Interview with Mark Pohlmann, Founder & CEO at Aeteos
Questions:
1. Please tell us a little about yourself and your professional involvement in cybersecurity.
I’m the CEO of Aeteos, a French Company. At Aeteos, since 2016, we have done Cognitive Computing. We have created an award-winning natural language understanding technology, called Percipion, which we have adapted to many specific criminal contexts to support experts in identifying digital evidence. In short, Percipion is helping many forensic analysts catch bad guys.
In France, we work with national law enforcement agencies, large organizations as well as industrial partners, and Cybersecurity subject matter experts like Séverine Meunier from Airbus Defense and Space.
2. To what extent, do social media companies present a cybersecurity threat today?
Today, Social media have become crime scenes. All these applications are attracting criminals.
Let’s take an example. In the US, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a single point of contact to report Child Sexual Abuse Material. Close to 36 million reports have been processed in 2023. These crimes are just online crimes.
Online enticement is a broad category that includes sextortion, in which a child is groomed or coerced to take sexually explicit images or even meet face-to-face with a perpetrator for sexual purposes. In 2021, 44155 reports have been processed. In 2023, 186 819 reports have been processed. There is an increase of 300% in just 2 years.
And all these crimes are happening online.
2024 will most probably set new records since those criminals now generate child sexual abuse material using photographic pictures that they have downloaded from social networks, for example, Instagram,
and then use AI-powered software to generate fake images and share those online. The images are fake not the body, but not the head. These are belonging to real children. These children are victims.
247 electronic service providers are concerned. Here are the top 10: WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Microsoft Online Operations, Instagram, Google, Discord.
This is just one example related to child sexual abuse. There are many more online crimes, like dealing drugs, human trafficking, fake documents… There are also many many more places. And some places don’t even take action to identify criminal content and report it, like Telegram.
3. Are there special laws and regulations by the EU and the French government to ensure social media companies comply with basic safety precautions? How do these laws apply to international social media companies?
In Europe, we have the Digital Service Act, in short, called DSA.
The Digital Services Act aims to provide clearer and more standardized rules for digital content. Companies will need to consider content removal and take a proactive and transparent approach to moderation. With enforcement throughout Europe, companies need to ensure the right systems and processes are in place.
With the ethos of ‘what is illegal offline should be illegal online’, the DSA aims to provide clearer and more standardized rules for large and small digital service providers across the European market.
Once notified by trusted flaggers, platforms will have to remove illegal content quickly.
The Digital Services Act makes it clear that platforms and other intermediaries are not liable for users’ unlawful behavior unless they are aware of illegal acts and fail to remove them.
This shielding of legal liability aims to encourage companies to be more proactive when moderating the content on their platform.
So yes, we have laws in Europe and France. Are platforms proactive? Not really. They are mainly waiting for a trusted flagger to contact them. Once done, some illegal content can take several days to be removed.
Everyone has to follow the law. But some companies just don’t care. As an example, as Thierry Breton our EU Commissioner sent a letter to Elon Musk about his concerns about X (ex-Twitter), Musk told Thierry Breton to “fuck his own face”! Telegram more or less did the same by refusing to answer authorities. All these platforms consider themselves above the law.
As far as I am concerned, I think that this is not acceptable. Those social media, if they continue to act like this, should be forbidden.
4. Among the spectrum of many well-known social media platforms, what is the role of Telegram? What made it so popular and why does it hold more appeal for some parts of the world than for others?
Telegram aka Telegram Messenger is a cloud-based cross-platform social media AND instant messaging service.
– Use to chat with people
– Use to get and share information with communities (up to 200k members)
– Publish information to so-called channels
– Exchange text, voice, videos, place calls, live stream videos
– Use it on a phone, a computer, within a browser
It’s popular because it is a platform supporting free speech (so no moderation at all) and is making user privacy paramount stating that what they say on Telegram is protected by end-to-end encryption.
