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scotty79 2y ago
If law enforcement asked them nicely for access I bet they wouldn't refuse. Why take responsibility for something if you can just offload it to law enforcement? The issue is law enforcement doesn't want that kind of access. Because they have no manpower to go after criminals. This would increase their caseload hundredfold within a month. So they prefer to punish the entity that created this honeypot. So it goes away and along with it the crime will go back underground where police can pretend it doesn't happen. Telegram is basically punished for existing and not doing law enforcement job for them.
- Almondsetat 2y ago
  >I bet they wouldn't refuse Apparently, they have. Sorry for your bet.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    Maybe they didn't ask nicely. Or they asked for something else. There's literally zero drawback for service provider to provide secret access to the raw data that they hold to law enforcement. You'd be criminally dumb if you didn't do it. Literally criminally. I bet that if they really asked, they pretty much asked Telegram to build them one click creator that would print them court ready documents about criminals on their platform so that law enforcement can just click a button and yell "we got one!" to the judge.
    - cbsmith 2y ago
      > There's literally zero drawback for service provider to provide secret access to the raw data that they hold to law enforcement. That's not true. For one things, it is expensive. For another, there's a chance people will find out and you'll lose all your criminal customers... they might even seek retribution. > I bet that if they really asked, they pretty much asked Telegram to build them one click creator that would print them court ready documents about criminals on their platform so that law enforcement can just click a button and yell "we got one!" to the judge. You seem to believe, without having looked at the publicly available facts of the matter, that the problem is law enforcement didn't say "pretty please". The fact of the matter is that they've refused proper law enforcement requests repeatedly; if anyone has been rude about it, it's been Durov.
c0mbonat0r 2y ago
if its not not end-to-end encrypted, what does that mean? whats the method that govts access these messages?
- mr_mitm 2y ago
  You can simply join those channels. Getting an invite is not hard, or even unnecessary, from what I hear.
- ianburrell 2y ago
  End-to-end encrypted means that the server doesn’t have access to the keys. When server does have access, they could read messages to filter them or give law enforcement access.
hcfman 2y ago
Slightly offtopic. Why would telegram have chosen to not make it e2ee like this? I'm trying to see the motivation for this?
- int_19h 2y ago
  Because people generally want features like persistent chat history across all devices to "just work".

1oooqooq 2y ago

Read the founder exit letter. whatsapp is definitely not e2e encrypted for all features. You leak basic metadata (who talked to who at what time). You leak 100% of messages with "business account", which are another way to say "e2e you->meta and then meta relays the message e2e to N reciptients handling that business account". Then there's the all the links and images which are sent to e2e you->meta, meta stores the image/link once, sends you back a hash, you send that hash e2e to your contact. there's so many leaks it's not even fun to poke fun at them. And I pity anyone who is fool enough to think meta products are e2e anything.

switch007 2y ago
Exactly. Another case of a business hijacking a term and abusing it to describe something else.
KaiserPro 2y ago
> with "business account", which are another way to say "e2e you->meta and then meta relays actually its a nominated end point, and then from there its up to the business. It works out better for meta, because they aren't liable for the content if something goes wrong. (ie a secret is leaked, or PII gets out.) Great for GDPR because as they aren't acting as processor of PII they are less likley to be taken to court. Whatsapp has about the same level of practical "privacy" (encryption is a loaded word here) as iMessage. The difference is, there are many more easy ways to report nasty content in whatsapp, which reported ~1 million cases of CSAM a year vs apples' 267. (not 200k, just 267. Thats the whole of apple. https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/2023-reports-by-esp.pdf https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/202...) Getting the content of normal messages is pretty hard, getting the content of a link, much easier. Its not signal, but then its never meant to be.
- MertsA 2y ago
  iMessage is not on the same playing field as Whatsapp and Signal. Apple has full control over key distribution and virtually no one verifies Apple isn't acting as a MitM. Whatsapp and e2e encrypted messenger force you to handle securely linking multiple devices to your account and gives you the option to verify that Meta isn't providing bogus public keys to break the e2e encryption. https://engineering.fb.com/2023/04/13/security/whatsapp-key-transparency/ https://engineering.fb.com/2023/04/13/security/whatsapp-key-... For iMessage, Apple can just add a fake iDevice to your account and now iMessage will happily encrypt everything to that new key as well and there's zero practical visibility to the user. If it was a targeted attack and not blanket surveillance then there's no way the target is going to notice. You can open up the keychain app and check for yourself but unless you regularly do this and compare the keys between all your Apple products you can't be sure. I don't even know how to do that on iPhone.
- 1oooqooq 2y ago
  never thought about using csam image hash alerts as a measure of platform data leaks (and popularity as i doubt bots will be sharing them). that's very smart. and show that fb eclipse everyone by a insane margin it's scary! about your point on business accounts, the documents i reviewed included dialog tree bots managed by meta. not sure if not having that change things... but in that case it was spelled out that meta is the recipient
  - KaiserPro 2y ago
    Its more a UX/org thing. In iMessage how do you report a problematic message? you can't easily do it. In whatsapp, the report button is on the same menu that you use to reply/hide/pin/react. Once you do that, it sends the offending message to meta, unencrypted. To me, that seems like a reasonable choice. Even if you have "proper" e2ee, it would still allow rooting out of nasty/illegal shit. those reports are from real people, rather than automated CSAM hashing on encrpyted messages. (although I suspect there is some tracking before and after.) Its the same with instagram/facebook. The report button is right there. I don't agree with FB on many things, but this one I think they've made the right choice.

