French prosecutors say Telegram CEO freed from custody, will appear in court
apnews.com
apnews.com
The initial police examination/interrogation has ended ("garde à vue"), and he's now been brought before a judge who will decide if he should be freed or kept in an actual jail (which a police station isn't).
Until the judge makes that decision he's still very much detained by the police (albeit not interrogated).
In the USA police can generally hold someone for 24-48hours before actual charges are filed (it takes a minute to generate an indictment), allowing them to investigate and interrogate.
Then, if an indictment is filed a judge makes a decision on pre-trial confinement until trial. In France there is a general four month limit on pre-trial confinement before it has to be heavily justified.
We have "garde à vue" and "détention provisoire":
- "Garde a vue" is similar to being in police custody and it's limited to 24-48 hours normally, but there is longer duration for specific crime, the maximum being 6 days for terrorism investigations [0].
- Then, a judge can decide that the defendant should stay in "détention provisoire" before a trial. It doesn't have a duration limit but should be motivated and can be re-examined multiple time [1].
0: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garde_%C3%A0_vue_en_droit_fran... 1: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9tention_provisoire_en_F...
The AP article is rambling and disappointing, literally the DailyMail has a more coherent coverage:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13788495/telegram-f...
This is like in the USA where police can generally hold someone for 24-48hours before actual charges are filed (it takes a minute to generate an indictment), allowing them to investigate and interrogate.
Then, if an indictment is filed a judge makes a decision on pre-trial confinement until trial. In France there is a general four month limit on pre-trial confinement before it has to be heavily justified.
Durov is a high flight risk (money, private jet, foreign citizenship), so the judge will have to factor that in. IF there is an indictment.
Also:
> The Kremlin said ... 'very serious' and warned ...
Do any NATO members take Kremlin warnings seriously any more? It seems clear that the Russians will already do anything they think they can get away with (cf Skripal)
> "Telegram refused to share information or documents with investigators when required by law."
Am I the only one who thinks that if you are a global company operating in a country and you refuse to comply with a lawful subpoena in that country, no one should be surprised when you get arrested? If they cannot comply, due to encryption, or a lack of logging, that may be a different story. But no one has stated or implied that anywhere I have seen.
That a government would arrest a CEO in an effort to solve this problem shows that there's more going on than a simple legal dispute.
> If they cannot comply, due to encryption, or a lack of logging, that may be a different story.
France has proven capable of blocking services. They can't block this if it's so damaging to the French republic?
If their logging/encryption violate the law, I would expect them to be removed from the app store before arresting the CEO. So I think we can assume this is not the case or the company has failed to prove this is the case, which makes my original point more valid. Telegram itself isn't what the French government has a problem with it, it is specific behaviors of the executive team.
*Edited to clarify my argument.
Your assumptions cannot make your point more valid. The difference between your assumptions and our total lack of information is what gives me pause, personally.
> it is specific behaviors of the executive team.
Which tells me they're not interested in protecting French citizens but rather punishing inconvenient executives.
This assumption, given our total lack of information, gives me pause. It is not (and should not be) unusual to arrest an executive for willful violation of local laws by the company they own and lead.
I think we are at an impasse, we both are going to build this off of a different set of assumptions and priors which make our conclusions incompatible without more information. Fortunately, France cannot make him disappear indefinitely without the information becoming public enough for us to draw our own, more informed conclusions.
I don't personally like this guy or his company. I'm sure there's something wrong with how they are operating. I still cannot give the French or any other government the benefit of the doubt here.
The CEO was arrested. Has the criminality /now/ stopped? If he goes to jail does that stop it?
> for French users
Who are also committing crimes.
I'd bet an internet dollar that Telegram HQ is actively in a panic making sure they can start responding to French take-down notices
But some countries want to have their cake and eat it too.
Just lock up the people responsible for the problems, why would you deprive people from the products the use?
A future I want to live is a future where offenders get punished, not a future where I'm dissolved of using products that offenders used to offend.
So with that said, you're actually against the arrest of Pavel Durov as I understand it? As he's being arrested for not committing any crimes, but for not giving information about the people who are committing the actual crimes.