It’s also popular because, like Facebook, businesses can use Telegram to engage with their customers through channels or private groups. 22% of teens and young adults are using Telegram (18 to 24 years old) and 35% of young adults (25 to 34 years old).
More than 15 billion messages are sent through Telegram every day
In 2024, 104 million Telegram users are from India, 34 million from Russia, 28 million from Indonesia, and 27 million from the USA.
And people watch channels about :
News-Related Dominance: With a 30% share, news-related channels top the popularity charts, emphasizing Telegram’s vital role in delivering real-time, diverse news coverage.
Entertainment and Politics: Both entertainment and politically related content equally attract 28% of users, showcasing Telegram as a central platform for both relaxation and political discourse.
Educational Content: Education-related channels hold a 13% share, underlining the app’s contribution to learning and information dissemination.
Diverse Content Spectrum: The platform also serves niche interests with industry-specific news, celebrity gossip, personal friend channels, discounts, job opportunities, corporate insights, branded content, and even the dark web.
Vibrant and Engaged Community: This wide range of channel categories not only enhances the user experience but also fosters a lively, engaged community, cementing Telegram’s status as a versatile platform for various interests.
Maybe Telegram is more used in some parts of the world than others because in some countries, the government is controlling social networks and people may have the feeling that what they say on Telegram will never leave Telegram.
Example Iran.
On 20 October 2015, Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram LLC said, that after denying the request of Iranian authorities for private information about citizens of the country, Telegram was blocked for hours in Iran, but it was unblocked afterward. Pavel Durov wrote an answer letter and announced that “Iranian authorities want to use Telegram to spy on their citizens. We cannot help them in this regard”.
Today, you still have 50 million Iranians using Telegram. They feel protected. Despite a clear demand from Iranian authorities, Telegram refused to help the government.
This was a way to show the world how important privacy is for people running Telegram.
But are we sure of this? Maybe Marina could answer this question. I will come back to her a little later.
5. Why have more Europeans and Americans started joining Telegram recently?
The only reason I see to do this is to be on a social network where free speech is paramount, where nothing is moderated, where all is possible. People probably feel safe on Telegram.
And if you are addicted to drugs, Telegram will make your life easier. If you are addicted to kinky or extreme porn, Telegram will make your life easier. If you are a terrorist preparing for a terror attack, Telegram will make your life easier.
And there is this unique “People nearby” function. In short, Telegram can locate you. It uses the GPS of your Smartphone to do this and can show you all the Telegram users nearby. According to Telegram, this function is to make new friends.
So if you want to have fun with a prostitute, Telegram will make your life easier. Go to people nearby, 50% of the users you will see are prostitutes.
If you need a gun, Telegram will make your life easier. Go to people nearby to find traffickers.
If you need cocaine, ketamine, LSD, or Heroin, Telegram will make your life easier. Go to people nearby to find drug dealers.
I’m not saying here that all the people who joined Telegram do drugs or have fun with prostitutes. I’m pretty sure that because of the existence of those illegal activities, of all the illegal content available on Telegram, that due to the fact those people doing illegal activities are not stopped by law enforcement authorities because Telegram refuses to provide information, Telegram users feel safe, feel that there is on Telegram a very high level of security and that it is ok for them to use Telegram and be confident that what they say is kept secure.
6. Given a number of deceptive social media campaigns and disinformation aimed at France on various social media sights, primarily by Russian agencies and hackers, was Telegram a particular concern? Were there any known campaigns against French or other European politicians, or the recent Olympic games?
Cyberattacks or cyber threats are part of our daily life.
French authorities said that more than 140 cyberattacks were reported during the Paris Olympics, but none of them disrupted the competitions.
Between July 26 and August 11, government cyber security agency Anssi recorded 119 reports corresponding to low-impact “security events” and 22 incidents in which “a malicious actor” successfully targeted a victim’s information system.
The attacks mainly targeted government entities as well as sports, transport, and telecoms infrastructure. According to Anssi, a third of those were downtime incidents, half of which were due to denial-of-service attacks designed to overwhelm servers.
