Blinking Lights: Heroes of Underthrow

In 1986, my friend Lawrence “Larry” Reed embarked on a journey that would forever shape his understanding of courage in the face of authoritarian power.

Larry traveled behind the Iron Curtain, venturing into communist Poland. There he met two remarkable dissidents, Zbigniew and Sofia Romaszewski.

Recently released from prison, the Romaszewskis had been jailed for their efforts to spread messages of liberation among a population stifled by censorship, surveillance, and state control.

Their underground radio station was a beacon of truth in a sea of state propaganda. They revealed information the regime sought to suppress, so every transmission was a high-stakes gamble. They would broadcast for a mere ten minutes before they had to pack up and move to avoid detection by police.

Inspired by their resolve, Reed asked them how they knew people were listening.

Their response was unforgettable:

“One night, we asked people to blink their lights if they believed in freedom for Poland,” they explained. “We went to the window, and for hours, all of Warsaw was blinking.”

Those blinking lights were more than just a sign of defiance. They were a symbol of hope, telegraphing a collective yearning. Three years later, that hope would be realized as the Iron Curtain fell and Eastern Europe emerged from the shadows of communist oppression.

Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, was recently arrested at Paris-Le Bourget airport in France over allegations related to his platform’s inadequate moderation of illegal content, including terrorism, drug trafficking, and child abuse.

The arrest was based on a warrant from a French police agency, but the US government is almost certainly involved. France, after all, is a vassal state.

Consider this from Mike Benz:

Of course, it’s the Blob and the Glob.

Durov, a Russian-French citizen, co-founded Telegram with his brother Nikolai in 2013, following his departure from Russia after disputes over user data privacy on his earlier platform, VKontakte. Telegram’s encryption features have drawn praise for privacy and criticism for potential misuse​.

Drugs, child porn, and terrorism can always get people to turn their backs on liberation technologies. These dark pockets of the world, facilitated by a free internet, are unfortunate. But they are also a necessary evil when the alternative is totalitarian control of speech and assembly.

Just as it would be ridiculous to arrest:

• The maker of steak knives because someone used one to kill her spouse,
• The maker of cars because someone used one in a hit-and-run,
• The maker of pens because someone used one to sign a fraudulent check,
• The maker of streets because someone used one on his way to rape someone,
• The maker of encrypted apps because someone used one to buy some pot,

Pavel Durov’s arrest is also ridiculous. And the Glob cannot be trusted with a back door to Telegram.

Like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk (and Nick Szabo), Pavel Durov is an international hero of underthrow. If we don’t all soon get out of our comfortable armchairs and become the change—in both solidarity and redneck satyagraha—we will become milk cows for the global ruling class.

That starts with designing better technology for free expression and association, for we are officially in a race against time and the powerful.