Clearest difference I can see is:
- people who act more in the interest of society and less in the interest of those in power get arrested
- people who help those in power tighten the leash on society (fuckerberg, muskrat, etc) get courted and don’t ever face consequences
In other words: A high profile person in tech being threatened with arrest / being arrested by western countries is a pretty good sign that they were not cooperating with our totalitarian overlords & providing us with ways to preserve our privacy.
pop@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
So they can make a very convincing case for a backdoor, in exchange for his release. And maybe some compensation for continued cooperation. Both come out winning and they get to claim nothing happened.
Government cyber security dealings as usual. or not. who knows?
GenosseFlosse@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
It’s one of the most popular social media apps in Russia. I would bet they already have a backdoor for the Russian police…
wazoobonkerbrain@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They do.
wired.com/…/the-kremlin-has-entered-the-chat/
azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
That conspiracy theory is so dumb.
The government almost certainly doesn’t need a backdoor as telegram is almost completely unencrypted (only one-to-one channels can be but aren’t by default). The real (but more boring) conspiracy theory is that governments generally don’t mind Telegram because its willfully terrible security model allows them to keep an eye on terrorists and activists’ communications (I have a hard time believing that the NSA or even DGSE don’t have their own backdoors already).
However the EU does have laws mandating the moderation of said unencrypted messages, especially when it comes to CSAM, which Telegram is notoriously poorly moderated. It’s certainly reason enough to arrest and question this guy, at least until formal charges are brought or he walks free. Maybe there are additional political considerations, but there doesn’t have to be.
Also how would arresting this guy help with backdooring. He doesn’t have access to the source code. Whoever he calls to get that done is out of reach of the French police. He has no reason not to disable that backdoor as soon as he gets out of the EU. If he can be bought off he already has been (Crypto AG style except way lamer because no-one clever&important trusts Telegram), you don’t need to arrest someone to pay them. I’m no DSGSE bigwig but pressuring lower level engineers to backdoor their code seems like a 1000% more effective approach.