So I would say, nothing special.
Before the Olympics, we also had some intense Cyberattacks on our national infrastructure coming from a group called Anonymous Sudan. This group provided some signs that it is linked or better said that it has sympathy with Russia.
Regarding Telegram, since people can subscribe to news channels whose content is not checked, it is known as a high source of disinformation and one of the best social media for any kind of propaganda, like X, ex Twitter.
I will not provide any name here but yes those top channels experienced significant subscriber growth following the February 2022 invasion of the Ukraine. Telegram is used by Russia and other military groups like the Wagner mercenary group which has at least 30 different channels.
7. Let’s look at Pavel Durov, who holds several citizenships including from the UAE and France. Other than founding Telegram, what role did he play in the management of the company? Is he believed to be more than a figurehead?
This is a very interesting question.
Let’s go back a while to his life to better understand his role.
Back in 2005, and 2006, Pavel, Vyacheslav, Lev, and Nikolai, students in Saint-Petersburg, decided to create a social network called Vkontakte, a kind of Facebook-like app. Vyacheslav father Mikhael, a billionaire, provided funds. Slowly, the shares of this company were taken over by multiple people having a close link with the Kremlin.
On 21 April 2014, Durov was dismissed as CEO. Durov claimed the company had been effectively taken over by Vladimir Putin’s political faction suggesting his dismissal was the result of both his refusal to hand over personal details of users to federal law enforcement and his refusal to hand over the personal details of people who were members of a VKontakte group dedicated to the Euromaidan protest movement. Durov then left Russia and stated that he had “no plans to go back”.
The good guy ! But wait…
In July 2012, VKontakte was accused of close cooperation with the Centre for Combating Extremism, a unit within the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs heavily criticized for repressing opposition activists. For publications, reposts, comments, and likes posted on their VKontakte pages, dozens of Russian citizens were sentenced to fines, suspended sentences, and imprisonment. Most of the cases against users are qualified as propaganda of extremism, xenophobia, and Nazism. Statistically, among all the social networking services available in Russia, the users of VKontakte were targeted by police almost exclusively.
There is no clear proof that Pavel provided those information about these activists but one thing is curious. Nikolai, the winner of the International Mathematical Olympiad three years in a row, 1996, 1997, and 1998, owner of three silver medals and one gold medal in the International Olympiad in Informatics, Nikolai this brilliant guy and lead software programmer for VK, made a social network which was the place to be for a great number of activists in Russia but more or less forgot to encrypt data so that those where then made available in clear text to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs? This is a joke. Either they provided the encryption key to decode data or those were not even encoded, like data which are on Telegram’s server.
We could easily conclude that these brothers have built a trap, a trap to capture sensitive information, a kind of honey pot !
What we have here are the premises of Telegram.
8. At one point, he was considered a valuable asset which is why he received French citizenship. Why was his work considered to be of such value? Was he ever seen as a potential technology bridge to the Middle East and/or Russia?
Macron decided to grant Russian-born Durov French citizenship in 2018. It was a conscious choice by the government to attract athletes, artists, and innovators.
Official records show Durov was formally granted French citizenship on August 25th, 2021.
An in-depth report by Le Monde last year highlighted the lack of transparency surrounding the matter, with questions raised about whether the Telegram boss was fulfilling the required criteria to become French. The answer to this question is no !
He did not live five years in France, he does not have refugee status, he does not come from a francophone country, and has not performed military service for France in time of war…
The newspaper “Le Monde” provided initial elements of an answer to this question in 2023.
Durov benefited from a practice of naturalization «rarissime, very discreet and political», that of «the foreign emeritus». It is awarded “on the initiative of the government” “to a francophone foreign national who contributes through his meritorious action to the influence of France and the prosperity of its international economic relations”.