znpy 2y ago

> Isn't Whatsapp supposed to be end-to-end encrypted? It is supposedly end-to-end encrypted. And in a shallow way. Also the app is closed source and you can't develop your own. It's basically end-to-end-trust-me-bro-level encrypted.

zo1 2y ago
I'm more disturbed by the fact that on HN we have 0 devs confirming or denying this thing about FBs internals wrt encryption. We know there are many devs that work there that are also HN users. But I've yet to see one of them chime in on this discussion. That should scare a lot of us.
- Illotus 2y ago
  I find it pretty ridiculous to assume that any dev would comment on the inner workings of their employers software in any way beyond what is publicly available anyway. I certainly wouldn't.
  - zo1 2y ago
    Why not? If I think my employer is doing something unethical, I certainly would. That would be the moral thing to do. This tells me most of the people implementing this are either too-scared of the consequences, or they think what they're implementing is ethical and/or the right thing to do. Again, both are scary thoughts we should be highly concerned about in a healthy society that talks about these things. One other potential explanation: FB and these large behemoths have compartmentalized the implementations of these features so much that no one can speak authoritatively about it's encryption.
    - mr_toad 2y ago
      It’d be quicker just to say when Facebook did something ethical.
    - znpy 2y ago
      > That would be the moral thing to do. The simplest explanation: when peope start at facebook/meta they leave their ethics at the door on the first day in the role. It’s cynical, but does explain a lot: many people will pick the fat paycheque over their ethics any day, particularly in the US (where money is king)
    - xorcist 2y ago
      You are talking about a company whose primary business idea it is to lock up as much of the world's information as possible behind their login. The secondary business idea it to tie their users logins to their real world identities, to the point of repeatedly locking out users who they live under threat and refuse to disclose their real name.
- ahahahahah 2y ago
  There's not really much point in trying to convince flat earthers of the truth.
  - zo1 2y ago
    I'm not sure I understand the analogy. In your analogy, who are the flat-earthers?

asdf6969 2y ago

Why don’t they arrest telecom CEOs for allowing terrorists to have uncensored phone calls with each other?

layer8 2y ago

How do you propose jurisdiction to work without judging the truth?