I mean, I don't want it to sound simplistic. Situation is kinda novel (meaning, it wasn't possible 200 years ago). Basically every POV in this entire discussion makes sense to me. Like, it absolutely makes sense for a government to be hostile to somebody who doesn't comply with their requests, and given that in this situation that somebody happens to be a french citizen... well, it's almost like he was asking for it.
But regardless of what reasoning I could provide in behalf of the opposing side, my personal desire is that all governments and all courts to go fuck themself when it is about providing users data. I truly make no exceptions for that, it doesn't make me sympathetic if a user allegedly distributes child porn in a private conversation, or if he is a terrorist and disclosed a location of a nuclear bomb to his partner. I mean it. Because the exceptions where you could convince me it's necessary are very-very rare, and courts' ability to abuse it if there can be any exceptions at all is infinite. And it should be obvious that I don't trust any courts or government to do the right thing, and it truly scares me (but I accept it as a fact, because if all people would become enlightened it probably would truly mean total chaos) that so many people do.
But, of course, again, the only way to truly ensure that is non-backdoored E2EE, and it's not even clear if such a thing even exists...
The French government has a certain ruleset and powers and an agenda, if He is going to take on the French government its fine by me its just that the hazard associated with that is expected. I don't have a beef it this, unless there's a spying for Russia stuff. Then I would be like "lock down this hack, take away his fortune to pay for the damages" but I still wouldn't advocate for blocking Telegram.
This is an interesting stance to me, because throughout modern history I'm not aware of any budiness/entity that did not have an obligation to turn over information as a result of a court order other than information under attorney client privilege. Encrypted data is actually the odd one out, other than not collecting information in the first place, in that most things can be compelled.
The only time I have an issue with the courts having power to order someone to hand over information is when those orders are done secretly. There must be accountability.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/17/world/asia/taliban-whatsa...
Israel and IDF content is over there
Palestinian and Hamas content is over there
Ukrainian
Russian
All in separate feeds that you can just switch between
Its been very useful for me as there is so much jargon and slang in other languages that their respective media (if said media company even exists) would never use, and with LLM’s translating I can ask and learn the context of those slang words and find more content from actual humans
Whats irrelevant is how that helps the French case. Appeals to authority with authorities none of us would actually respect? We dont even know enough about the case, its one thing to arrest the CEO for a platform, its another to arrest an individual for involvement in something salacious and we dont know at all yet.
The one I had in mind is a city-wide chat group with more than 2000 members in which people share stuff they want to give away or sell for cheap.
Honest question for this group: Does anyone actually believe Telegram has any sort of privacy? Like, I assume all your TG data is available to the Kremlin in the same way that all your TikTok data is available to the CCP.
Russia tried a bunch of times to block Russia (since it got banned for not cooperating with the government) but never successfully, seems Telegran anti-censorship methods works well enough. Eventually Russia relented and undid the ban and block. But I don't think Telegram actually stopped working in Russia at any point.
https://istories.media/en/news/2024/08/27/pavel-durov-has-vi...
Yes.
Russian authorities obviously have access. But they only use this access sparingly. If you're not personally targeted by the FSB, you're OK, even Russian regular police doesn't have access to it.
BTW, Nikolai's wiki page states he won three gold medals at an International Mathematics Olympiad and once a gold International Olympiad in Informatics as well as a gold medal in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. I'd say he is well qualified to design crypto algos if he put his mind to it.
They don't even seem to work on it. There is this optional encryption, but nobody seems to care about it. Simultaneously, they present themselves as safe and secure.
He might be a genius.
He might also be an evil genius.
E2E encryption comes with tradeoffs, it's not something you tack on to a protocol and not having to change a bunch of other stuff.
I think one of the main selling point of Telegram is the public channels/huge groups where you can openly communicate with people, and tacking E2E encryption into those would probably involve a ton of work, not really sure how it would work (or what benefit it would bring)
There is nothing wrong with that. But why pretend to be secure and use that as a marketing claim?
I don't think people don't care. From all those discussions in the recent days, you can see a wide range of different people who actually think it is secure.