The French government intended to move Telegram headquarters to Paris
The Wall Street Journal revealed that on Wednesday, August 28 2018 Pavel Durov met Emmanuel Macron at his invitation during a lunch in Paris. The French head of state would then have invited him to move the headquarters of Telegram from Dubai to Paris in exchange for a French passport. A proposal that the native of Leningrad would have refused «at this time», claiming to want «to prevent any government from controlling Telegram».
At the time, the “Wall Street Journal” explained that French authorities were concerned about ISIS using Telegram to recruit agents and plan attacks. So much so that in addition to this proposal to move Telegram, the French secret services, in collaboration with their Emirati colleagues, hacked Pavel Durov’s mobile phone in a coded operation under the name of «Purple Music».
Again, Telegram is the owner of very sensitive data and it is easy to understand that some countries want to take advantage by getting those. It’s most probably what France wanted to fight against Terrorism.
9. When did Telegram start becoming a security concern to the French government? What were the Red Flags? And when did Durov himself first start to become more of a liability than an asset?
To my opinion, this should have been before 2018. There should have been clear evidence that Telegram would be a great source of information to prevent terrorism.
10. Many cybersecurity experts have for years warned that a Telegram became a cover for assorted cybercriminals, terrorists, and extremists. How did that happen and how were all these nefarious actors able to utilize their platform?
Telegram is and has always been a place where free speech is welcomed. There is no kind of moderation at all on this platform. For this reason, since all is allowed, it is the best place for criminals. This platform makes it possible to exchange illegal information and criminals are sure that authorities will not have access to what is said on Telegram because Durov never provided information to anyone.
But Marina would maybe not agree to this ! I come back to her later.
But what are these crimes :
– Threats on countries, cities, places, events, people
– Terrorist organizations
– Human trafficking
– Hate speech
– Illegal drug deal
– Weapon trafficking
– Prostitution
– Porncrimes
– Pedocrimes (hardcore and hurtcore)
– Bestiality
– Bullying
– Scamming
– Gore content
– Countless paraphilic content
– Criminal organizations
– Cartels
– Mafias
– Far-left organizations
– Far-right organizations
Just to name a few…
11. Some cybersecurity analysts believe Telegram facilitated criminal transactions and exchanges from its inception. How did it manage simultaneously to hide the “dark web” aspect of its function while becoming a seemingly welcoming space to diverse voices, including from various dissidents and human rights defenders?
This is easy to understand. Each group has its own space, keywords…
To find a group, you can just search for the Telegram channel that you want to subscribe to based on your interest. There is no public list. So knowing the name of a given illegal activity you just search for telegram channels that do promote this content and you subscribe to it so that, each time a new content is published, you are informed.
You probably think that some of the content is hidden but you are wrong. It’s not hidden. You just don’t know the keywords to have access to it.
12. Why did so many gravitate towards Telegram despite it being technically less secure than other messaging apps and social media platforms?
Maybe because Telegram is not owned by any GAFA. Maybe because people think that on Telegram they are better protected which is not the case. Maybe because on Telegram they find in one single place all possible kinds of inappropriate content. Maybe because people have lost trust in regular media and they believe that on Telegram or other social media, they will find more accurate information. Maybe a mix of all this.
From a technical point of view, there is no reason to use Telegram. You have better applications to protect your privacy which is great. Just an example: Signal.
13. There is now information coming out about Durov’s secret trips to Moscow between 2015 and 2021. How was he able to conceal his travels? Is there any further information about his potential collaboration with the Russian intelligence agencies? Were there any noticeable changes in Telegram or Durov’s actions during this period?
That is a nice question. Thanks 😉
Let’s now talk about Marina.
February 24, 2022, the day Vladimir Putin’s forces launched their full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a handful of Russian opposition politicians gathered in front of Saint Petersburg’s palatial Law, Order, and Security building. They had come to officially request permission to hold a rally opposing the war, which they knew would be denied. Among the group was Marina Matsapulina, the 30-year-old vice-chair of Russia’s Libertarian Party.
Nine days later, Marina was awoken around 7 am by someone banging at her apartment door. The pounding continued for two hours.
