Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

BeetleB

> We have no way to know this

Well, other than his arrest ;-)

View on HN

The arrest tells us that he said no to one country, it doesn't say much about all the others.

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.

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.

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.

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".

Can always count on HN for whataboutism.

Good thing it’s legal to say so in the countries that dominate its user base.

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-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".

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.

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://twitter.com/AmbRusFrance/status/1827628382617481284

Well the embassy is complaining about this arrest, so maybe that's just counter-intelligence.

That's just the half of the story and Pavel isn't an innocent victim

So what's the full story then?

Russia was also using it for “secret” chats and are probably terrified what could be exposed.

Or they want to make it seem as such..

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.

I did not see in the list the 'did not allow us adding backdoor to their service' charge. Did I miss something?

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-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

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.

Which is principle is meaningless

What exactly do you think this tells you?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com