Offtopic stuff from the Ukriane war thread1

Integrity is a rare commodity these days - even right here. Pavel Durov is a fine example of such - extremely rare for the super rich of this world.

Nothing personal, just business: the West is destroying its competitors, by Elena Karaeva for RiaNovosti. 08.25.2024.

Twelve hours after the arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, a messenger that is developing more dynamically than its competitors, details of the causes and consequences of the incident leaked to the press.

It is reported that the charges of all mortal sins that may be brought against Durov by the investigating magistrate this evening are not "personal in nature" ("ne le concernent pas à titre personnel"), that is, the offenses were not committed by Pavel Durov himself. But by his Telegram.

Because he, Durov, taken into custody, barely having stepped off the ramp, allowed himself (or rather, the team that works in TG and supports the software) not to moderate the content of the messages that were published in the chats.

These chats could include up to several tens of thousands of participants, who could hold discussions on various topics. Preliminary data (access to them, of course, is classified), obtained by French law enforcement (they can only be trusted at their word for now), incriminate Durov for the lack of moderation in the chats (and therefore, for potential serious crimes).

True, and this is worth emphasizing, the connection between what was said in the chat and the commission of the alleged crime will have to be proven. And until the court and justice have made their verdict, Pavel Durov - no matter how much law enforcement officers force his hypothetical responsibility and no matter how hard they try to break him - enjoys the presumption of innocence.

And the burden of proving all charges lies with the investigation, with the police, with the investigating judge, with the work of the prosecutor's office.
Of course, no one doubts that Pavel Durov will have a strong team of lawyers who will examine every comma and detail of the indictments under a microscope.

But this is the current agenda, filled, quite naturally, with speculation and assumptions, most of which are unlikely to be confirmed by facts.

But there is reality and specifics, cast in precise legal formulations.

An example is the investigation into the work of a messenger and the compliance of its management’s actions with the so-called Digital Services Act.

It was designed, as is usually the case in the pan-European bloc, to protect exclusively the interests of users, against everything bad and for everything good. The impulse for everything to be calm in the "European garden" was to put up barriers to alternative information that was being spread on social networks.

It was the era of the pandemic, and people stopped trusting official data. So they got information online. So, to put a scarf over the mouths of talkers, this law was eventually adopted. The document, however, contained some restrictions: social networks were required to moderate and remove "undesirable content" if the number of their users exceeded 45 million people in the EU.

When they came and knocked on Telegram's door, they politely replied that the messenger has 41 million users, so it is not subject to the law. All this happened several months ago.

Then the particularly lively and vocal sopranos and tenors began to accuse the messenger of all kinds of crimes (both from the point of view of criminal law and from the point of view of the information war that is being waged against us).
Telegram has crashed several times in recent months.

Of course, this could be a simple coincidence, but it is possible that the EU supervisory and inspection bodies assessed the number of users. And having assessed it, they decided that such a competitor - and Telegram, if not today, then tomorrow as a free platform, without pre- and post-moderation - could attract users from "obedient" social networks.

Telegram is rebellious and unwilling to play games about "freedom of speech" and is not needed in the pan-European bloc.

Pavel Durov himself spoke about this quite openly in an interview with Tucker Carlson . He mentioned two giants, calling them his competitors: Google and Apple.

It has long been known that both corporations, under pressure or not, cooperate with the secret services without advertising these not entirely appetizing connections. But only the lazy do not know how Meta* traded in users' personal data.

Telegram has rejected similar proposals several times.

The first refusal ended with a comfortable emigration to sunny Dubai , the second may end with a couple of decades of imprisonment in one of the French prisons. If in the first case it was only about reorienting the digital platform, then in the second - about dividing up the successful business between competitors.

And everything is absolutely according to the law, without blackmail, without furious and open revenge.

After all, it's just business - nothing personal.

* The activities of Meta (social networks Facebook and Instagram) are banned in Russia as extremist.

The arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov can be compared to the arrest of the head of communications of the Russian Armed Forces.

Today, the use of Telegram for transmitting intelligence data, adjusting artillery, broadcasting video feeds from copters and other military purposes has become commonplace.