> The arrest warrants were issued after the messaging platform gave "no answer" to an earlier judicial request to identify a Telegram user, according to the document, which was shared with POLITICO by a person directly involved in the case.
> Warrants for Pavel and his brother Nikolai, the platform’s co-founder, were issued on March 25 over charges including “complicity in possessing, distributing, offering or making available pornographic images of minors, in an organized group.”
> The warrants were issued after an undercover investigation into Telegram led by the cybercrime branch of the Paris prosecutor's office, during which a suspect discussed luring underaged girls into sending "self-produced child pornography," and then threatening to release it on social media.
> The suspect also told the investigators he had raped a young child, according to the document. Telegram did not respond to the French authorities’ request to identify the suspect.
> There’s no suggestion either of the Durov brothers were directly involved in any of the illegal activities identified by the investigation.
-https://www.politico.eu/article/exclusive-telegram-ceo-broth...
At first people expected him to be jailed, because he obviously has means to leave France and never get caught again, but then analysts pointed out that he knew there was a warrant in France to get him and that he decided to land in France anyway, so they raised the question that maybe he came voluntarily in order to strike a deal with French authorities.
The fact that he's now free from custody sounds like this analysis was likely the right one.
Or they released him because they're required to by law? Normally they need to release you after 24h, but in some cases of organized crime or terrorism, they can extend it to 72+h.
https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI0000...
They want Telegram not him.
They actually want him to comply with the French law (a country which he is a citizen of) and timely remove the illegal content that he's been made aware of.
If all Telegram chats were e2e encrypted, he'd have much more plausible deniability. But they aren't, so he is required by law (as a French citizen) to remove the offending content.
The best thing he can do is stay, serve his sentence/pay his fine, and improve Telegram to have e2e encryption by default (or better yet, mandatory), and focus on e2e encryption for group chats.
His resistance to do that over the years, along with his insistence that somehow Telegram is super secure make me wonder if he's not already been compromised.
That would compromise the feature of open-to-everybody groups right? Right now I can download telegram on my phone, do a quick search and view an open group where local drug dealers post their wares (with pictures), weapons are being sold illegaly, etc. I always thought this was the "illegal content" they were referring to
Do you have a confirmation for that or this is just your guess? Maybe they want access to all Telegram messages.
The allegations are public, and that's what the allegations state. I can't and don't want to speculate on the "true" motives of the French authorities. Al Capone was also initially held only on taxes charges.
> The investigation concerns crimes related to illicit transactions, child sexual abuse, fraud and the refusal to communicate information to authorities. The arrest warrant was issued by OFMIN, a French child protection agency, the group’s secretary general said in a post on LinkedIn.
https://www.tf1info.fr/justice-faits-divers/info-tf1-lci-le-...
And some investigative journalism on the type of illegal activities going on in Telegram.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1828526705306411410.html
I am all for privacy of communication, but due to Telegram's insistence of not encrypting everything, this is easy to see/verify by authorities, and issue a takedown notice.
> Maybe they want access to all Telegram messages.
And maybe not. Do you have proof that they want that, or we are going to be speculating here? Cause, as I said, the arrest warrant is public and the allegations are public. I'd prefer not to speculate and focus on the facts.
P.S
If we are going to speculate here, my feeling is that the French authorities found that Telegram is a Russian held backdoor/honeypot or want to disrupt Russian war communications. They need some time to with Durov in custody, so they arrest him on charges they can arrest him on: failing to remove illegal content all the while letting Meta, X, and Rumble and others get away with the same.
Do you have a reference for this claim? I've read this here or there, but always without any evidence. Was the arrest warrant public before he decided to land in France?
Personally I think the legal basis for his arrest is just so thin that bail was granted. After all he is not personally responsible. The buck stops with him, sure but he didn't personally partake in any of the alleged activity on telegram.
Keeping a person in custody is a very heavy measure that a judge won't grant lightly.
So far as I can tell the French didn't say much of anything, which is why there is so much confusion about what happened.
I thought he was arrested for not complying with search/trace/takedown warrants against people who were (possibly) doing illegal activity. If that is true he presumably would be responsible.
