<div class="header-image"></div> <table class="table-header"> <thead> <tr> <th colspan="2"></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>2024-08-30</td> <td style="text-align: right;"><a href="About.md" class="internal-link">About</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> # Telegram, Signal, and Maintaining Digital Privacy  >[!note] Update 2024-09-02 >Pavel has been released on bail of 5 million euros, and must check in with French police at least twice per week. More updates will be appended to the end of this post as they arise. Just a week ago, on Saturday, August 24, Pavel Durov, the founder of the chat and social media app Telegram, was detained in Paris by French authorities for a laundry list of charges, including complicity in distributing child pornography, narcotics, and fraud, as well as "Refusal to communicate, at the request of competent authorities, information or documents necessary for carrying out and operating interceptions allowed by law." [2024-08-26 - CP TELEGRAM - Judicial Press Release, PDF](../Blog/Assets/2024-08-26%20-%20CP%20TELEGRAM%20.pdf) This has caused a minor uproar, and many have weighed in on what's transpired, including Edward Snowden.  >[!quote] >*"The arrest of [@Durov](https://twitter.com/durov?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) is an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association. I am surprised and deeply saddened that Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means for gaining access to private communications. It lowers not only France, but the world."* > >&mdash; Edward Snowden ([@Snowden](https://x.com/Snowden)) [August 25, 2024](https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1827695836832334169) For anyone who's been following internet communications in the last ten years, this really shouldn't be too surprising. And while I generally agree with Snowden's sentiment here, I can't help but wonder what Durov was thinking. Telegram bills itself as being a privacy-oriented communications tool. It's a messenger application like WhatsApp or Signal, but, with the use of its Channels feature, is also a sort of broadcasting app, where a channel creator can broadcast out to any number of subscribers. Group chats, like the ones found in WhatsApp or even via SMS, can also be populated by thousands, with invite links to the chat posted on any website or blog. And while Telegram does promote itself as a privacy app, it does not use end to end encryption (E2EE) by default for anything but voice and video chat, and is only capable of E2EE in one to one chats. Everything else *is* encrypted by default, but it's entirely cloud-based, and stored on Telegram servers. And therein, as they say, lies the rub. Telegram holds the keys to *all* of its channels and group chats. It is entirely possible for anyone within Telegram with access to the keys to read any of these group messages, or hand them over to government authorities. Signal, another private messaging app, uses E2EE by default for *all* communications. This means that there's no one at Signal who has access to any chats, and if a government agency requests any messages, Signal is *unable* to comply. I understand Durov's decision to use cloud-based chats. It's a security/privacy vs. convenience situation. One of the things for which I love Telegram is its live-updating of all chats across devices. This is only possible for cloud-based chats, and therefore *without* E2EE. Signal doesn't offer this feature for this reason. But this live-updating was a selling point for getting my family to use it. They don't care about privacy, or at least they care more about convenience and ease-of-use. I would actually prefer to use Signal. From my perspective, privacy is a far more important requirement, and to give that up just for a convenient feature or two is absolute folly. But if the alternative is SMS, Telegram is a reasonable compromise. It at least uses *some* encryption, and the chats are only available to Telegram while being hidden from everyone else. The only danger is if the CEO is arrested by a large government entity and threatens 20 years imprisonment if they don't hand over the chats of its users. This, I think, was Durov's mistake. If he really wanted to be able to truly protect both himself, and his users, he should have went the same route as Signal, and made everything E2EE. With the convenience tradeoff he's made, he really needed to expect something like this to happen, as did we the users. This was always a risk with using Telegram. In a case like this, knowing the choice of arrest or cooperating with government was inevitable, perhaps giving up the chats of a few terrorists and child-porn dealers shouldn't be out of the question. Users like myself can make up our own minds as to what compromises we are willing to make for the sake of convenient features and satisfied family members. The worst-case scenario in a case like this is that *my* chats will be read by a governing body, because of some kind of mistake where my user profile got mixed in with arms dealers, or something. Well there's no evidence of any arms dealing in my Telegram chats so I don't really have anything to worry about from a legal point of view, but it is a violation of my privacy to have my private chats being read by anyone other than the intended recipient. But I had to expect this possibility -- the situation we're now in -- considering the end-to-cloud-based encryption of Telegram. I also expect that Durov cannot be willing to go to prison for the values he's espousing here, though he could very well just resign from the Telegram project, and begin anew with something else. In the end, I think this is the most reasonable, and perhaps most likely, outcome. We've already seen that he's willing to abandon projects,as he did with VKontakte, the "Russian Facebook," as it was named. This was his first project, and he sold all shares and left Russia after he was threatened with arrest if he did not remove the pages of political opponents of Putin's administration. In the current situation, I fail to see any other outcome that doesn't see Durov serving a significant amount of time in a French prison. My prediction is he will resign from his position at Telegram. >[!note] Update 2024-09-07 >It appears that Pavel is now working with the French authorities and will be moderating Telegram's chats. Two separate updates by Pavel were given on the Telegram and X platforms. One was basically giving [his version of the events](https://t.me/durov/342) outlined in this post, with him claiming that Telegram never actually received any requests for assistance from the French authorities. This contradicts the media reports saying that multiple requests were made, and ignored. He also had this to say: >>[!quote] >>*"Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard. We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon."* >> >>&mdash; Pavel Durov, [September 5, 2024](https://t.me/durov/342) > >The second update was mostly a list of feature additions and enhancements with this listed at the bottom: >>[!quote] >>*"☝️ While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk.* >> >>*"✊ That’s why this year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise."* >> >>&mdash; Pavel Durov, [September 5, 2024](https://t.me/durov/343) > >It seems to me that, when faced with 20 years in prison, the values that Durov has espoused went completely out the window. And frankly, I don't really blame him. He's a good looking billionaire who's still in his 20s. Who would give up that life to sit in prison until his 40s? I can't say my convictions would survive that prospect either. >[!note] Update 2025-03-17 >It appears that Pavel has been allowed to leave France and is finally home in Dubai. He made the [announcement from his own Telegram channel](https://t.me/durov/403) this morning at 6:35 am.