MacsHeadroom 2y ago
It is government's role to protect speech, not to censor.
- layer8 2y ago
  It’s also the government’s role to take measures against harmful actions. Personal rights end where they start to harm others, or harm society in general. They are not an absolute, and always have to be balanced against other concerns. However, my GP comment was against the claim that “The state has no business judging the truth”. That claim as stated is absurd, because judging what is true is necessary for a state being able to function in the interest of its people. The commenter likely didn’t mean what they wrote. One can argue what is harmful and what isn’t, and I certainly don’t agree with many things that are being over-moderated. But please discuss things on that level, and don’t absolutize “free speech”, or argue that authorities shouldn’t care about what is true or not.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    > Personal rights end where they start to harm others, or harm society in general This empty saying is used to justify basically any violation of civil liberty, because it is unprincipled and open ended, so it can be used to respond to any action anyone can take > The commenter likely didn’t mean what they wrote No, I meant what I wrote. The government has no business judging the truth. What is the Russian disinformation from earlier in this thread? For example, is it discussing the illegal 2014 coup in Ukraine that ousted a democratically elected government that was friendly to Russia? To EU overlords, discussing that event is “spreading disinformation” even though it is factually true and deserving of discussion. It’s a great example of political censorship being a problem. > don’t absolutize “free speech”, or argue that authorities shouldn’t care about what is true or not. Free speech should be absolutized in day to day discussion, even if there are very limited exceptions in the law. It’s when there is permission from society to limit speech that populations end up propagandized and suppressed by whoever has power over them. That’s what is happening here, where people are coming up with absurd mental gymnastics to justify France’s authoritarian actions. > judging what is true is necessary for a state being able to function in the interest of its people This sounds like support for Soviet or China style control of speech, and labeling of anything that power disagrees with as misinformation. Authorities shouldn’t care about what is true or not, because they are biased and corrupted by their agendas and ideologies and incentives. The free exchange of information is foundational to any free and democratic society. That’s what is necessary for a state to be able to function in the interest of its people.
  - MacsHeadroom 2y ago
    The state absolutely has no place obstructing speech. The state can judge truth without censoring; and of course it should. I suspect the other commenter isn't a censorship apologist and meant what they said. But feel free to decide what is likely true for the rest of us.

walterbell 2y ago

https://restoreprivacy.com/telegram-sharing-user-data/ https://restoreprivacy.com/telegram-sharing-user-data/ > the operators of the messenger app Telegram have released user data to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in several cases. According to SPIEGEL information, this was data from suspects in the areas of child abuse and terrorism. In the case of violations of other criminal offenses, it is still difficult for German investigators to obtain information from Telegram, according to security circles. https://threema.ch/en/blog/posts/chat-apps-government-ties-and-transparency https://threema.ch/en/blog/posts/chat-apps-government-ties-a... > two popular chat services have accused each other of having undisclosed government ties. According to Signal president Meredith Whittaker, Telegram is not only “notoriously insecure” but also “routinely cooperates with governments behind the scenes.” Telegram founder Pavel Durov, on the other hand, claims that “the US government spent $3 million to build Signal’s encryption” and Signal’s current leaders are “activists used by the US state department for regime change abroad.”

medion 2y ago
Signal built by the US government? Is there any more actual information on this claim?
- walterbell 2y ago
  Signal's early funding source is public record, https://www.opentech.fund/projects-we-support/supported-projects/signal-open-whisper-systems/ https://www.opentech.fund/projects-we-support/supported-proj... Double Ratchet [1] is also used by WhatsApp (2B+ users) and IETF MLS [2] standard for E2EE group messaging. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Ratchet_Algorithm [2] https://www.ietf.org/blog/mls-secure-and-usable-end-to-end-encryption/ https://www.ietf.org/blog/mls-secure-and-usable-end-to-end-e...
  - wildzzz 2y ago
    The US government likes funding encrypted communication channels because it helps destabilize the kinds of dictators that eavesdrop on dissidents.
    - sterlind 2y ago
      and it's useful for tradecraft. I think NSA uses Tor to some degree, for example.
      - bdw5204 2y ago
        I suspect most Tor exit nodes are controlled by the US government and/or its allied governments. It doesn't make much sense for anybody else to run an exit node because your IP gets banned by much of the internet and you get unwanted visits from law enforcement.
        ChainOfFools 2y ago
        "What kinds of people operate tor exit nodes and why do they do it" is one of those questions that I know I'm not even supposed to admit being curious about, let alone ask, in the company of people who are most capable of accurately answering.
        sirsinsalot 2y ago
        I operate one. The sole aim is to enable the Tor network to exist. I believe in the principle of private communication.
      - duped 2y ago
        Tor was invented within the US military and was sponsored by the state department.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    I don't understand. Nothing in this comment is about the US government funding Signal's encryption.
    - walterbell 2y ago
      Click link -> About -> About our funding
  - lttlrck 2y ago
    funded != built ?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