This is huge. Will Durov break under French/NATO interrogation and hand over the encryption keys to breach the Russian army’s main form of communication?

What are they taking there?

PapaDragon wrote:
Durov is ultra liberal cocksucker and Telegram is the biggest dogshit software mankind ever put into code
Neither will be missed

Holly ass virgin mary ...
It does not matter if you like some platform or not.
Nobody gives a fuk about that.
It is just one more case when "western values worshiper" has just been ass raped by his beloved western values
What is the most hilarious part : he has been detained at Le Berguet, while flying his PRIVAT jet from Azerbaijan, because he got a mood of dining in Paris
A stand upper would have no guts to figure out such nonsense
It is only "smelling garden" capable of this level of delusion.
It is not only funny but funnels all the shit about what west became. A direct opposite of matrix we create.
And guess what - how is the attractivity of all that crap hiking?

Sort of, but admit that the whole shit is really funny to observe

PapaDragon wrote:Who gives a fúck?

1)You used to witness the brutal exploitation of the Western power on other nations and you feel sad about someone that will suffer the similar face, even if it is due to their own misjudgment. It is called sympathy, you know.

2) Liberation of Ukraine from Western domination also means preventing the West to exploit the resource and manpower in Ukraine, which means weakening the West and getting potential allies for you. Helping others is also helping yourself. Internationalism solidarity is not a hollow agenda, but a pragmatic way for you to get allies and to cut off the life-source of your enemy.

higurashihougi wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:Who gives a fúck?

1)You used to witness the brutal exploitation of the Western power on other nations and you feel sad about someone that will suffer the similar face, even if it is due to their own misjudgment. It is called sympathy, you know.

2) Liberation of Ukraine from Western domination also means preventing the West to exploit the resource and manpower in Ukraine, which means weakening the West and getting potential allies for you. Helping others is also helping yourself. Internationalism solidarity is not a hollow agenda, but a pragmatic way for you to get allies and to cut off the life-source of your enemy.

Destroying the Ukraine achieves the same results with less Russian KIA's. Naturally, the US + EU won't spend a dime rebuilding the Ukraine once they're defeated, just like in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Serbia etc... so they'll become Russia's bitch by default.

GarryB wrote:Integrity? Is that what you are calling it?

Yes.

Governments all over the world have a tendency to abuse their powers - it even happened in New Zealand.
Giving any government agency a back door into your software is a sure way to oppress any opposition and other irritating individuals that may not agree with the government views.
This is exactly what we've seen happening right in front of our eyes in the west - censorship and suppression - with the likes of Meta and Google.

It would be a detrimental blow for freedom of expression if we allow this to happen to Telegram.

Russians won't be able to respond: US and NATO finally found something to hit Russia with, by Kirill Strelnikov for RiaNovosti. 08.28.2024.

The failure of the Kyiv "blitzkrieg" in the Kursk region and the rapid disintegration of the Ukrainian defense on the "big" front have put the true masters of Ukraine "on the clock": the US and NATO are not keeping up with the supply of the required volumes of ammunition and equipment to Ukraine, which is quickly knocked out on an industrial scale by our troops, and Kyiv is not keeping up with mobilizing new independent suicide bombers and digging trenches further and further to the west, while the Russian Armed Forces are inexorably moving forward.

As has been demonstrated many times, when difficulties arise, the West and Ukraine easily cross red lines carved in gold in stone and all sorts of terrible taboos, and also look for new and increasingly sophisticated ways to inflict maximum damage on Russia.

The latest events surrounding the arrest in France of Telegram founder Pavel Durov show that the collective West has decided to give Russia a decisive battle not on the fields of Little Russia, but in cyberspace – where, as they believe, they have longer arms.

The arrest of Durov, who the French prosecutor's office accuses of half of the Criminal Code, the outrages of the El Niño typhoon and the drunken destruction of a 14th-century chapel, has caused a huge stir both in Russia and around the world.