He's not accused of personally partaking in anything, the arrest warrant is about Telegram as a platform not working on removing content that broke the law, even when notified about it.
Telegram can easily replace him as CEO with someone else after all.
He can't run away without looking guilty.
Since this is high public profile by definition, expect lots more questionable spin to come.. IMHO
Can you please provide a source?
His phone was hacked back in 2017. Afterwards the French government gave him an offer to collaborate (which was presumably declined).
No, he won't.
No clue if this will happen, or how much of a good/bad thing it would be. But it would sure be funny to happen after Macron publicly stated the executive had nothing to do with the arrest. Guess the judiciary is independent... some of the time.
I don’t think anyone was expecting Ghosn to pull some cloak-and-dagger shit, where I have to imagine DGSI is all over this one, and were probably the people behind the original request.
So four citizenships? It's getting hard not look at this as dodgy.
OPTION 1. Donate to the Sustainable Island State Contribution (SISC)
Your SISC donation to the Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis must be at least $250,000 as a single applicant. Additionally, this rises to $275,000 if you include an extra dependent under 18. Furthermore, if you add a dependent over 18, you will pay $300,000.
OPTION 2. Invest in Property
The Developer’s Real Estate Option requires you to invest no less than $400,000 in an approved real estate development. Consequently, you must own the property for at least seven years. Furthermore, it can only be resold once, to a new CBI programme member.
In contrast, an Approved Private Home, either a condo or single-family dwelling, qualifies as a CBI option. In this case, you must pay at least $400,000 to the condo owner and $800,000 to the single-family dwelling owner.
Subsequently, you have to own the private home for at least seven years. Following this, you can’t resell your real estate investment to a CBI applicant unless Federal Cabinet approves. Ultimately, you must inject substantial extra investment by way of construction, renovation, or any other improvements.
OPTION 3. Contribute to an Approved Public Benefit Project
Invest at least $250,000 in a project that boosts local employment and, also, transfers all real estate to the State on completion.
src: https://www.riftrust.com/citizenship-by-investment/st-kitts-...
Well, if he dodges this warrant by fleeing, Telegram will be persona non grata across western Europe.
What's dodgy about having multiple countries consider you respectable enough ( slash rich enough ) to issue you citizenship?
BTW, I'd like to send you a private message - is the `pro` (at) your.domain a good way to do that?
I guess that's what they mean by "it's a billionaire thing"
St kitts and Nevis is only a quarter mil, tho I don't know what benefit that would confer unless you're coming from a country without visa free travel
And for what it's worth, UAE citizenship is not for sale directly, you have to actually live there long term
Nice table on this page: https://www.globalcitizensolutions.com/citizenship-by-invest...
In France the citizens want tech companies to cooperate with authorities to prevent the spread of CSAM.
Durov is a French citizen. His tech company does not cooperate with authorities. The authorities wanted to have a chat with him about that. Most discussions in Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted, meaning Telegram could probably do much more to stop the spread of CSAM.
It's not just about CSAM — they mention terrorism, and the French authorities also probably also want to know what sort of deal he made with Russia to allow him to travel freely to and from that country after they attempted to ban Telegram.
There is a lot of evidence it's not. In France, the executive power (president, government, prefect) always ask a "procureur" to indict someone (issue a warrant and direct the police). In this very case, it's a "Juge d'instruction", which are notoriously independent (And it caused enough issues to have a Sarkozy/Dati law that tried to curtail this liberty around 2010, and still you have conservatives and far-right people asking for less initiative from this kind of judges (one of them ordered former president Sarkozy's phone to be put under surveillance).
Unless someone can draw a direct line from the OFMIN judge to Macron, i consider people talking about "political" bullshitter.
It is only possible to smash a car against a showcase and commit a robbery if you get the car from the seller.
It is also...
No, it is not a good argument in my opinion. By this measure, we could be deriving criminal responsibility from almost any action.
Imagine that you sell forks and someone stabs a fork into the eye of another person. Would you be guilty? People can make bad use of anything. That does not makes us guilty.
It is just absurd.