(Cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26559848/)
Some significant news for Telegram users!
See this article for some interesting backstory context on Pavel Durov and Telegram: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-telegram-billionaire-and-his-dark-empire-a-f27cb79f-86ae-48de-bdbd-8df604d07cc8
Since the post article is in French, here’s an auto-translation:
Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the encrypted messaging service Telegram, was arrested around 8 p.m. on Saturday evening as he got off his private jet on the tarmac of Le Bourget airport. The 39-year-old Franco-Russian was accompanied by his bodyguard and a woman.
The arrest was carried out by the gendarmes of the GTA (Air Transport Gendarmerie). Registered in the RPF (wanted persons file), Pavel Durov came straight from Azerbaijan. He had over his head a French search warrant issued by the OFMIN of the National Directorate of the French Judicial Police, issued on the basis of a preliminary investigation.
Why was he under threat of a search warrant?
The Justice considers that the lack of moderation, cooperation with the police and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) makes it complicit in drug trafficking, paedophile offences and fraud.
This search warrant ran if, and only if, Pavel Durov was on national territory. “He made a mistake tonight. We don’t know why… Was this flight just a step? In any case, he’s locked up!” a source close to the investigation told TF1/LCI. Since he knew he was persona non grata in France, Pavel Durov used to travel to the Emirates, the countries of the former USSR, South America… He travelled very little in Europe and avoided countries where Telegram is under surveillance.
And now?
Investigators from the ONAF (National Anti-Fraud Office attached to the Customs Directorate) notified him and placed him in police custody. He is expected to be presented to an investigating judge this Saturday evening before a possible indictment on Sunday for a multitude of offences: terrorism, drugs, complicity, fraud, money laundering, concealment, paedophile content…
“Pavel Durov will end up in pre-trial detention, that’s for sure,” comments an investigator to TF1/LCI. “On his platform, he allowed an incalculable number of misdemeanours and crimes to be committed for which he does nothing to moderate or cooperate,” said a source close to the case.
His pre-trial detention at the end of his indictment is indeed in no doubt. Pavel Durov, a billionaire, has substantial means to flee and his guarantees of representation will hardly convince the judges.
A net with international resonance
For the investigators, this international sweep has various objectives. First, it makes it possible to kick the anthill, impress and deter the perpetrators of crimes and offences who exchange, until now, freely on Telegram. Secondly, they aim to put pressure on European countries to step up joint work to make secure messaging on terrorist cases bend.
Indeed, Telegram is a hive of criminal content. At the moment, the platform is in the news with the illegal broadcasting of Ligue 1 matches. But on this encrypted messaging service, many accounts are used by organized crime. Beyond terrorism, the most dangerous pedophiles communicate on Telegram to exchange content. “It has become for years THE number 1 platform for organized crime,” comments an investigator.
Signal doesn’t provide such open and easily found chat rooms.
It’s really much more a messenger (with group chats, but those you have to manually set up)
So it’s not an “open” place like telegram and with that not as attractive for advertising illicit services or products.
besides that, Signal is the technically much more secure variant. No discussion about it.
As telegram. If you think that some drug dealers create public chats with sell drugs, so… you are wrong. All work with darknet. In telegram all of them use only private one-by-one crypto chats.
If you want protect yourself for random network administrator on your network line, of course. If you want protect from anyone (government for example), of course not. Not necessarily in a bad way. Privatecrypto chats one-by-one are equally protected for the Russian opposition and for drug dealers. This is freedom of information. And that’s why Durov was arrested. and not because he can hack chats something but don’t do that. I think in really because that he can’t hack chats and don’t approve hack / insert backdoors for anyone.
Bullshit.
Telegram and Signal both use TLS. They are identically secure from transport-level attacks.
Of course yes. If you want a more private group chat, or an actually useful 1-on-1 encrypted chat that works across multiple devices, Signal is the only option (out of the two, there are way better alternatives like XMPP and Matrix). For 1 device-on-1 device E2E chats, Signal and Telegram are about the same level of security, except Telegram’s protocol sees less scrutiny from the crypto community.
LOL. I see drug ads on the street all the time. The one time I checked, it pointed to a publicly available Telegram bot.