psychoslave 2y ago

This comment can itself be said to take for granted the naive view of what law it exposes. Law is a way to enforce a policy on massive scale, sure. But there is no guarantee that it enforces things that are aiming the best equilibrium of everyone flourishing in society. And even when it does, laws are done by humans, so unless they results from a highly dynamic process that gather feedback from those on which it applies and strive to improve over time, there is almost no chance laws can meet such an ambitious goal. What if Napster was a symptom, but not of ill behavior? Supposing that unconditional sharing cultural heritage is basically the sane way to go can be backed on solid anthropological evidences, over several hundred millennia. What if information monopolies is the massive ethical atrocity, enforced by corrupted governments which were hijacked by various sociopaths whose chief goal is to parasite as much as possible resources from societies? Horrendous crimes, yes there are many out there, often commissioned by governments who will shamelessly throw outrageous lies at there citizens to transform them into cannon fodders and other atrocities. Regarding fair retribution of most artists out there, we would certainly be better served with universal unconditional net revenue for everyone. The current fame lottery is just as fair as a national bingo as a way to make a decent career.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
thomassmith65 2y ago
You know, I agree with nearly all of these points. I even think there is something to your point about Napster 'being a symptom' but (as people love to say around here) it's 'orthogonal' to the original point I wanted to make. Few things would please me more than to live under a system where arts and culture were freely available to all, and artists didn't have to starve in the process. It doesn't strike me as far-fetched either; it wouldn't take much to improve on the system we currently have. But my original point was that, given the society we actually had when Napster came along, it was unreasonable for Napster unilaterally to decide for everyone else that existing laws and expectations no longer mattered.
ithkuil 2y ago
> Horrendous crimes, yes there are many out there, often commissioned by governments who will shamelessly throw outrageous lies at there citizens to transform them into cannon fodders and other atrocities. Yes, this happened, is happening and will happen. I wonder however if the word "often" may perhaps be misleading or even completely wrong. If you pick one random victim of a horrendous crime today in a western society. Feel free to pick the minority most hated by that society. What is the likelihood that that crime was commissioned by the government? It's more likely domestic violence, trafficking etc done by fellow community members. Sure there are examples of governments shooting civilian planes in the sky or ferries in the and covering up. And it's perfectly sensible to be outraged when that happens. But jumping to the conclusion that "the government" just does those things as a matter of routine doesn't sound right to me. I don't buy it. It smells conspiratorial thinking and requires extraordinary proof.

konart 2y ago
What about the server? Telegram is not strictly e2e.
- Timber-6539 2y ago
  An "open source server"... are you trolling?
  - vilunov 2y ago
    > Show me an example of an "open source server". XMPP and Matrix services run open source software such as ejabberd
    - Timber-6539 2y ago
      Running open source software != "Open source server"
      - foresto 2y ago
        If you bothered to look, you would find that both of the examples given are open-source servers. You might then deduce that you misunderstood the comment to which you replied.
        Timber-6539 2y ago
        You cannot audit the system/service logs for those servers, neither can you audit the hardware running those servers, nor the internet providers who can snoop on the traffic et al... That's the argument behind "Open source server" in case it wasn't clear.
        xorcist 2y ago
        This might be where the misunderstanding is. This software is indeed server software that anyone can run, and the global network consists of servers run by many independent entities, in many cases with full control of the hardware. One of these entities can be you, and it is completely possible to run from home. The integrity of your conversation with someone would then depend on both your endpoints, clients, and the respective server. Just like email, but for chat. There is no single gatekeeper who is allowed to use the network.
        Timber-6539 2y ago
        No misunderstanding at all. The argument is very clear. > global network consists of servers run by many independent entities This is not the case for all the popular chat apps including Signal which uses centralized servers which they run themselves. They clearly see little benefit from this distributed independent server model. And even that doesn't mean the server is open source. As I explained earlier if you cannot audit the physical server you are connected to, claiming it's open source is useless. FYI that's literally how the term open source was used in this context! > The integrity of your conversation with someone would then depend on both your endpoints, clients, and the respective server. Client to client verification simply works and eliminates the need to also "verify" the server which if compromised introduces an even higher risk of contamination in the trust model (too many co-dependent functions are delegated to the server), not to mention collusion in establishing integrity of yet another device that we need to trust.
  - konart 2y ago
    Not sure what part of my comment amused you so much. An IM platform server can be open sourced. Just like any kind of software. It's just a matter of publishing your code and, preferably making it possible to verify that the service your users are connecting to is build using the same published code.
    - mr_mitm 2y ago
      How could you possibly verify what code they are running server-side? Typically, the way it goes is that you implement e2ee such that even a fully compromised server cannot read the clients messages, publish the client's source code, and build it yourself or use reproducible builds. That ladt part is where you can criticize Signal. Whether they publish the server code is mostly irrelevant unless you want to run a separate messenger infrastructure.
      - 3np 2y ago
        > unless you want to run a separate messenger infrastructure. Or if you S2S federate with the upstream server. Which is a core differentiator of XMPP and Matrix. Signal server(s) notably supported proper federation during their initial growth-phase but famously closed it off ("The ecosystem is moving"). Similar story as Google [Chat/Talk/Hangouts], which did federate over XMPP before they closed that down years ago.
- Zambyte 2y ago
  Huh, I was going to point out that the Signal server isn't Free Software either, since for a while it wasn't being published, but it seems they have gotten back into publishing it. https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server
  - twelve40 2y ago
    while it's amazing for them to keep maintaining it, as the person mentioned down the thread, it's hard to know what they are actually running, right? and it's not a lot of work to patch this or clone/branch as necessary before deploying. Oh well, i already resigned that a part of my life will be run by someone else by now.
  - jjav 2y ago
    Publishing server code provides no assurance of anything (although it is still nice, for other reasons) since nobody can know if what they (for any "they") run in production is the same as the public source. Open client code and documented protoccols are much more important. If you can compile your own client from open source code and it works fine, then you can know for sure what you're sending to the server.