At 9:22 am, she heard a much louder noise. She had just enough time to lock her phone before the door caved in. Eight people surrounded Marina’s bed. They included, she recalls, two city police officers, a two-person SWAT team wielding guns and shining flashlights in her face, and two agents from either the Center for Combating Extremism or the Federal Security Service or the FSB, the successor to the KGB. The officers told her to lie on the floor face down.
They told Marina that she was suspected of emailing a police station with a false bomb threat. But when she was taken into the Ministry of Internal Affairs investigation department, she says, a police officer asked whether she knew the real reason she’d been arrested.
She guessed that it was for her “political activities.”
He nodded and asked, “Do you know how we knew you were home?”
“How?”
He told her that the FSB has equipment that can pinpoint a phone’s location to within one meter, which didn’t surprise her. Russia’s state-owned telecoms often cooperate with security forces, allowing them to track Russian SIM cards.
Then the officer said something that left her stunned.
“There you were, sitting there, writing to your friends in the chat room,” she recalls him saying.
He proceeded to dispassionately quote word for word several Telegram messages she had written from her bed. “And so,” he said, “we knew that you were there.”
Marina was speechless.
When she was released two days later, Marina learned from her lawyer that on the morning she was arrested, police had searched the houses of some 80 other people with opposition ties and had arrested 20, charging each with terrorism related to the alleged bomb threat.
Later in April, after having made it safely to Armenia, Marina recounted the episode in a Twitter thread.
She ruled out the chance that anyone in her close-knit group had been cooperating with security forces (they had all also left Russia by then), which left two conceivable explanations for how the officers had read her private Telegram messages.
One was that they had installed some kind of malware, like the NSO Group’s infamous Pegasus tool, on her phone. Based on what she’d gathered, the expensive software was reserved for high-level targets and was not likely to have been turned on a mid-level figure in an unregistered party with about 1,000 members nationwide.
The other “unpleasant” explanation, she wrote, “is, I think, obvious to everyone.” Russians needed to consider the possibility that Telegram, the supposedly antiauthoritarian app cofounded by the mercurial Saint Petersburg native Pavel Durov, was now complying with the Kremlin’s legal requests.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-kremlin-has-entered-the-chat/
Nice story no?
14. Durov claimed to be a dissident, but his other project VK (V Kontakte) always had a seal of approval from the Russian state even when Telegram did not. Did that ever raise concerns?
LOL. No, I don’t think so. He always played the role of the good guy fighting for free speech, even leaving his own country to never come back. All this is just a big joke.
15. How did Durov fit in with other social media billionaires, Silicon Valley types, etc? Is there a type of subculture among the big tech elites that raises concerns about security and privacy in general?
I don’t know. The only thing that seems obvious is that those people, Durov, Zuckerberg, and Musk, have a lot of power because they possess information.
Due to the nature of these applications, the lack of control over who is signing in, due to the total absence of moderation, and some collaboration with authorities, all these networks, including TikTok, are for me a clear threat to our security and privacy.
All we say on those networks are not private at all. Thinking that this is the case is wrong. Data are available and are exploited for money or power.
16. Durov is widely lauded by libertarians, Trump supporters, and others as a free-speech warrior, while also allowing authoritarian intelligence agents and extremists to use his platform. So is he a Free Speech Champion or is he an agent of foreign powers such as Russia? How do we explain this dichotomy in his image?
LOL.
Let’s put it this way.
Telegram Messenger is a free application. Anyone can download and use it. But to provide this application to 900 million people, to fly with a private jet around the world, to be just that rich, from where does all the money come? Who is paying Durov? There is no advertisement on Telegram.
The money to run Telegram comes from Pavlov himself or some additional services like in-app purchases, premium subscriptions, or sponsored messages. But it only has 4 million paying customers. As an example, in-app purchases are bringing to Telegram a revenue of 6 million USD in February 2024.
That may seem like a lot of money but to run the infrastructure of an app with 900 million active users, pay employees, the private jet, and all the rest, is not enough!