Everyone has spoken out on this matter - officials, media personalities, and influencers with different hair colors, who emotionally called this whole mess "the onset of a dark era," "an infringement on freedom of speech," and "the end of a free Internet." Information has appeared about the creation of some committees to protect Durov, concerned pickets have taken place at the French embassy, ​​and diplomatic structures have been busy with statements, requests, and petitions as usual.

All this is correct, humanitarian and very good. After all, Durov has Russian citizenship as his fifth (or fourth?) citizenship, and it is absolutely unseemly to leave our one-fifth citizen in the Bastille for 20 years: even the opportunity to eventually write a bestseller "How I became the Russian Count of Monte Cristo" does not compensate for the loss of youth, beauty, pumped-up abs and billions of dollars.

However, it is important to clearly understand that the goal of this entire special operation was not Durov as such, and the list of his alleged sins could have been absolutely anything.

A well-known American publication yesterday picked up a stethoscope and confidently made the assertion that Durov ended up behind bars for his unwillingness to cooperate with the authorities. In other words, the criminal charges against him are banal revenge and a means of pressure.

But the question arises: what is so honeyed about Telegram for the French and Americans (who are 100% likely behind Durov's arrest) that they are ready to wash away the remnants of the image of a "free world built on rules and human rights" into the Seine and make a laughing stock of Macron, who himself is a long-time and hardcore user of such a terrible, unsafe and criminal Telegram?

A ray of light on this topic is shed by a recent article from The New York Times, where one careless paragraph got lost among large and important blocks of text: "The arrest of Telegram's founder has highlighted the messenger's disproportionately large role in Europe's bloodiest war since World War II. <…> (and) has raised questions about the future of the platform that has (become by default) shaped the public's perception of Russia's war against Ukraine." According to the publication's experts, Telegram has essentially become the main information platform on the conflict in Ukraine, both in Russia and in Nezalezhnaya, used daily by tens of millions of people, and, in addition, Telegram has become one of the most important means of transmitting strictly military information for both the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Russian Armed Forces.

And here you don't have to be a genius millionaire to understand the opportunities that are opening up for those who can shape the opinions, moods and morale of the warring parties, create panic and chaos in vast territories with one button, and also gain access to the most important military information that can decide the outcome of critical battles and even the conflict itself. State Duma Speaker Volodin did not use humanitarian equivocations and directly stated that "Washington is behind Durov's arrest", whose ears and interests stick out a mile away from this case.

The European Commissioners, who earlier screamed at the top of their lungs that the arrest of the same Navalny was “unacceptable for Europe and the entire world community that believes in the protection of human rights and basic freedoms,” now know very well whose meat they ate: the press service of the European Commission stated that “the EC does not comment on the detention of Durov in France,” considering the incident a “national investigation.”

With these passengers everything is clear, as always.

But only one thing is unclear: why, why did Pavel Durov commit such a stupid act and go to Paris, knowing that he could be arrested?

In such cases, as smart housewives say, blindness, stupidity and pride are mixed in equal proportions.

It seems that Durov sincerely believed that his fame, charisma and millions actually made him untouchable and a "citizen of the world" who could sit on a golden fence between the warring parties. He believed that there was such a thing as a "completely free Internet" and that in an existential conflict between two worlds, one could be a neutral, third party. He believed that a French passport and a new name (did you know that Durov officially changed his name to Paul du Rove in France in April 2023?) would make him one of his own.

They didn't. As Taras Bulba would say: "Well, Pavlo, did the crunch of the French roll help you?"

And now it is Russia, which Durov proclaimed as the strangler of freedoms and poured all sorts of bad things on, that is fighting for his liberation.

Perhaps we are also naive and believe that the French citizen Paul du Rove will remember and understand that he is Russian.

Which means he is our friend and their mortal enemy.

https://ria.ru/20240828/nato-1968834299.html

Durov released on €5 million bail, 08.28.2024.

A French court has accused the Russian billionaire of a dozen offenses, including facilitating illegal transactions.

A French court has formally indicted Telegram founder Pavel Durov, accusing him of complicity in a litany of offenses and barring him from leaving France until the case against him concludes.

