[Lariscus]

This looks hugely blown out of proportion. The project founder has a well documented history of what I would consider a persecution complex. Once again he has provided no substantial evidence. The only thing they provided are some, admittedly borderline libelous, news articles. Unless they provide some more concrete information about these supposed attempts of getting a backdoor installed into the system, I will consider this as just another day of GrapheneOS drama.

[concinds]

The evidence is not "news articles", but the contents of those articles where a high-ranking prosecutor threatened to go after GrapheneOS "if they don't cooperate with the law".

No matter your feelings about the creator, I think this was entirely the rational choice.

France is pro-Chat Control. For about a year now there's been an anti-drug trafficking fervor among legislators and government, in which they've pushed for encryption backdoors (separate from Chat Control at the EU level) and recently threatened GrapheneOS. The country is politically unstable so future politics are hard to predict, but anti-encryption politicians stand a good chance of winning the next election. Any rational project would move out.

[0x1ch]

Didn't France intercept Telegram's CEO to force him to backdoor the app while in country?

Yes. Yes they did.

[halJordan]

They didn't. TG has never defaulted to e2ee and TG refused to provide the non-e2ee data they had. That is refusing to comply with the law.

You guys hurt your argument so much by straight up lying so you can feel self righteous anger over it

[0x1ch]

Being arrested as you walk off your flight sure seems like unjust prosecution.They had him for charges all the way up to being complicit in CSAM distribution. They wanted to hang him, or get what they wanted...

[immibis]

It's very normal. You get arrested anywhere they physically can, and then you go through a trial, which may be in a real court or a kangaroo one.

[victorbjorklund]

What? Why should criminals be protected specifically when they are walking of their flight?

[maelito]

Durov runs an app where slave trade was known and documented, and did nothing.

[sophrosyne42]

Can you believe that the cash Euro is used in crime, human trafficking, and exploitatiom everywhere, and the US hasn't invaded Europe to stop them from supporting human rights violations all over the earth?

[maelito]

This has nothing to do with encryption or GrapheneOS. Durov was letting slave networks on unencrypted channels go free.

[sophrosyne42]

Same with the Europeans, do you know how much tax evasion and embezzlement goes through Ireland alone?

[immibis]

And institutions who handle cash are required to turn over their records to investigate such crimes. So are chat apps. Telegram refused.

[sophrosyne42]

So why doesn't the EU hand over its secrets to the US? Seems like the EU is a dangerous supporter of terrorism and human trafficking that should be dissolved

[jtmlis]

The 500 euro bill, it used to be the Canadian 1000 dollar bill.

[DANmode]

At who do you stop laying personal blame for how people use their free will on the Internet,

between Durov and Sir Tim Berners-Lee?

[jojobas]

If your answer to slave trade using encryption is "deny encryption to everyone" we'll have to agree to disagree.

[maelito]

Telegram is not encrypted. These channels where not.

[SiempreViernes]

Funny how you translated "comply with takedown request" into "deny encryption to everyone".

Doubly funny as you seem to be implying Telegram has worthwhile encryption to start with.

[suspended_state]

I don't understand the last line in your comment: if Telegram doesn't have good encryption, why would anyone require to have a backdoor installed? Are you implying that the French government isn't able to decrypt a bad encryption scheme? Or that the idea that this government asked for a backdoor is preposterous?

[super256]

Yes, they were only not taken down because french LE did not properly follow the legal process (which was set by the EU btw), and didn't send their requests to the correct email. Of course Telegram is ignoring informal requests.

https://t.me/durov/342

https://t.me/durov/447

[Lariscus]

I don't disagree about leaving France over their position on chat control or legislation.

I disagree about them essentially spreading misinformation about what actually happened. One prosecutor, that probably doesn't even know what GrapheneOS is, making boisterous claims to the press, is not the same as being contacted by the state about adding a backdoors.

[jasonvorhe]

I don't get what you're saying.

