Author: Vince Quill, CoinTelegraph; Translated by: Tao Zhu, Golden Finance
Several French government websites have been knocked offline by a denial of service (DDoS) attack believed to be linked to a Russian hacking group, according to multiple reports.
Affected websites include the Paris Administrative Court, the French Health Ministry's ansm.sante.fr website and the Supreme Court's pages.
Source: Entropia Intel and Cointelegraph
Initial reporting from Entropia Intel said the attack was believed to be a response to the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France on August 24.
Macron says arrests have nothing to do with politics
On August 26, French President Emmanuel Macron issued a statement on Durov's arrest, saying that the move had nothing to do with politics. Macron reiterated France's commitment to freedom of expression, while emphasizing that the outcome of Durov's case will be determined by France's independent judicial system, not by France's political institutions.
Source: Emmanuel Macron
Macron’s comments sparked a backlash from the cryptocurrency community and free speech activists, with former VanEck digital asset strategy director Gabor Gurbacs asking: “You arrest this guy and then see if he did anything wrong? Is this what you call ‘rule of law’ and ‘free speech’?”
Calls for Durov’s release have been strong, including from industry leaders such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. Following the news of Durov’s detention, Buterin expressed his concerns:
“I’ve criticized Telegram before for not taking encryption seriously enough, but from the information we have so far: it looks like the charge was just ‘unaudited’ and not about handing over people’s data. This looks very bad and is worrying for the future of software and communications freedom in Europe.”
French prosecutors issued an update on Aug. 26, revealing that French law enforcement officials may detain Durov until Aug. 28 to question him about crimes allegedly committed by “unnamed individuals” operating on the platform.
As of this writing, Durov has not been formally charged with a crime by French officials, nor has he been proven to have committed any legal wrongdoing.
