billbindc

Folks...let's not pretend Musk is anything but what he obviously shows himself to be.

No. He's saying that internal conflicts in many liberal democracies are happening because of an inevitable reaction to their triumphs as a political system. Rather remarkably, he described in 1989 pretty accurately what we are seeing some 25 years later and did so years before the ascendancy of liberal democracies seemed obvious. That observation is not relative to the normal interests that promote conflict.

Ioffe on Durov: https://puck.news/the-durov-delusion/

The way I put it around these parts is that affinity is not the same thing as conspiracy...and in fact it's a far more dangerous problem. Trump, Rohrabacher, Vance, etc are not acting out of simple greed, cynicism or opportunity. They are actual authoritarians who wish to rule in the manner Putin does even when the incentives of democracy are there for the asking. If that sounds odd, consider where Trump would be electorally right now if he had actually given a unity speech at the RNC, had not talked about being a dictator, if he vowed believably to respect the rule of law. He'd very likely still be winning. Fukuyama, again, because it bears repeating: “But supposing the world has become “filled up”, so to speak, with liberal democracies, such as there exist no tyranny and oppression worthy of the name against which to struggle? Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy.” ― Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

This actually is a fair point. Musk's purchase does not have a significant Russian component and what there is mostly by association. The concern with the owners are that they are another galaxy of bad actors who wish to use the platform to push ideas, suppress criticism and affect political discourse...not least among them Musk himself, Thiel, KSA, etc.

And the end to end encryption Telegram uses is not all that hot. It is quite unlikely that it hasn't been broken to some degree by US agencies.

I would submit that quoting Durov's lawyer is not exactly giving us an objective read of the case. As the article itself states: "It includes, unsurprisingly, the "refusal to communicate, upon request from the authorized authorities, the information or documents necessary for the realization and exploitation of interceptions authorized by law" , but also the criminal association. As well as counts of "complicity" in offenses committed by Telegram users and prosecuted in France, such as the possession or distribution of child pornography images, drug trafficking or the trade in tools "designed or adapted to attack and access the operation of an automated data processing system" , in other words computer hacking hardware or software. The precise nature and number of the cases concerned have not been made public. Finally, potential violations of the legislation on cryptography tools, absence of "prior declaration" or "compliant declaration" are mentioned . The maximum penalty incurred is ten years of imprisonment." The proper analogy is that Durov was actually charging drug dealers to use his bar to sell cocaine and actively obstructing police investigations into those criminal transactions. Easily chargeable, actually.

He means that he doesn't understand that producing a bunch of fighters of specious quality at an unacceptable cost didn't matter much because it was virtually impossible to properly train the personnel to fly them effectively. Kinda like another situation we sometimes talk about around here.

Indeed, it is. Le Diplomate has excellent escargot though.

I remember it so well I used the urinal he climbed over to escape in the Au Pied du Cochon bathroom in his honor many times.

Aiding and abetting child pornography is not something that's going to be easy to plea out of and the French are going to make it very hard for him. I suspect that the botched meeting with Putin in Azerbaijan was an attempt to squeeze some sort of deal out of the Russians instead that didn't work out and Durov has too many enemies in Moscow to have returned without a significant roof of political protection over his head.

Oh...

Nobody said Telegram was a private network. It was obviously suborned by the Russian state...which state is so inept and resource poor that it's military has been using it extensively to plan operations and communicate. The issue isn't *FSB* visibility into Telegram...it's that it is very likely that France and Five Eyes get a look at whatever small part they haven't already sieved. Durov also didn't "walk". He is under judicial supervision, has a court date coming up and has no passport. In the court of public opinion in France, he's being portrayed in French media (which I suggest you read before commenting) as a facilitator of child porn, human trafficking and drug dealers. Finally, much like you seem to be unable to differentiate anti-Putin from pro-Putin Russians you seem to think that the West is defined by the worst among us. Points for analytical consistency I guess?

On one level I've always thought that this thread is, inter alia, a great marketing device. It has brought Battlefront to a *lot* of folks...

Durov is something quite a bit more complicated than an FSB agent and if playing the magical "russian opposition" card results in one getting arrested I'm not sure what your problem with it is. Since it's very likely Telegram was already cracked to a large degree by Western intelligence, I doubt he has all that much to bargain with. We'll see.

Interesting stuff: https://www.is.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000010648292.html

Yep...it was always going to go nuclear and that's pretty much why it didn't happen. Ironic, really.

He's dead.

A *very* interesting arrest. Telegram is very heavily used by not just the Russian military but by overseas operations teams from the GRU, FSB, etc. While there is certainly some penetration by foreign sigint already, Durov's cooperation would represent a strategic overview of Russian government use that would likely have serious consequences.

Would be interesting to know what the reach of his connections are in the KGB. He was part of the border force but clearly has enough to start and prosper Paladin. His PMC is under 500 members and mostly in Syria and Africa so there isn't a military component to this.

Great pull. And incidentally proof that the US isn't leaking Ukrainian plans.

Come on now, brother. She is part of the administration and party that's been supporting Ukraine and she just vociferously committed to continuing to do so. Let's be happy about it in an entirely bipartisan fashion.

I would suggest listening to what candidates actually say rather than making up a quote based on your most cynical interpretation of what they might do.

"As President I will strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies." VP Kamala Harris tonight. I think we know where she stands now.

Guys like me are waiting it out in Falls Church when that stuff happens.