Telegram: behind the scenes of the Pavel Dourov affair, the man who hid too much
(Libération 30.08 - paywall)(…) The French justice system mainly blames Pavel Durov for not having responded to the authorities’ multiple requests for serious crimes. He is flabbergasted, or pretends to be. His close friends in Dubai are digging up responses made by Telegram in cases of terrorism or pedophilia. (…)
(…) [until now] Macron has acted as if there had been no warning in the police and judicial spheres. However, as early as 2016, when he was still at Bercy [Ministry of the Economy], his colleague [at the Ministry of the Interior], Bernard Cazeneuve, deplored the fact that “States have no interlocutor” with Telegram.
Under pressure following the 2015 attacks, after making odious comments against France, Durov had to water down his libertarian wine a little, at least publicly: in February 2016, the service announced that it had closed 78 channels used by jihadist groups.
Telegram nevertheless remains, by far, the most resistant of all platforms to the demands of the authorities. Much more than its security – highly questionable, since with the exception of “secret discussions”, encrypted from end to end, everything else is accessible to Telegram administrators – it is this promise of non-cooperation that makes the platform so attractive to all those who want to stay under the radar. Including criminals.
“We’ve had Telegram in our sights for ten years,” complains a [police] officer specializing in cybercrime. And especially over the last four or five years, when the platform replaced the Darknet, becoming the place for all trafficking, drug dealing, pedocriminality, exchanges of stolen banking data... [<- is that what you call FoE?]
(…)
FROM “PASSIVE REFUSAL” TO “COACTION”
When it was created in November 2023, the brand new Office for Minors (Ofmin) of the national police was faced with this long-standing problem: outside of anti-terrorism, judicial requisitions addressed to Telegram most often remained unanswered. Including in cases of pedocriminality. Obstacles that the young service reported to section J3 – dedicated to cybercrime – of the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime (Junalco) of the Paris prosecutor's office, which seized the opportunity and opened a preliminary investigation in February 2024. The magistrates first ensured that the problem was global, consulting the French police and prosecutors and then Eurojust, the European agency responsible for strengthening judicial cooperation within the Union. Result: the observation of a "virtual absence of response from Telegram to judicial requisitions" is widely shared, the Paris prosecutor will emphasize six months later. In France, according to our information, the national gendarmerie alone reported 2,460 procedures, between 2013 and 2024, in which requisitions sent to Telegram remained without follow-up.
Wednesday, two months after the opening of a judicial investigation and after ninety hours of police custody, Pavel Dourov is indicted for "refusal to communicate the information necessary for interceptions authorized by law", and complicity in organized crimes via the platform: distribution of child pornography, drug trafficking, fraud or money laundering in an organized gang.
The billionaire, who has received support from the Kremlin, is also subject to strict judicial control, with bail of 5 million euros, 1 million before September 5 then 500,000 euros per month, a ban on leaving the country and an obligation to report twice a week to a police station.
(…) for the magistrates, the “systematic” nature of the non-responses to the requisitions takes the head of Telegram out of simple “passive refusal” and into “coaction”, deciphers a judicial source. The legal debates are only just beginning.
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The distinction between terrorism and crime is specious given the porosities between organized crime, arms and/or drug trafficking and terrorism. Knowing the Jihadi movements, I can tell you this.
ahem, are you sure you want to discuss media freedom in India? Ok:
India
Reporters sans frontières assure la promotion et la défense de la liberté d'informer et d'être informé partout dans le monde. L'organisation, basée à Paris, compte des bureaux à l'international (Berlin, Bruxelles, Genève, Madrid, Stockholm, Tripoli, Tunis, Vienne et Washington DC) et plus de 150...
rsf.org
Or do you want to talk about TikTok or WeChat?
India bans TikTok, WeChat and dozens more Chinese apps
The Indian government says it has banned 59 apps with links to China on national security grounds.
www.bbc.com
I'm aware it is said to be F5 now .. I guess you guys are waiting on it too.