Who is David Yakobashvili? Who is Roman Abramovich? Who is Dmitry Yeremeev?
Dmitry Yeremeev is a Russian citizen and founder of Bank 131.
David is one of the founders of the largest Russian company – JSC Wimm-Bill-Dann – the manufacturer of dairy products, juices, and beverages.
Roman is a Russian Businessman. He now lives in Israel and his net worth is estimated to be around 14.5 billion. He is the second richest person in Israel. It is also said that Abramovich is considered to have a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an allegation Abramovich has denied. But, because there is, Abramovich was the first person to recommend to Yeltsin that Vladimir Putin be his successor as the Russian president. When Putin formed his first cabinet as Prime Minister in 1999, Abramovich interviewed each of the candidates for cabinet positions before they were approved. Subsequently, Abramovich would remain one of Putin’s closest confidants. In 2007, Putin consulted in meetings with Abramovich on the question of who should be his successor as president; Medvedev was personally recommended by Abramovich.
But no no, these guys don’t have a good relationship 😉
Just to name these 3 guys, they all invested in Telegram in recent years.
In 2021, Durov raised 1 billion. One of the investors was from Abu Dhabi: the Mubadala Investment Company. One of the “third guy” who provided money to that investment company based in Abu Dhabi was “Russia’s sovereign wealth fund”. This fund was founded back in June 2011 under the leadership of both Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
So there is a lot of evidence that the money that has Telegram is coming from the Russian people or the Russian state itself.
Knowing where the money is coming from, there is a good probability that Durov is close to the Kremlin and that he serves the interests of his moneygivers.
So providing the world with a messaging app where free speech is paramount could be considered as a trick, a kind of trojan horse, to make people believe that they are safe to share and say what they want, while Telegram is collecting information and has the power to share this intelligence with who will pay to get it. Pretty smart !
17. Durov is now defended by both Edward Snowden and Elon Musk, who notoriously received funding from 2 Russian oligarchs, Qatar, and Saudi investors known for their links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Does that raise any questions or concerns? Did Durov express any particular views or had any other business links to any of these parties?
Yes, at least for me, it does raise a lot of concerns.
Durov is linked to the UAE. Telegram headquarters are there. Telegram is still receiving funds from oligarchs and the Russian state.
If we would consider Telegram as a regular business, we could say that all these people are Telegram clients. As with any other business, your goal as a business owner is to serve your clients and their interests.
Telegram is offering a safe place to many terrorists linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or ISIS. Telegram is offering a safe place to Russia which is doing war in Ukraine.
And the information shared by these people on Telegram is safe there.
Telegram is a direct threat to our democracies.
18. Even in free speech, there is a balance between allowing a private space to be utilized for a free exchange of ideas and consorting with state or unfree interests. To what extent did Telegram strike this balance? Was its “free speech function” separable from the criminal activities that went on? Or can it be said that “free speech” was bait to lure in prospective victims of criminal data harvesting, foreign security agencies, and the like?
Here in Europe, Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Here in Europe, Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include the freedom to hold
opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
In that respect, Telegram, like many other social networks, is allowing such expressions.
But then are coming the bad guys with criminal intentions. They have here, on Telegram or other social media, a digital space to exchange information.
Using such a media to prepare a terrorist attack, to kill people, to sexually exploit children, to sell drugs… All those activities are illegal and criminal. But they are there. Since nothing is moderated, all is permitted. Since nothing is reported to authorities, all these groups have found there a kind of gangster paradise.
Nothing can be separated. Only moderation would help to identify those criminal activities and prevent that information are made available to others within a conversation or groups or channels.
This can be done, even in real-time, as we guys at Aeteos have demonstrated in 2022. So there could be a kind of filter function used by Telegram to identify criminal content and also better work with authorities to fight against criminal activities and respect the DSA.
So yes, you can see social networks as a trap. A trap to collect information and share it. For business or marketing purposes, that is what WhatsApp is doing. For what reason does Telegram do it? Most probably for intelligence reasons.
