An article has been posted on NYTimes and BBC, too.

  • These people are not smart. Why are they not out protesting their government Youtube ban?
    All these propaganda support from the russian government makes me think they have some backdoor into telegram.

    Wait and see.

  • The irony is so thick that you could cut it with a knife ...

    "A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)

  • Bail is 5 mil euros for multi bilionaire :D . For him it is like lunch money.

  • @DanSummer said:

    These people are not smart. Why are they not out protesting their government Youtube ban?
    All these propaganda support from the russian government makes me think they have some backdoor into telegram.

    @angstrom said:
    The irony is so thick that you could cut it with a knife ...

    A thicker irony is that people, who declare others not smart, roar about Russian propaganda, and suspect the presence of backdoors, are unable to read the two-string-long caption under the photo saying "... a May Day rally in St. Petersburg, Russia, May 1, 2018" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    The thickest irony would be reading what Nova Gazeta and other "free and independent" newspapers like them were saying about Durov back then.
    One must be really smart for that though. Mentally strong © I would say.

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  • @DataRecovery said:

    @DanSummer said:

    These people are not smart. Why are they not out protesting their government Youtube ban?
    All these propaganda support from the russian government makes me think they have some backdoor into telegram.

    @angstrom said:
    The irony is so thick that you could cut it with a knife ...

    A thicker irony is that people, who declare others not smart, roar about Russian propaganda, and suspect the presence of backdoors, are unable to read the two-string-long caption under the photo saying "... a May Day rally in St. Petersburg, Russia, May 1, 2018" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    The thickest irony would be reading what Nova Gazeta and other "free and independent" newspapers like them were saying about Durov back then.
    One must be really smart for that though. Mentally strong © I would say.

    I just found the image interesting and posted it including the source.
    I have red the source previously and there was nothing related to the image in the article story.

    Personally, I am not happy for French globalist communists trying to limit people freedom of speech, under whatever 'saving the world, fighting crime, go go Power Rangers!' pretense they are using.

    Luckily, we have nice platforms like Google Chat, Facebook, Viber and WeChat, which value users privacy and freedom, so we don't have to rely on Telegram or god forbid Signal. Oh wait WHA-

  • bikegremlinbikegremlin ModeratorOGContent Writer

    @Janevski said:

    @DataRecovery said:

    @DanSummer said:

    These people are not smart. Why are they not out protesting their government Youtube ban?
    All these propaganda support from the russian government makes me think they have some backdoor into telegram.

    @angstrom said:
    The irony is so thick that you could cut it with a knife ...

    A thicker irony is that people, who declare others not smart, roar about Russian propaganda, and suspect the presence of backdoors, are unable to read the two-string-long caption under the photo saying "... a May Day rally in St. Petersburg, Russia, May 1, 2018" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    The thickest irony would be reading what Nova Gazeta and other "free and independent" newspapers like them were saying about Durov back then.
    One must be really smart for that though. Mentally strong © I would say.

    Personally, I am not happy for French globalist communists

    Looks like (liberal) capitalism to me. Not a "c" of communism.

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  • @DataRecovery said:

    @DanSummer said:

    These people are not smart. Why are they not out protesting their government Youtube ban?
    All these propaganda support from the russian government makes me think they have some backdoor into telegram.

    @angstrom said:
    The irony is so thick that you could cut it with a knife ...

    A thicker irony is that people, who declare others not smart, roar about Russian propaganda, and suspect the presence of backdoors, are unable to read the two-string-long caption under the photo saying "... a May Day rally in St. Petersburg, Russia, May 1, 2018" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    Fair enough

    I'll just note that I was commenting on a photo that @Janevski posted from the newspaper in question, and although I glanced briefly at the article and saw that the article was from 28 August, I admittedly missed the caption of the photo, which said that the photo was from 01 May 2018. (It's possible that @Janevski missed this detail as well)

    Frankly, I fault the author of the article for including that old photo at this time, which seems like a poor attempt at sensationalism

    In light of this, I'd like to retract and to apologize for my comment about the thick irony, which was based on the (incorrect) assumption that the photo was from a few days ago

    (Unfortunately, sensationalist tendencies in journalism are everywhere these days)

    "A single swap file or partition may be up to 128 MB in size. [...] [I]f you need 256 MB of swap, you can create two 128-MB swap partitions." (M. Welsh & L. Kaufman, Running Linux, 2e, 1996, p. 49)

  • @cybertech said:
    probably chipping away at WhatsApp market share.

    if you noticed WA has lots of "new" features that seems like TG has always had.