BeetleB 2y ago

> We have no way to know this Well, other than his arrest ;-)

calgarymicro 2y ago
The arrest tells us that he said no to one country, it doesn't say much about all the others.
- smt88 2y ago
  Russian govt officials are protesting his arrest. When an authoritarian govt is calling for the release of someone who runs a "private" messenger, it suggests they have a back door. Otherwise they tend to oppose all private messaging.
  - kombine 2y ago
    No, there is no logical link between the two events. Russian govt can protest that for propaganda reasons: to make a point that Western governments are restricting freedom of speech.
    - sweeter 2y ago
      They're hitting that Uno Reverse card. Tbf, the US does a LOT of the stuff that we openly criticize Russia and China for. Which, I would hope that people have enough insight to recognize that this is a bad thing across the board. The only people who get hurt and face consequences from this kind of a thing are the citizens.
      - averageRoyalty 2y ago
        This is a key perspective people fail to take into account. We've been conditioned by movies, books etc to think everyone fits into these black and white "good and bad" categories. Most western countries do horrific things we do not find acceptable, but when we do find out we hand wave it away because they're the "good guys".
      - azinman2 2y ago
        Can always count on HN for whataboutism. Good thing it’s legal to say so in the countries that dominate its user base.
        celdon25 2y ago
        They don't tend to care until large enough quantities of people start listening despite whatever filters (i.e. de-ranking social media posts) and countermeasures (i.e. cable news assets) are put in place before it gets to that point. Then they very likely have the ability to label it as misinformation and find a legal reason to prosecute under a number of broad categories: https://www.thefederalcriminalattorneys.com/false-information https://www.thefederalcriminalattorneys.com/false-informatio... It came very close to this during Covid, and maybe once or twice since then. You're free to say what you want, and everyone is free to ignore you if what you say doesn't jive with "common sense".
    - kennedywm 2y ago
      No. What would be illogical is to assume that because Russia might be motivated to protest for the sake of propaganda, that it is not also, or instead, motivated by not wanting to lose access to a hypothetical backdoor.
    - miohtama 2y ago
      Durov was robbed from his previous startup at a gunpoint by Putin’s thugs, and then he had to escape, so it is unlikely Durov co-operates with Russia: https://x.com/moo9000/status/1827651335476461813 https://x.com/moo9000/status/1827651335476461813
      - JetSpiegel 2y ago
        https://twitter.com/AmbRusFrance/status/1827628382617481284 https://twitter.com/AmbRusFrance/status/1827628382617481284 Well the embassy is complaining about this arrest, so maybe that's just counter-intelligence.
      - redthnb 2y ago
        That's just the half of the story and Pavel isn't an innocent victim
        petre 2y ago
        So what's the full story then?
  - dawnerd 2y ago
    Russia was also using it for “secret” chats and are probably terrified what could be exposed.
  - Nux 2y ago
    Or they want to make it seem as such..
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- squarefoot 2y ago
  I don't completely buy the fact that he was arrested because he didn't cooperate with authorities. World Police forces have an history of infiltrating criminal groups and gaining their trust; planting backdoors isn't the only way they can investigate people. Also, this way they're yelling loud to these people "hurry! pick another platform!". And then, he is also on Putin's wanted list; his arrest could one day turn him into a valuable bargaining chip.
HumblyTossed 2y ago
What exactly do you think this tells you?
mihaaly 2y ago
I did not see in the list the 'did not allow us adding backdoor to their service' charge. Did I miss something?
- miohtama 2y ago
  This is one of the charges (according to French press): refusing to give French police unfettered access to Telegram user data and moderation. It’s French national law, not EU (though the EU will copy for sure). https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/whats-going-frances-online-hate-speech-law https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/whats-going-frances-onl... Also now they have added “because people watch football matches illegally on Telegram”. So they are going to throw everything at kitchen sink at Durov, probably also national security issues because anti-French political groups use Telegram in Africa. https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1827767824858931319 https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1827767824858931319
  - mihaaly 2y ago
    It is still not backdoor, sorry, you are completely mistaken. They came - tried to come - in the front door openly (the expression of back door means completely different, just look it up and you will see) to catch criminals, doing well known and prominent criminal activity, but the Telegram decided to protect the criminals instead. You can try to smear in whatever imaginative reasons behind when the reason are in the front of your face, like it or not, it does not matter if you like it or not! Also how much people like the Telegram because 'it is soo user friendly and pretty', not in pair with serious crimes committed and aided there, completely not! Also it is still the investigative phase but the suspicion is warranted completely. I seriously do not understand low moral people shielding those helping criminals, do you really not knowing what are you doing, seriously, just because there is a - misleadingly presented - popular service there? Really? Very worrying the moral state of social media user masses.
hcfman 2y ago
Which is principle is meaningless

