{"id":25137,"date":"2024-09-12T09:02:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T17:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2024\/09\/12\/news-18867\/"},"modified":"2024-09-12T09:02:24","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T17:02:24","slug":"news-18867","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2024\/09\/12\/news-18867\/","title":{"rendered":"Telegram CEO Pavel Durov charged with allowing criminal activity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>France has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tribunal-de-paris.justice.fr\/sites\/default\/files\/2024-08\/2024-08-26%20-%20CP%20TELEGRAM%20.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">indicted<\/a> the CEO of the popular messaging app Telegram on charges of complicity in the distribution of child sex abuse images, aiding organized crime, drug trafficking, fraud, and refusing lawful orders to give information to law enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>The arrest warrants for Pavel Durov and his brother, co-founder of Telegram Nikolai Durov, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/exclusive-telegram-ceo-brother-nikolai-durov-wanted-france-authorities-pavel-durov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">reportedly<\/a> were issued in March. Pavel was arrested on Saturday August 24, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/feed\/update\/urn:li:activity:7233849006630522881\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">allegedly<\/a> after a female influencer travelling with him posted real-time updates about their location and means of transportation.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the Indian government is investigating Telegram for alleged extortion activities on the platform, and over concerns about illegal gambling operations.<\/p>\n<p>Pavel Durov is a French national but was born in Russia. He also holds citizenship of the United Arab Emirates where Telegram is based. He avoided jail by putting up a $5 million bail, but has to stay in France and report to a police station twice a week.<\/p>\n<p>Russian officials <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/kremlin-france-come-up-strong-evidence-pavel-durov-telegram\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">claim<\/a> that Durov\u2019s arrest is politically motivated, a claim strongly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/telegram-pavel-durov-arrest-france-emmanuel-macron\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">denied<\/a> by French president Emmanuel Macron, who met with Durov on several occasions prior to Durov receiving the French nationality through a special procedure for those deemed to have made a special contribution to France.<\/p>\n<p>There is no reasonable doubt that Telegram as a platform is used for illegal purposes. It&#8217;s well known that cybercriminals use it to exchange and sell both malware and information, and the app is <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Government_censorship_of_Telegram\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">banned in several countries<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>One of the questions is whether providing the tools for a crime is a crime in itself. Logic dictates that this is not the case, or every crowbar manufacturer would be behind bars. However, the underlying question is: did Telegram do its best to prevent the app from being used for criminal activity?<\/p>\n<p>Telegram commented that its moderation was:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cwithin industry standards and constantly improving.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Some are asking whether this arrest is a limitation of the freedom of speech. Telegram is also used by citizens of countries with a totalitarian regime to communicate outside of the government\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n<p>This is considered safe because Telegram shares no information with any authorities about the messages or activities on the app. However, as <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.cryptographyengineering.com\/2024\/08\/25\/telegram-is-not-really-an-encrypted-messaging-app\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">experts have explained, Telegram is not end-to-end encrypted<\/a> unless you use the \u201cSecret Chats\u201d feature which is not easy.<\/p>\n<p>End-to-end encryption means that only the person you are sending your messages can read them. This is impossible in Telegram unless it is a one-on-one conversation with Secret Chats enabled, which only works if the other person is online.<\/p>\n<p>Undoubtedly this story will develop further, and we will keep you posted about it.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background is-style-wide\" \/>\n<p><strong>We don\u2019t just report on threats\u2014we remove them<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/for-home\">downloading Malwarebytes today<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.malwarebytes.com\/blog\/news\/2024\/08\/telegram-ceo-pavel-durov-charged-with-allowing-criminal-activity\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has been arrested in France which raises a lot of questions about the reasons behind the arrest. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10488,10378],"tags":[885,31842,32,5897,11642],"class_list":["post-25137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malwarebytes","category-security","tag-arrest","tag-durov","tag-news","tag-privacy","tag-telegram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}