    And WA has a much larger critical mass of users.

  • Durov has posted for the first time since his arrest

    ❤️ Thanks everyone for your support and love!

    Last month I got interviewed by police for 4 days after arriving in Paris. I was told I may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram.

    This was surprising for several reasons: 

    1. Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests. Its email address has been publicly available for anyone in the EU who googles “Telegram EU address for law enforcement”. 

    2. The French authorities had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance. As a French citizen, I was a frequent guest at the French consulate in Dubai. A while ago, when asked, I personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.

    3. If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself. Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach. Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools. 

    Establishing the right balance between privacy and security is not easy. You have to reconcile privacy laws with law enforcement requirements, and local laws with EU laws. You have to take into account technological limitations. As a platform, you want your processes to be consistent globally, while also ensuring they are not abused in countries with weak rule of law. We’ve been committed to engaging with regulators to find the right balance. Yes, we stand by our principles: our experience is shaped by our mission to protect our users in authoritarian regimes. But we’ve always been open to dialogue.

    Sometimes we can’t agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country. We've done it many times. When Russia demanded we hand over “encryption keys” to enable surveillance, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Russia. When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Iran. We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money. We are driven by the intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly in places where these rights are violated.

    All of that does not mean Telegram is perfect. Even the fact that authorities could be confused by where to send requests is something that we should improve. But the claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue. We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports (like this (http://t.me/stopCA) or this (https://t.me/isiswatch) ). We have direct hotlines with NGOs to process urgent moderation requests faster.

    However, we hear voices saying that it’s not enough. Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard. We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon. 

    I hope that the events of August will result in making Telegram — and the social networking industry as a whole — safer and stronger. Thanks again for your love and memes 🙏

    https://t.me/durov/342

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  • I'm sure this is pure coheincindence

    Fuck this 24/7 internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit.

  • @Encoders said:
    I'm sure this is pure coheincindence

    Do you have a link to this channel?

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  • edited September 7

    @Encoders said: I'm sure this is pure coheincindence

    It always is, with these (((people))).

    @huginn said: Do you have a link to this channel?

    https://t.me/AntiPlumbers
    https://ddosecrets.com/

    tldr; organization larping as wikileaks 2.0, ran by transgenders(they really want you to know about it, putting flags and shit like that everywhere, i wouldnt care otherwise), founded by a convicted pedophile and drug trafficker Thomas White

  • edited September 23

    More activity from Telegram to fix their image in eyes of Governments

    🔎 Search on Telegram is more powerful than in other messaging apps because it allows users to find public channels and bots. Unfortunately, this feature has been abused by people who violated our Terms of Service to sell illegal goods.

    💪 Over the last few weeks, a dedicated team of moderators, leveraging AI, has made Telegram Search much safer. All the problematic content we identified in Search is no longer accessible. If you still manage to find something unsafe or illegal in Telegram Search, please report it to us via @SearchReport.

    🚫 To further deter criminals from abusing Telegram Search, we have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, ensuring they are consistent across the world. We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.

    ☝️ These measures should discourage criminals. Telegram Search is meant for finding friends and discovering news, not for promoting illegal goods. We won't let bad actors jeopardize the integrity of our platform for almost a billion users.

    https://t.me/durov/345

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  • @treesmokah said: More activity

    And that's how pompastic ideas like "private and secure" becomes "heavily moderated, filtered and monitored by XYZ". Now it is time for Signal to be scrutinized. And one day we will just return to good old jabber xmpp.

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  • YmpkerYmpker OGContent Writer

    Using a self hosted Snikket (XMPP) instance with some friends who value privacy. Happy that I set it up a while ago for testing.