You know what people are saying and you know where they are. It’s then pretty easy to take action.
In that region, X and Facebook have been blocked. But not Telegram. It’s like the Kremlin would push people to use Telegram. But for what reason? Battlefield information, intelligence, GPS position of Telegram users. All that information is available and can be shared.
After Pavel got arrested in Paris, A Russian Telegram channel close to the country’s intelligence agencies, called Baza, reported that the country’s security officials had received a directive to delete the app from their phones. “Everyone who got accustomed to using Telegram for sensitive conversations and chats must immediately delete them, and don’t do it in the future,” said Margarita Simonyan, a Russian state media executive and prominent propagandist.
Curious statement. If conversations are encrypted and secured, why such a statement? What Margarita said in other words is that Telegram is used as a trap and that it should not be used anymore.
19. What was the final straw that made the French government open a case against Durov? When the warrant was issued, why was there no controversy about it? Why is the noise taking place only now that Durov was arrested?
According to a legal document seen by POLITICO, the investigation that led to his arrest originated with a branch of the police known as the OFMIN, a recently created unit charged with looking into abuses against children.
Research into social networks shows that links to Telegram groups, in which allegedly criminal abuse is exchanged, are circulating openly on the internet. For example, dozens of links to corresponding Telegram pages can be found on the social media platform X every hour.
On Feb. 8, 2024, at the request of the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office, the OFMIN opened a preliminary investigation into Durov and his brother Nikolai Durov, who is in charge of the app’s technical infrastructure.
On March 1, the prosecutor’s office asked the police’s anti-cybercrime unit to collect all information about ongoing investigations into potential crimes that involved the use of Telegram.
Three weeks later, on March 25, warrants were issued for the Durov brothers, according to the document.
At issue was what law enforcement officials described as Telegram’s unwillingness to answer requests for information. The National Gendarmerie alone counted 2,460 unanswered requests made to Telegram, according to Libération, another French newspaper. A French justice official told POLITICO that the Gendarmerie’s figures were “indicative” but not “exhaustive.”.
On Aug. 24, French border police flagged to OFMIN and the police’s central directorate that Durov was flying to Paris. He was arrested when he stepped off the plane.
As for the rest, I don’t know.
Pedocrimes are very serious crimes and Telegram is a huge crime scene. Arresting Durov was the thing to do but In a statement, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the investigation centered on the following 12 charges.
Some are related to the case submitted by the OFMIN like
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 groups.
While some other charges have nothing to do with it, like :
Complicity — web-mastering an online platform to enable an illegal transaction in an 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 to commit a crime or an offense punishable by 5 or more years of imprisonment.
Laundering of the proceeds derived from organized group’s offenses and crimes.
Providing cryptology services aiming to ensure confidentiality without certified declaration.
There is more behind his arrest.
20. There are questions about the laws under which Durov was charged which are mostly “complicity” in an assortment of crimes. Do these charges indicate being an accessory to a conspiracy or other crimes, do they mean he merely acted with criminal negligence or recklessness, or is he being charged as a knowing facilitator of these transactions?
I cannot answer those questions. An investigation is currently underway. No comment.
Telegram is a trap. Telegram gets money from key Russian business people linked to the Kremlin. The FSB used in the past data from Telegram to arrest people or get intelligence to better kill Ukrainian soldiers… It is not a negligence. It’s a functionality of Telegram! It’s not just an accessory but a true facilitator for various crimes. That is just my opinion.
21. When should we expect for the evidence against Durov to be presented? And what do these charges mean for the future of Telegram and its users?
I don’t have that information.
I just hope that pedo criminals will be identified and arrested.
22. Durov’s lawyer appears to be a well-known attorney but without a specific background in cybercrimes. What could be the reasons Durov chose that particular lawyer and not a specialist in the area he is being charged?
I don’t know. It’s curious.