Durov appeared before a magistrates’ court in Paris on Wednesday, four days after he was arrested upon arrival in the French capital from Azerbaijan. In a statement released on Wednesday night, the court said that Durov had been formally charged with a dozen offenses, including complicity in “administering an online platform” used by a criminal gang to conduct an illicit transaction, a charge that the court noted carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison.

The rest of the charges, which were announced by prosecutors on Monday, include facilitating fraud, money laundering, and the distribution of narcotics and child pornography, as well as refusal to turn over user data to law enforcement investigations.

The Russian entrepreneur, who also holds the citizenship of France, the UAE, and St. Kitts and Nevis, was released on a €5 million ($5.55 million) bond.

He was ordered to remain in France until the investigation against him concludes, and to report to a police station twice a week.

Criminal investigations in France are run by special magistrates – judges granted wide-ranging investigative powers. Charges like those leveled against Durov are typically announced before investigators have finished gathering evidence, and can be dropped at any time if they cannot be substantiated.

The investigation against Durov began in February, the court statement noted. This detail contradicts a statement released by prosecutors on Monday, which described the probe as beginning last month. It is being led by OFMIN, a French agency tasked with investigating crimes against minors.

Telegram, which has almost a billion monthly users, generally refuses to hand over user data or chat records to law enforcement. However, the company said on Sunday that it complies with local laws, and called it “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

Anti-censorship activists have described Durov’s arrest as part of a wider campaign against free speech waged by Western governments, with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden accusing France of taking the entrepreneur “hostage” in order to access private communications on Telegram. In a social media post on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron insisted that Durov’s arrest “is in no way a political decision,” and that France “is more than anything attached to freedom of expression and communication.”

It is unclear whether Durov has been pressed to hand over user data since his arrest on Saturday. Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said on Tuesday that the billionaire would likely be coerced into giving up this data. “I really hope that he will not allow this,” Naryshkin told Russia’s TASS news agency.

https://www.rt.com/russia/603227-durov-bail/

Pavel Durov emerged victorious from the fight with the French, by Elena Karaeva for RiaNovosti. 08.29.2024.

The law enforcement officers of the Fifth Republic have made a fool of themselves in front of the entire world, both real and digital.

Having detained the Russian entrepreneur, the founder of the Telegram messenger , and brought a dozen charges against him on the most serious (from the point of view of legal and reputational consequences), they, judging by the decision made by higher authorities, achieved absolutely nothing from him during the ninety-six hours of detention.

Otherwise, Durov would not have remained free (with the need to report to the police station, but today the highest French establishment visits there, including Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni - they are also under investigation).

The bail that was demanded (five million euros) is a mosquito bite for a businessman with a fortune of fifteen billion euros. The third important point is that of the dozen charges, the investigating magistrate and the prosecutor's office considered only about half to have any legal basis.

And, to remind everyone once again - until any court decision, Pavel Durov is innocent. This is the basis of the presumption of justice. Any. And now the entire burden of proof of the acts that are imputed to Pavel Durov lies on those very law enforcement officers who are most likely very impressive in their uniform, but in essence they work poorly.

The reason for their poor, careless, inattentive work is not that the Parisian "flics" are stupid, but because the contingent they encounter in their daily work - usually fat little people selling drugs, old, senile libertines drooling over child porn - inevitably makes them stupid. They deal with the rabble of French society, the poor, stupefied by red wine in the morning and cheap Armagnac in the evening.

And then a Russian intellectual, a rich man, a handsome man, appeared before them on a private jet. And with creative plans to spend the evening and night in Paris in the company of a beautiful blonde. The forces were too unequal. As the late Alain Delon said: "sixty to one, and this one chance - mine - wins."

The investigators, when there was a lunch break (in France you can’t skip lunch and then savor dessert for a long time with aromatic coffee), could, if they wanted and/or if they knew English, have definitely read, for example, a publication that colorfully describes the dinner hosted in honor of Pavel Durov in 2018 by Macron at the Elysee Palace.