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    @legendary said:

    @treesmokah said: More activity

    And that's how pompastic ideas like "private and secure" becomes "heavily moderated, filtered and monitored by XYZ". Now it is time for Signal to be scrutinized. And one day we will just return to good old jabber xmpp.

    I'll just wait by the big oak tree in the park to look for the crumpled up paper wedged between the bark that was left by a friend. After several minutes with the cipher to make sense of the jumbled text, I realize, it's a meme.

    [ IncogNET LLC ] - Privacy By Design
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  • @MannDude said:

    @legendary said:

    @treesmokah said: More activity

    And that's how pompastic ideas like "private and secure" becomes "heavily moderated, filtered and monitored by XYZ". Now it is time for Signal to be scrutinized. And one day we will just return to good old jabber xmpp.

    I'll just wait by the big oak tree in the park to look for the crumpled up paper wedged between the bark that was left by a friend. After several minutes with the cipher to make sense of the jumbled text, I realize, it's a meme.

    Actually memes are illegal in Europe, smuggling illegal memes is worse than smuggling drugs.

  • edited September 27

    Durov had been spread widely inside the French prison, Telegram is becoming government shit.
    Now just Signal remains from the publicly available and easy to use private messaging platforms.

    Yet i wonder what would he have done, if he was sent to a Turkish prison instead...

  • @Janevski said: Yet i wonder what would he have done, if he was sent to a Turkish prison instead...

    He'd pay his way out, I don't think Turkish Govt has an issue with Telegram.
    If anything, they would be after his money.

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  • AuroraZeroAuroraZero ModeratorHosting Provider

    Okay guys after numerous "Flags" on this post I am issuing a warning keep the politics out of it. Anymore and I will close this down and sink it so low @bikegremlin won't be able to necro it.

    Also don't ask where when type things I won't answer.

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  • @AuroraZero said:
    Okay guys after numerous "Flags" on this post I am issuing a warning keep the politics out of it. Anymore and I will close this down and sink it so low @bikegremlin won't be able to necro it.

    Also don't ask where when type things I won't answer.

    Wait what? No, serously? Which post?

  • AuroraZeroAuroraZero ModeratorHosting Provider

    @Janevski said:

    @AuroraZero said:
    Okay guys after numerous "Flags" on this post I am issuing a warning keep the politics out of it. Anymore and I will close this down and sink it so low @bikegremlin won't be able to necro it.

    Also don't ask where when type things I won't answer.

    Wait what? No, serously? Which post?

    Yer making my eye twitch don't do that

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  • @AuroraZero said:

    @Janevski said:

    @AuroraZero said:
    Okay guys after numerous "Flags" on this post I am issuing a warning keep the politics out of it. Anymore and I will close this down and sink it so low @bikegremlin won't be able to necro it.

    Also don't ask where when type things I won't answer.

    Wait what? No, serously? Which post?

    Yer making my eye twitch don't do that

    Okay, i'll get the chickums outside the truck. :relieved:

  • rootroot OG
    edited September 27

    @AuroraZero said:
    Okay guys after numerous "Flags" on this post I am issuing a warning keep the politics out of it. Anymore and I will close this down and sink it so low @bikegremlin won't be able to necro it.

    Also don't ask where when type things I won't answer.

    Look around you mate. The world is on the brink of World War 3 with 2 hot wars ready to escalate and with global alliances forming before our eyes. One can not avoid but correlate everything with politics - which is the elephant in the room.

    Yes, this is a community without politics, but all this mess and unpacking of controversial conversations inevitably gets us there at some point, so please have some tolerance. We are all trying to avoid the subject without discussing parties, politicians, governments, banks, left-wing ideologies, Trump, MAGA, BLM and whatnot. We even avoid digging into Great Firewall of China (which in theory is technical, but political in foundations) even though many MJJ would love to brainstorm more ways of bypassing it.

    We all want peace, even global peace; if there would be a world war, this place would not even exist anymore. We should all make love, not war.

    As such, please take a break and have some Snickers - the chocolate bar (not sneakers as in shoes, since nobody wants to kick someone out for their political views or desires of peace and freedom).

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