Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has damaged his silence practically two weeks after his arrest in France, stating the costs are misguided.
“If a rustic is sad with an web service, the established observe is to start out a authorized motion in opposition to the service itself,” Durov mentioned in a 600-word assertion on his Telegram account.
“Utilizing legal guidelines from the pre-smartphone period to cost a CEO with crimes dedicated by third-parties on the platform he manages is a misguided strategy.”
Durov was charged late final month for enabling varied types of prison exercise on Telegram, together with drug trafficking and cash laundering, following a probe into an unnamed particular person’s distribution of kid sexual abuse materials.
He additionally highlighted the struggles to steadiness each privateness and safety, noting that Telegram is able to exit markets that are not suitable with its mission to “shield our customers in authoritarian regimes.”
Durov additionally blamed “rising pains that made it simpler for criminals to abuse our platform.” The favored messaging app not too long ago crossed 950 million month-to-month energetic customers.
“That is why I made it my private aim to make sure we considerably enhance issues on this regard,” he mentioned. “We have already began that course of internally, and I’ll share extra particulars on our progress with you very quickly.”
The corporate has since up to date its FAQ to permit customers to report unlawful content material inside personal and group chats by flagging it for evaluate utilizing a devoted “Report” button, a serious coverage shift and a function that was beforehand off-limits.
Durov’s assertion, nonetheless, does not delve into the shortage of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) protections by default, which customers need to explicitly allow in one-to-one chats.
“Additionally it is a ‘cloud messenger,’ that means that every one messages dwell on Telegram’s servers relatively than the person’s gadget,” Moxie Marlinspike, creator of the E2EE messaging app Sign, identified.
“With one question, the Russian Telegram crew can get each message the French president has ever despatched or acquired to his contacts, each message these contacts have ever despatched or acquired to their contacts, each message these contacts’ contacts have ever despatched or acquired, and many others.”
Matthew Inexperienced, a safety researcher and an affiliate professor of pc science at Johns Hopkins College, additional known as out the platform for making it an onerous course of that requires at the least 4 clicks on Telegram’s iOS app.
“The function is explicitly not turned on for the overwhelming majority of conversations, and is simply accessible for one-on-one conversations, and by no means for group chats with greater than two individuals in them,” Inexperienced mentioned.
“As a type of a bizarre bonus, activating end-to-end encryption in Telegram is oddly troublesome for non-expert customers to truly do. Secret Chats solely works in case your dialog accomplice occurs to be on-line if you do that.”