The host, receiving the guest, promised him not just gold, but practically diamond mountains. Durov refused to move Telegram headquarters to France. But the refusal did not bother Macron: it did not work out with the relocation of the headquarters, then he was offered a passport of the Fifth Republic. In exceptional cases, the president, using the constitutional prerogative, can sign a decree on naturalization. It is necessary to observe minor formalities, and here is a passport in the name of Paul du Rove - in your pocket.

For mere mortals who don't have a foot in the door (figure of speech) to Macron's office, the average wait for naturalization is three to five years, and that's in the best case.

The list of charges that the prosecutor's office gave to the press can only impress young ladies with a sensitive nervous system. Because each and every detail, nuance, comma, correspondence of place and time will have to be proven in court.

So far these are not even evidence, but facts. And facts can have interpretations. Very different ones. In general, in France, which is unable to cope with any vice - neither pedophilia, nor incest, nor the trade and consumption of prohibited substances - it is strange to hear accusations against an IT specialist who somehow (how, is not revealed, it is a secret of the investigation) contributes to all this.

It is no less strange to hear statements from the prosecutor's office about certain punishments, penalties and terms.

Hello, is this the prosecutor's office? Yesterday in your fashionable and expensive Mougins, an illegal repeat offender killed a gendarme, a father of two children. His widow directly accused France of being the country that her husband served faithfully and truly, "killed her husband", leaving her alone with two orphans on her hands.

Maybe France needs to fix something in its system, and for law enforcement to switch its attention to the real bandits and murderers, the real child porn dealers, the real rapists, and not run after a billionaire?

Whose only guilt, if you can call it guilt, of course, is that he turned out to be stronger than the entire legal machine of France (and the steamroller rolled over him the entire time he was in custody, all ninety-six hours, of course, harshly), and that he was born in Russia . And no matter how many passports he has, in the West he will always be Russian. And not just Russian, but a "questionable Russian." Despite all his achievements and the billions he has earned.

https://ria.ru/20240829/durov-1969110028.html

Regarding attacks on infrastructure, etc. For comparison, the Allies dropped almost 1,500,000 tons of bombs on the Reich, and in total, that's half of what they dropped on the rest of the Axis and occupied countries in Europe. It's interesting that such powerful bombings, which can be compared to dozens of attacks on Hiroshima, if not more, did not cause greater damage to the Third Reich's industry, which increased its production until the end of 1944. Today's attacks on infrastructure, apart from that, are a trifle. Of course, during World War II, a large part of the attacks were on civilian targets and entire cities. It seems that it is difficult to defeat a strong opponent with bombing alone. It is true that current attacks are much more precise, but incomparably smaller.

North Vietnam suffered 864,000 tons of bombs during Rolling Thunder and another 20,000 tons of bombs at Linebacker.

Such a comparison regarding strategic air raids during World War II and the current conflict, which is one of the largest since World War II.

The current force of strategic strikes is incomparably smaller. As a result, there are very few civilian fatalities.

Arrow wrote:It's interesting that such powerful bombings, which can be compared to dozens of attacks on Hiroshima, if not more, did not cause greater damage to the Third Reich's industry, which increased its production until the end of 1944.

Interesting indeed...is that bit of trivial "history" taken from Goebels memoirs or Karl Haushofer's?

The current force of strategic strikes is incomparably smaller. As a result, there are very few civilian fatalities.

There are fewer civilian casualties - only because the Russians very deliberately doesn't want to kill indiscriminately. However the other side have civilians marked as primary targets.

Do some more research and see how many civilians have been killed in America's endless wars.

Interesting indeed...is that bit of trivial "history" taken from Goebels memoirs or Karl Haushofer's? wrote:

It's not just a comparison of the scale of bombing during World War II and the fact that despite such massive bombings, they did not cause too much damage to industry.

Do some more research and see how many civilians have been killed in America's endless wars. wrote:

I realize that. The Korean War, Vietnam, then Iraq 1991, and so on.

It is also about whether bombing alone can defeat a fairly strong opponent. WWII showed that it cannot, and Vietnam too.

The difference between now and then can be sumerised in one word, accuracy.

Then they were lucky to hit the town or city let alone the factories within it, now its within a few meters so a fraction of the munitions is required.