tialaramex 2y ago

TV drama tends to give people the wrong idea. Your lawyers aren't allowed to aid you with doing any crimes, they're just advocates.

coliveira 2y ago
This happens in real life all the time, just look at Trump's lawyer.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  And they get suspended or disbarred as well as referred to LE.
peoplefromibiza 2y ago
Please do not assume When in doubt, ask. I was replying to any plausible attempt to minimize bad actors from using your service I mentioned criminal lawyers because their job is literally to "offer their services to criminals or to people accused of being criminals" and they have no obligation whatsoever to minimize bad actors from using your service, in fact bad actors are usually their regular clientele and they are free to attract as many criminals as they like in any legal way they like. Helping a criminal to commit a crime it's an entirely different thing and anyway it must be proved in a court, it's not something that can be assumed on the basis of allegations (their clients are criminal, so they must be criminal too). That's why in that famous TV drama Jessy Pinkam says "You dont want a criminal lawyer, you want a Criminal. Lawyer.". The premise of this story is that Telegram offers a service which is very similar to safe deposit boxes, the bank it's not supposed to know what you keep in there hence they are not held responsible if they are used for illegal activities. In other words most of the times people do not know and are not required to know if they are dealing with criminals, but, even if they did, there are no legal reasons to avoid offering them your services other than to avoid problems and/or on moral grounds (which are perfectly understandable motives, but are still not a requirement to operate a business). Take bars, diners, restaurants, gas stations or hospitals, are they supposed to deny their services? And how would they exactly should take actions to minimize bad actors from using your service? If someone goes to a restaurant and talks about committing a crime, is the owner abetting the crime? I guess probably not, unless it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt that he actually is. It doesn't matter if it's true or false it only matters what the justice system can prove.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > The premise of this story is that Telegram offers a service which is very similar to safe deposit boxes, the bank it's not supposed to know what you keep in there hence they are not held responsible if they are used for illegal activities. This is the issue. Web platforms DO NOT have that kind of legal protection - be it Telegram, Instagram, or Hacker News. Safe Harbor from liability in return for Content Moderation is expected from all internet platforms as part of Section 230 (USA), Directive 2000/31/EC (EU), Defamation Act 2023 (UK), etc. As part of that content moderation, it is EXPECTED that you crack down on CP, Illicit Drug Transactions, Threats of Violence, and other felonies. Also, that is NOT how bank deposit boxes work. All banks are expected to KYC if they wish to transact in every major currency (Dollar, Euro, Pound, Yen, Yuan, Rupee, etc) and if they cannot, they are expected to close that account or be cut off from transacting in that country's currency. > That's why in that famous TV drama Jessy Pinkam says "You dont want a criminal lawyer, you want a Criminal. Lawyer.". First, it's Pinkman BIATCH not Pinkam. And secondly, Jimmy McGill (aka Saul Goodman) was previously suspended by the NM Bar Association barely 5 years before Breaking Bad, and was then disbarred AND held criminally liable when SHTF towards the finale.
  - peoplefromibiza 2y ago
    > This is the issue. Web platforms DO NOT have that kind of legal protection - be it Telegram, Instagram, or Hacker News. e2e encryption cannot be broken though > Safe Harbor from liability in return for Content Moderation is expected from all internet platforms as part of Section 230 (USA), Directive 2000/31/EC (EU), Defamation Act 2023 (UK), etc. I have no sympathy for Durov and I don't care if they throw away the keys, but what about Mullvad then? I guess that a service whose main feature is secrecy and anonymity should at least provide anonymity and secrecy. > CP, Illicit Drug Transactions, Threats of Violence, and other felonies you understand better than me that the request is absurd all of this is in theory, in practice nobody can actually do it for real, the vast majority of illicit clear text content are honeypots created by agents of various agencies to threaten the platforms and force them to cooperate. nothing's new here, but let's not pretend that this is to prevent crimes. also: the allegations against Telegram are that they do not cooperate, but we don't actually know if they really crack down on CP or other illegal activities or not, because if they don't, the reasonable thing to do would be to shut down the platform, what does arresting the CEO accomplish? (rhetorical question: they - I don't want to throw names, but i think that the usual suspects are involved - want access to and control of the content, closing the platform would only deny them access and would create uproar among the population - remember when Russia blocked Telegram?) also 2: AFAIK Telegram requires a phone number to create an account, it's the responsibility of the provider to KYC when selling a phone number, not Telegram's. also 3: safe deposit boxes are not necessarily linked to bank accounts. I pay for a safety deposit box in Switzerland but have no Swiss bank account. So my guess is EU wants in some way control the narrative in Telegram channels where the vast majority of the news regarding the war in Ukraine spread from the war front to the continent. > First, it's Pinkman BIATCH not Pinkam. Sorry. I'm dyslexic and English is not my mother tongue, but the 4th language I've learned, when I was already a teenager. > was previously suspended by the NM Bar Association that was the point. TV dramas need good characters and a criminal lawyer who's also a criminal is more interesting than a criminal lawyer who's just a plain boring lawyer that indulges in no criminal activity whatsoever.

