Pavel Durov's arrest suggests that the law enforcement dragnet is being widened from private financial transactions to private speech.

The arrest of the Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France this week is extremely significant. It confirms that we are deep into the second crypto war, where governments are systematically seeking to prosecute developers of digital encryption tools because encryption frustrates state surveillance and control. While the first crypto war in the 1990s was led by the United States, this one is led jointly by the European Union — now its own regulatory superpower.

Durov, a former Russian, now French citizen, was arrested in Paris on Saturday, and has now been indicted. You can read the French accusations here. They include complicity in drug possession and sale, fraud, child pornography and money laundering. These are extremely serious crimes — but note that the charge is complicity, not participation. The meaning of that word “complicity” seems to be revealed by the last three charges: Telegram has been providing users a “cryptology tool” unauthorised by French regulators.

All the recent dark net arrests seem to be pretty vague on how the big bad was caught (except the IM admin's silly opsec errors) In the article they say he clicked on a honeypot link, but how was his ip or any other identifier identified, why didnt tor protect him.

Obviously this guy in question was a pedophile and an active danger, but recently in my country a state passed a law that can get you arrested if you post anything the government doesnt like, so these tools are important and need to be bulletproof.

Basically the subject is in title. I recently discovered lemmy.world doesn't allow commenting/posting from VPNs. Some VPNs are working, but it seems to be a matter of time until they appear on publicly sourced lists and banned.

Follow-Up: It's going great! I've stopped using my Tile tracker, I haven't lost my keys (yet), and I feel like I'm a LOT less trapped by my circumstances regarding them. Many thanks everyone! Many thanks indeed!

(See bottom for tl;dr.)

I'm the kind of person who loses their keys easily, so I love the idea of trackers: little devices that you can attach to your wallet, phone, or keyring that connect via bluetooth to an app on your phone to help you find it.

Problem is pretty much all the options I can find are run by companies with shitty privacy policies: Tile, Apple AirTag, Chipolo, and so forth.

• Tile collects shitloads of data and is partnered with Amazon to boot;
• Apple Airtags AFAIK only work with Apple devices, and besides it's Apple so no thank you; and
• Chipolo also collects shitloads of data and shares information with data brokers and data collection companies of all stripes. No thank you.

In any case, I really don't need a location network larger than maybe 200 meters (about 650 feet). If I lose my keys, odds are it's either in my car or in my house, and my house is like 100 square meters (about 1000 square feet). So Bluetooth is really all I need. I don't even need to see it on a map; I just need for it to ding or something.

I'm currently using Tile but I really want to get away from it. Worst case scenario, I'll stop using the Tile, but I really am a forgetful little shit. Lol.

tl;dr – Looking for recommendations for ideally short-range Bluetooth trackers for keys, with decent privacy. Max required range = 200 m (650 ft). Also, pie tastes great. Cheers.

Edit: Added a single comma (because fuck syntactic ambiguity) and added follow-up. :)

Not sure is this is the best place to post this question, but wondering what is the best way to encrypt a usb drive?

Want to be able to carry an encrypted flash drive with me but also be able to unlock it, if possible, on various OSes. Preferably with some kind of portable software. Something similar to the method that comes with the Kingston Data Traveler USB drives.

Edit: Seems like Veracrypt and Cryptomator are the best options to check out. Thank everyone!

The head of Telegram, Pavel Durov, has been charged by the French judiciary for allegedly allowing criminal activity on the messaging app but avoided jail with a €5m bail.

The Russian-born multi-billionaire, who has French citizenship, was granted release on condition that he report to a police station twice a week and remain in France, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.

The charges against Durov include complicity in the spread of sexual images of children and a litany of other alleged violations on the messaging app.

His surprise arrest has put a spotlight on the criminal liability of Telegram, the popular app with around 1 billion users, and has sparked debate over free speech and government censorship.

I tried SimpleX but the VPN kill switch on my phone prevents syncing with my computer.

I use telegram primarily as a note taking app with sync features.

Occasionally I send files to friends, so having easy set up for tech illiterate would be great.

It's based on Signal protocol and it's also open source. However, unlike Signal it doesn't harvest phone numbers.

https://github.com/wireapp

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/0QgXq

I thought this group may enjoy this read about a suggestion on an option to take in the Google antitrust lawsuit. Of particular interest is that certain groups feel that the "right" approach is that everyone should be able to surveil the population, Google-style and the choice quote:

The judge repeats some of the most cherished and absurd canards of the marketing industry, like the idea that people actually like advertisements, provided that they're relevant, so spying on people is actually doing them a favor by making it easier to target the right ads to them.

