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Comment by cube2222 | Hacker News Reader

So, do I understand correctly that they are not cracking down on him for operating an e2e encrypted app that facilitates all those things (CP, organised crime, etc.) (because as many have already argued in comments in previous threads, Telegram is only E2EE in a very narrow use-case, and most likely the comms in question were not encrypted), but cracking down on him for not giving the authorities access to those unencrypted comms that they've requested, which is seen as facilitation of those things (CP, organised crime, etc.)?

In other words, Signal is in the clear, because it's E2EE for all purposes and the operators wouldn't have the ability (via reasonable means) to access the data in the first place?

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At this point I'm fairly confident this is not about the technology per se, so it's pointless to try and find differences and similarities and make sense of them. It's about politics, it's about personalities, impressions and incentives. I feel like governments just gave up on pretending that laws matter, now it's all about "indicting a ham sandwich".

Meaning, Signal is "in the clear" right now, because nobody fucking cares. It might not be, should the owner change, or should it became more popular (either in general or among certain categories of people).

Are you just ignoring all the child porn on purpose or what’s going on here?

Apparently the governments are all ignoring the much more sizable amount of child porn on instagram, because they have a backdoor with Meta.

This goes straight to the point about this being more about politics.

What are you talking about? No it doesn’t.

The difference here is that when other platforms are informed about child porn they do something about removing it.

Nothing to do with politics at all, just a weird fantasy you’re choosing to believe for who knows what reason.

They did charge him on providing "unlicensed" cryptographic services, and I wonder what the requirements for licensing them are if they are public at all.

No requirements, it's not possible. That license is reserved for government, military etc.

Encryption is illegal in France? Hard to believe that. Do French websites not use TLS?

Encryption that hides information about who is using it is illegal, yes. Your ISP would provide the information so TLS is okay.

So, TOR is illegal?

I'd guess so.

heh, TOR devs should probably not visit France. But probably "nobody cares until there is some political benifit".

> In other words, Signal is in the clear, because it's E2EE for all purposes and the operators wouldn't have the ability (via reasonable means) to access the data in the first place?

Sure but telegram isn’t really just a “messaging app”. It has features that support broad social networking. Some of those features just don’t scale effectively if they’re E2EE.

I think the real takeaway is all social networking applications must have active content moderation.

I don’t fully understand the legalese here but it looks like they are not pressing charges against him but questioning him in relation to these charges against unnamed person. Let’s see what happens next.

> they are not pressing charges against him but questioning him in relation to these charges against unnamed person

The French term they're using is "Garde à vue" which is more like "under custody" instead of "in jail"

The last paragraph gives some more info

> The custody period was extended until the 25th August 2024 by an investigative magistrate and can last up to 96 hours (that being the 28th August 2024) given the applicable procedure for organized crime offences, as referred to above

(I don't think the translation is the best one but it works)

You don't arrest people when you just want to ask some questions.

„Arrest“ seems to be incorrect translation of what is happening.

In other words, Signal is in the clear, because it's E2EE for all purposes and the operators wouldn't have the ability (via reasonable means) to access the data in the first place?

> - Provision of cryptology services to ensure confidentiality functions without a declaration of conformity,

Does signal declare conformity of its privacy crypto functions? (with what, anyway?)

Declaration of conformity given out by the government.

France requires authorization for import/export of confidentiality providing cryptology SW (depending on the other country).

https://www.at-ica.com/encryption-in-france/

Anyway, with Telegram, what is the outher country? What is "import"? Someone using Telegram servers from France? Taking money from customers in France, for provison of service hosted potentially elsewhere? Someone in France being able to download Telegram client?

What about cryptographic tools distributed by Github in France? Do they have proper declarations? What about Linux distributions containing tools like openssl or pgp? It seems to me that a lot of illegal activity might be happening there.

Personal or development use are excluded. Basically if you're selling your own crypto (or a tool with your own crypto) you have to license it. I have to look, but i'm pretty sure openssl is licensed (If you have ISO/IEC 9797 or something you're good)

Yes. The best situation for a government to be in - everybody is doing something that doesn't make any sense to be illegal but it is, so they can do whatever at any time they feel like so.

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