coliveira 2y ago

If his was really true for banks there would be a large number of bankers in jail. This number being close to zero, I guess the courts are very lax at charging bankers for crimes.

marcinzm 2y ago
Banks do a massive amount of tracking and flagging. Even putting a joke “for drugs” in a Venmo field can cause issues. Plus reporting large transactions. There was a massive post on HN yesterday about how often banks close startup accounts due to false positives.
- coliveira 2y ago
  All this flagging seems to be more for "cover your *ss" reasons, because the real criminals continue doing their business everyday.
  - lmm 2y ago
    > the real criminals continue doing their business everyday Any source for that? Media loves to blame banks for everything, but when you go into the details it always seems pretty marginal (e.g. the HSBC Mexico stuff).
    - coliveira 2y ago
      It cannot be marginal because drug traffic, just as an example, moves billions of dollars every year. They certainly have schemes and someone in the banking system must be complying with these schemes. Every time the officials uncover one of these schemes, banks are miraculously not charged of anything and they don't even give back the profits of the illegal operation.
mindslight 2y ago
Banks are a terrible example for this thread's argument. Banking is essentially the end result of what happens when businesses kowtow to the invasive demands of the government, implement ever-more invasive content policing, becoming de facto arms of the bureaucratic state. A bank will drop you if they even think you might be doing something (demonstrably on paper) illegal. When opening an account, some of the very first questions a bank asks you are "where did you get this money" and "what do you do for work" - proactively making you responsible for committing to some type of story. All of the illegality you're trying to reference is happening under a backdrop of reams of paperwork that make it look like above board activity to compliance departments. Without that paperwork when shit does hit the fan, people working at the bank do tend to go to jail. But with that paperwork it's "nobody's fault" unless they manage to find a few bank employees to pin it on. Needless to say, this type of prior restraint regime being applied to free-form communication would be an abject catastrophe.
- int_19h 2y ago
  From personal experience, the bank will drop you for having a relative with a name that happens to match someone on the "bad guy" list.