They're making changes to where if you have your transactions set to private it will only say "PWP*Privacy.com" on your bank statements. Say goodbye to "NSA Giftshop". Sad day

"404 Media previously reported Cox Media Group (CMG) was advertising a service that claimed to target ads based on what potential customers said near device microphones. Now, here is the pitch deck CMG sent to prospective companies. Google has kicked CMG off its Partner Program in response..."

Just stumbled upon this project, seems rather new as my DNS blocked its domain by default for being too new hehe.. Anyone had a chance to try it yet? Its got some hefty promises, like having equally strong privacy features as Librewolf. I'll be giving it ago at least, almost sounds a bit too good to be true...

I am in the process of moving away from Spotify by downloading my music offline. The files vary in types (.webm, .m4a, etc.), and I would like a way to sort them into playlists on Android. What are your suggestions?

need to share my location with some people, are there any services that respect privacy? paid is alright as long as im the only one who has to pay (like if i can be a paid user but free users can view my location)

just dont wanna use google maps but if thats all there is then whatever

already checked out owntracks and zood, neither worked for me (needs to be cross platform)

EDIT: in response the responses, no self hosting, and has to be just ready to install, no buildning it yourself

im willing to sacrifice privacy here over ease of use, just hope i dont have to

Blog post by crypto professor Matthew Green, discussing what Telegram does (I wasn't familiar with it) and criticizing its cryptography. He says Telegram by default is not end-to-end encrypted. It does have an end-to-end "secret chat" feature, but it's a nuisance to activate and only works for two-person chats (not groups) where both people are online when the chat starts.

It still isn't clear to me why Telegram's founder was arrested. Green expresses some concern over that but doesn't give any details that weren't in the headlines.

I needed to clean up my Google account but couldn't remove all my YouTube subscriptions because Google doesn’t allow it, SO FUCK YOU GOOGLE. I searched online for a solution but only found broken scripts. So, I made my own working script to unsubscribe from all channels efficiently. Sharing it here in case anyone else is in the same boat. Hope it helps!

https://archive.today/TUWAq

(Cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26559848/)

Some significant news for Telegram users!

See this article for some interesting backstory context on Pavel Durov and Telegram: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-telegram-billionaire-and-his-dark-empire-a-f27cb79f-86ae-48de-bdbd-8df604d07cc8

Since the post article is in French, here's an auto-translation:

Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the encrypted messaging service Telegram, was arrested around 8 p.m. on Saturday evening as he got off his private jet on the tarmac of Le Bourget airport. The 39-year-old Franco-Russian was accompanied by his bodyguard and a woman.

The arrest was carried out by the gendarmes of the GTA (Air Transport Gendarmerie). Registered in the RPF (wanted persons file), Pavel Durov came straight from Azerbaijan. He had over his head a French search warrant issued by the OFMIN of the National Directorate of the French Judicial Police, issued on the basis of a preliminary investigation.

Why was he under threat of a search warrant?

The Justice considers that the lack of moderation, cooperation with the police and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable number, cryptocurrencies, etc.) makes it complicit in drug trafficking, paedophile offences and fraud.

This search warrant ran if, and only if, Pavel Durov was on national territory. "He made a mistake tonight. We don't know why... Was this flight just a step? In any case, he's locked up!" a source close to the investigation told TF1/LCI. Since he knew he was persona non grata in France, Pavel Durov used to travel to the Emirates, the countries of the former USSR, South America... He travelled very little in Europe and avoided countries where Telegram is under surveillance.

And now?

Investigators from the ONAF (National Anti-Fraud Office attached to the Customs Directorate) notified him and placed him in police custody. He is expected to be presented to an investigating judge this Saturday evening before a possible indictment on Sunday for a multitude of offences: terrorism, drugs, complicity, fraud, money laundering, concealment, paedophile content...

"Pavel Durov will end up in pre-trial detention, that's for sure," comments an investigator to TF1/LCI. "On his platform, he allowed an incalculable number of misdemeanours and crimes to be committed for which he does nothing to moderate or cooperate," said a source close to the case.

His pre-trial detention at the end of his indictment is indeed in no doubt. Pavel Durov, a billionaire, has substantial means to flee and his guarantees of representation will hardly convince the judges.

