Pavel Durov is questioned on 12 charges [pdf]

[anigbrowl]

Translated by @fs0c131y on Twitter

- Complicity - Administration of an online platform to allow an illegal transaction in an organised band,

- Refusal to communicate, at the request of the authorised authorities, the information or documents necessary for the realisation and exploitation of interceptions authorised by law,

- Complicity - Detention of the image of a minor of a child-pornographic nature,

- Complicity - Dissemination, offer or making available in an organised tape of images of a minor of a pornographic nature,

- Complicity - Acquisition, transport, holding, offer or disposal of narcotic products,

- Complicity - Offer, assignment or making available without legitimate reason of equipment, an instrument, a program or data designed or adapted for the attack and access to the operation of an automated data processing system,

- Complicity - Organised gang scam,

- Association of criminals with a view to committing a crime or offence punishable by 5 years of imprisonment at least,

- Money laundering of crimes or offences in organised gangs,

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

- Provision of a cryptological means not exclusively ensuring authentication or integrity control functions without prior declaration,

- Import of a cryptology means that does not exclusively perform authentication or integrity control functions without prior declaration.

[cube2222]

Those last three are pretty concerning, I don't really understand what they mean:

> - Providing cryptology services aiming to ensure confidentiality without certified declaration,

> - Providing a cryptology tool not solely ensuring authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration,

> - Importing a cryptology tool ensuring authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration.

What does "without certified declaration" mean?

The others are pretty non-surprising, if the comms were unencrypted and the company refused to cooperate.

[Ennea]

The PDF comes with an English version, too. It's on pages 3 and 4 :)

[smt88]

This seems to confirm speculation that Durov himself is not accused of committing these crimes, but rather than Telegram didn't do enough to prevent criminals from using it in the commission of crimes. The only exception (maybe?) is the money laundering, which seems to be a direct accusation against Durov.

It's also fascinating that they also seem to be nailing him for failing to disclose the limitations of Telegram's cryptography.

[331c8c71]

Complicity accusations seem to be a stretch. I am not sure if it is the same in French law but according to Wikipedia:

> For two persons to be complicit in a crime that does not involve negligence, they must share the same criminal intent; "there must be a community of purpose, partnership in the unlawful undertaking".

[hn1986]

> Complicity - Detention of the image of a minor of a child-pornographic nature

Yikes. He's done. If you administer a message board (whether in open-web, dark web or an app) and your board gets overrun with CSAM and you don't take down CSAM after being reported repeatedly, you're going to go to jail. Simple as that.

[layer8]

Pages 3-4 of the PDF contain an English version with a non-identical translation:

“Pavel DUROV, founder and CEO of instant messaging and platform TELEGRAM, was arrested at Le Bourget airport in the outskirts of Paris on Saturday, the 24th of August 2024, then taken into police custody at 8 p.m.

This measure comes in the context of a judicial investigation opened the 8th of July 2024, following a preliminary inquiry initiated by Section J3 - JUNALCO (Fight against Cybercrime) of the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office.

This judicial investigation was opened against person unnamed, on charges of:

- Complicity – web-mastering an online platform in order to enable an illegal transaction in organized group,

- Refusal to communicate, at the request of competent authorities, information or documents necessary for carrying out and operating interceptions allowed by law,

- Complicity – possessing pornographic images of minors,

- Complicity - distributing, offering or making available pornographic images of minors, in organized group,

- Complicity - acquiring, transporting, possessing, offering or selling narcotic substances,

- Complicity - offering, selling or making available, without legitimate reason, equipment, tools, programs or data designed for or adapted to get access to and to damage the operation of an automated data processing system,

- Complicity – organized fraud,

- Criminal association with a view to committing a crime or an offense punishable by 5 or more years of imprisonment,

- Laundering of the proceeds derived from organized group’s offences and crimes,

- Providing cryptology services aiming to ensure confidentiality without certified declaration,

- Providing a cryptology tool not solely ensuring authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration,

- Importing a cryptology tool ensuring authentication or integrity monitoring without prior declaration.