23. Many have expressed surprise that Durov would have even a refueling stop-over in France given the seriousness of the charges he is facing. Some argue that he could be exchanged for a French national arrested in Russia; others believe Durov could be cooperating with the French authorities or a material witness against some state interests. Are there any other reasons Durov ignored the threat of arrest. Was he facing some other challenges or threats before coming to France? There are rumors he was to meet with Putin in Azerbaijan but that did not happen, and that Durov “flipped”.. if such a scenario had any plausibility, do you think it would change the minds of those who believe Durov is being unfairly prosecuted?
I don’t know. I have no information about this.
But as you said, if this scenario had any plausibility, yes, it could be pretty normal that this trip to Azerbaijan was done to meet Putin.
I don’t think that even if this information would be confirmed at some point this would change the minds of people who do think that Durov is prosecuted for unfair reasons.
24. Do you think that the image of Durov as a martyr for free speech cause helps Russia and authoritarian regimes? Can such an image ever be dismantled?
Yes, of course! If the whole world is sad about what is happening to Durov and because of the popularity of Telegram or other social media platforms, if because of this, authorities stop their investigations or resign, Telegram, as it is today, will just continue collecting user data and share these. Remember what happened to Marina. If such platforms are moderated, it will be more complicated for criminals to operate on Telegram and the user information will be without any interest to some regimes.
25. One of the claims in support of Durov is that he unlike various American social media giants was not leaking or selling private data. Is there a reasonable counter to that defense?
Ask Marina 😉 Durov did it already in the past, several times. He can do it in the future. He has the data. He has plenty of potential customers who could pay a lot of money to have access to information.
Why should so many people in Russia give Durov money for nothing? That’s not serious. In addition, Telegram servers are in locations that make it difficult to seize the machines. Unless we decide to ban Telegram from our countries, the threat that Telegram will share our communication does exist and for me, the risk that this was or is done is pretty high.
26. Do you think Telegram users should be migrating to other platforms? Has Telegram already become or will become in the future a weapon of various interests against the West?
What do you mean by users? If you are talking about me and you, citizens, who do look for privacy, move away from Telegram, move away from WhatsApp, move away from social media.
For me, Telegram is from the beginning a weapon against many states or people. Data is most probably sold to intelligence agencies or governments. What we put there is not safe at all.
In Europe, Telegram should be banned. We should not be able to install and run this software in our region. That would protect us a lot. But it’s not the only social network that should be banned. We should also ban TikTok, just to name another one.
27. Rumors circulated that UAE canceled a jet contract with France over Durov’s arrest, which was later proven to be false, yet continued making the rounds. Who do you think is behind that story?
Who benefits from exploiting any rift between Abu Dhabi and Paris? UAE expressed concern about the fate of their citizen, but so far appears not to have undertaken any actions. What can be said about UAE’s role under these circumstances given its geopolitical interests with both France and Russia? Is there a bigger game at play than Durov? Are we giving Durov and Telegram too much importance, and should we perhaps be looking at something else?
How to answer this question?
Look at the facts. Durov was arrested because the OFMIN in France issued a warrant because on Telegram there are pedocriminal activities and because Telegram refused to provide information to law enforcement authorities.
But Telegram is just like many other online platforms where pedo criminals do operate. There is nothing unusual to issue such a warrant.
For such a warrant, which is pretty common, why did the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs say in a statement that it was “closely following” Durov’s case and that it had “submitted a request to the French government to provide him with all consular services urgently”? Just because of the existence of pedo crimes on Telegram?
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did the same by commenting on Durov’s detention. Someone in his position is immediately speaking to defend someone who is no longer welcome in Russia? Just for Pedocrimes?
Due to the sensitive information available on Telegram, there likely is more behind this story.
Some also stated as reported by the magazine Forbes that the USA could be behind this arrest because Telegram has very sensitive information.
So who knows ?
Telegram is not secured. User data are available and can be shared. It’s a trap, a honey pot, a Troyan horse, and a threat to our democracies. It is a digital world where many criminals are operating.
Telegram should be banned like many other social networks. The only question is, who will have the guts to do it?