A net with international resonance

For the investigators, this international sweep has various objectives. First, it makes it possible to kick the anthill, impress and deter the perpetrators of crimes and offences who exchange, until now, freely on Telegram. Secondly, they aim to put pressure on European countries to step up joint work to make secure messaging on terrorist cases bend.

Indeed, Telegram is a hive of criminal content. At the moment, the platform is in the news with the illegal broadcasting of Ligue 1 matches. But on this encrypted messaging service, many accounts are used by organized crime. Beyond terrorism, the most dangerous pedophiles communicate on Telegram to exchange content. "It has become for years THE number 1 platform for organized crime," comments an investigator.

Hi everyone,

I'm currently facing some frustrating restrictions with the public Wi-Fi at my school. It's an open Wi-Fi network without a password, but the school has implemented a firewall (Fortinet) that blocks access to certain websites and services, including VPNs like Mullvad and ProtonVPN. This makes it difficult for me to maintain my privacy online, especially since I don't want the school to monitor me excessively.

After uninstalling Mullvad, I tried to download it again, but I found that even a search engine (Startpage) is blocked, which is incredibly frustrating! Here’s what happened:

• The Wi-Fi stopped working when I had the VPN enabled.
• I disabled the VPN, but still couldn't connect.
• I forgot the Wi-Fi network and reset the driver, but still no luck.
• I uninstalled the Mullvad, and then the Wi-Fi worked again.
• I tried to access Startpage to search for an up-to-date package for Mullvad, but it was blocked.
• I used my phone to get the software file and sent it over, but couldn't connect.
• I searched for different VPNs using DuckDuckGo, but the whole site was blocked.
• I tried searching for Mullvad, but that was blocked too.
• I attempted to use Tor with various bridges, but couldn't connect for some unknown reason.
• I finally settled for Onionfruit Connect, but it doesn't have a kill switch, which makes me uneasy.

Ironically, websites that could be considered harmful, like adult content, gambling sites and online gaming sites, are still accessible, while privacy-tools are blocked.

I'm looking for advice on how to bypass these firewall restrictions while ensuring my online safety and privacy. Any suggestions or alternative methods would be greatly appreciated! (If any advice is something about Linux, it could be a Problem, since my school enforces Windows 11 only PC's which is really really igngamblingThanks in advance for your help

edit: did some formatting

edit2: It is my device, which I own and bought with my own money. I also have gotten in trouble for connecting to tor and searching for tor, but I stated that I only used it to protect my privacy. Honestly I will do everything to protect my privacy so I don't care if I will get in trouble.

edit 3: Thanks for the suggestions, if I haven't responded yet, that's because I don't know what will happen.

More in physical privacy space than the usual post. Whenever I get mail, I shred it before disposal. Whenever I get a package, I black out the label.

But my method for blacking out the labels is basically turning on the gas range and holding the label over it until it turns black. It's not even that good of a method, because I can still see a black-on-black print.

So, I'm wondering if anyone has any better ideas for this sort of thing.

I just went to use nvcc for the first time and this nonsense hit my firewall. Make won't compile but it has to do with my unwillingness to use the proprietary toolkit. This network activity only happened once on startup.

I know this will sound paranoid as fuck, but I've really been thinking about Microsoft lately. Like, they're pushing their Recall shit whether we like it or not. The fact that it even made it past the concept stage tells me that no one at Microsoft gives a single fuck about their users anymore. The final shreds of any trust I had in them as a company are gone and I've started thinking of them as an adversary.

Today I was considering Teams in particular. My company has been using it for maybe six years. When our email provider went teats up, I did some research and realized we had Microsoft cloud stuff included in our Action Pack subscription. We started using their email, and about the same time we started using Teams.

Teams offers EEE but only on Teams Premium, which we don't pay extra for. Microsoft has access to every message and chat. They could be saving transcripts and voice calls. They might have accumulated billions of hours of voice data by now.

What could they do with all this data?

1. Sell to LEO
2. Commit corporate espionage
3. Gather government secrets
4. Use for AI training

Something else just occurred to me. I did research a while back on the software stacks that big tech companies use. Not one uses IIS.

I've been a Windows developer for thirty years. I used to like Microsoft. I looked forward to new versions of Windows and Visual Studio. Now I feel like they've lured us all in slowly until we put our throats in their jaws. Fucking mental.

Talk me down, if you can.