Interviewed cop says they'll go after them if they don't cooperate, which would mean a) requesting assistance to law enforcement via means such as backdoors and server seizures and b) resulting in legal steps against the organization and its members by France. Who in their right mind wouldn't take this a threat? After Wikileaks, the Telegram CEO, pushes for chat control and other authoritarian techniques?

Sure, the cop might be a nobody in the grand scheme of things but they're representing a government agency publicly so they're probably not babbling out nonsense in a bar somewhere, being overheard by a reporter.

[aunty_helen]

Don’t you need that sort of paranoia to go out and create a privacy focused mobile OS?

[cladopa]

It is not called "paranoia" if it is real that they are coming after you.

Have you not seen what happened to Telegram CEO?

[jjgreen]

A world-weary cynicism suffices.

[idle_zealot]

I expect that most cynics would just keep their heads down and use iOS or something. The intense idealism needed to motivate something like Graphene is compatible with paranoia, but not with weariness.

[bigbadfeline]

> The intense idealism needed to motivate something like Graphene

Yes, the intense idealism of the brainwashed and oblivious prompted the realistic Graphene creators to do something themselves instead of waiting for other realistic folks who happen to be few and far between.

[gruez]

>The project founder has a well documented history of what I would consider a persecution complex.

Source?

[richbell]

One highly publicized incident was https://www.reddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/comments/13s7mv3/why_...

[ls612]

When you are in this business it's better to be safe than Pavel Durov.

[sunshine-o]

What happened to the founder of Telegram should be enough to discourage any of them to travel in France.

Especially since I guess they do not have the same kind of money and influence to fight it back.

[rgblambda]

A European Arrest Warrant would make the entire EU off limits. Which makes me think they haven't thought this through and are just overreacting, as many on this thread suspect.

If the GrapheneOS maintainers were being advised by a lawyer, they'd surely know that if French Authorities wanted them arrested and they were standing on a street corner in Stockholm, they could just as easily be picked up by police as if they were in a café in Paris. Making the whole France travel ban just a load of theatrics.

[bigbadfeline]

> Which makes me think they haven't thought this through and are just overreacting.

You're contradicting yourself. If "they haven't thought this through" they clearly haven't been paranoid enough but in that case they aren't overreacting, they're under-reacting. They need to transfer development out of the EU, not just out of France. That's one unexpected benefit of Brexit, btw.

[nani8ot]

Sadly UK have been passing similar laws as the EU when it comes to encryption, so they aren't any better.

[rgblambda]

My point is that they clearly haven't sat down with a lawyer, so don't know what the appropriate response is.

I suspect they'd get told to calm down while the lawyer sends a letter to the authorities explaining what they're currently attempting to articulate via social media.

The lead developer seems to have a history of this style of communication in response to any minor critique of himself or GrapheneOS.

[SiempreViernes]

> You're contradicting yourself. If "they haven't thought this through" they clearly haven't been paranoid enough

There is no contradiction between "being paranoid" and "not being rational".

Oh my mistake, you intentionally put "benefit" and "Brexit" in the same sentence; yes, there's absolutely a contradiction there, well done lad.

[bigbadfeline]

> you intentionally put "benefit" and "Brexit" in the same sentence

My comment wasn't an endorsement of Brexit, UK or EU. I was only thinking that if a quick change to a nearby jurisdiction was needed, the UK would be a place to consider, at least in the short term.

[blitzar]

The UK position is that Europe were allowing encryption and stopping the UK from banning it.

The UK doesn't even pretend the laws are for "child safety" they call it what it is - "snoopers charter".

[yownie]

I did a deep dive and Daniel Micay stepped down as lead dev back in 2023 FYI.

[dijit]

I mean, maybe?

Multiple accounts have said the same thing in this thread, and I'll be honest here: given the Jia Tan situation, it could be true (in the way that he's being pushed by external forces). It could it be character assassination... Or it could be totally valid: idk.

But what I do know is that nobody is providing any citations.

I also know that progress depends on the tyranny of unreasonable people.