The investigative magistrates in charge of this preliminary judicial investigation have requested a co-referral of the Centre for the Fight against Cybercrime (Centre de lutte contre les criminalités numériques, C3N) and the Anti-Fraud National Office (Office National Anti-Fraude, ONAF) for the pursuance of the investigations.

It is within this procedural framework in which Pavel DUROV was questioned by the investigators.

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.”

[belter]

> Translated by @fs0c131y on Twitter

The court press release pag 3 and 4 are in English....

[voytec]

> Translated

It's on page 3 in English.

[cube2222]

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?

[krick]

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).

[oytis]

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.

[vineyardmike]

> 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.

[ivan_gammel]

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.

[megous]

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?)

[rcostin2k2]

I wonder if there is something more behind this operation than the indictment document shows:

- the indictment is valid only on the territory of France

- Durov, although he knew, flies straight to Paris from Azerbaidjan

- Durov was in Azerbaidjan at the same time as Putin

[ahi]

Possible he chose French courts over Russian tea.

[3np]

I believe this has some correlation with timing of the UN cybercrime treaty.

https://www.scmagazine.com/brief/un-overwhelmingly-approves-...

[spacephysics]

I could be wrong but i thought the arrest warrants were made while midflight to france

[holoduke]

Of course its politically motivated otherwise Zuckerberg would have been arrested already 100 times.

[AwaAwa]

This is also a warning to Musk, considering he is trying to turn X into the 'everything' app, and thus far has resisted giving backdoor access to the powers that be.

[mdhb]

He literally set a new record for how many different countries he gave access to when asked to do so. You’re living in a fantasy land

[yawboakye]

i hope i’m misconstruing what complicity means here but how long before law enforcement authorities are putting open source maintainers in jail for complicity, because bad actors profited off their labor to terrible ends? the crypto utilities in go, for example, are extremely easy to use, and a competent programmer could fashion their own comms technology out of just that (i’m slightly exaggerating here). but then would law enforcement come for go’s authors?

[maipen]

Software development is already considered a crime in some cases.

Tornado cash devs were an example.

Satoshi Nakamoto decision to remain anonymous and disappear seems wiser as time passes.

I have seen people comparing durov with ross ulbricht which is mind boggling.

This man created a messaging/social media app that is not controlled by the powers that be and now he is getting punished for his freedom and independence.

Don’t let yourself be fooled.

Remember, innocent until proven guilty.

They are coming for us next.

[oytis]

I _think_ the question here is whether you operate the platform and are able to help the police if requested. E.g. as a developer of an open-source messenger you are probably are not liable, as soon as you deploy and operate the same messenger, and refuse to provide the data you have you can become complicit.

If police asks you to add a backdoor in your software though. As far as I know you are only explicitly obliged to do so in Australia.

[mdhb]

Please take a deep breath and don’t get caught up in spiraling into some weird doom loop.

He got done on child porn charges amongst other things. Nobody is coming for your GitHub account

[stufffer]

Durov was forced to divest and flee Russia because he refused to censor and share private info on his users with the Russian government.

Now he has been arrested in France for refusing to censor and share private info on his users with Western governments.

Say what you want be he does stick to his principles.

[rasz]

>refused to censor and share private info

is that why there are tons of examples of russian dissidents being DOXXED on telegram? and non russia aligned OSINT accounts regularly deleted with no reason given?

[ilrwbwrkhv]

Horrible horrible reflection on France. No wonder the entirety of Europe fair so poorly when it comes to innovation and tech compared to America.

[surfingdino]

All those companies cooperate with authorities. Telegram doesn't.

[Canada]

"Import of a cryptology means that does not exclusively perform authentication or integrity control functions without prior declaration."

Wow, so me and everyone who has entered France with a laptop or phone in the last 15 years has been guilty of this "crime"?

[gniv]

Why would you assume Apple etc did not provide these declarations?