Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada • Hacker News Board

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#81

Post by Iv » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #17

gingerlime wrote: post #10

A couple of our employees from Syria also got blocked today. They were using Slack from Syria though. EDIT: I don't understand why they ban/block the account rather than "simply" block access from IPs from the country. This seems really strange and overreaching.

> They were using Slack from Syria though. This doesn't excuse anything. People in Syria are people too. This is similar to how people were calling for websites to block access to Europe over the copyright thing. The internet is a place where you don't even need to have a nationality. It is a place where we can all exist as pure thoughts. Why are we letting politics fuck it up?

> Why are we letting politics fuck it up?

Yes why?

Fight back: use Tor, have proxies, Tor nodes, bridges, gateways. Use ZeroNet, help crypto projects. Make it hard to discriminate on IP.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#82

Post by icebraining » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

deadbunny wrote: post #77

icebraining wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have an app installed in your phone, it might sync without your knowledge.

Sure, so your option is "uninstall app" or "never visit country/region I've always wanted to". Tough choice. I'm not defending slack or practices like it (hell, I have a blank phone I use whenever I leave the country) but it's not quite the choice you're making it out to be.

I'm just warning people that might not think of that.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#83

Post by jki275 » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #74

As an outsider, I am really surprised by how deep-rooted America's hostility is towards Iran. Shi'ite Iran certainly has human rights issues, but as far as terrorism is concerned the majority of them are orchestrated by Sunni groups. 9/11 hijackers, Al Queda, Islamic State, Paris attackers - are all Sunni.

Most Americans have as their only understanding a picture of Iran in their minds of the overthrow of the shah and IEDs in the past 14 years of war. Very few Americans would even understand that Iran isn't like the rest of the ME and has a very different history.

Americans in general aren't well educated about the ME and the ethnic and religious differences there -- even the past 17 years of war there haven't tipped the education system to give them better knowledge about it.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#84

Post by stunt » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

As far as I remember Slack does not ask/hold any information about your nationality. I wonder if he created his account when he was visiting one of the listed countries and for some reason, Slack is just using that information to block accounts.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#85

Post by skrebbel » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

kkarakk wrote: post #53

avar wrote: post #14

If you work for an American company, get a bug report from a user you know to be in Iran against an open source project you work on during company time and fix it as a result, can the company be considered to be engaging in commerce with Iran?

Sourceforge actively DID block interaction with countries under sanction by the US. even though they're garbage malware distributers now it is a data point https://www.computerworld.com/article/2467444/open-source-to...

They're not garbage malware distributors anymore.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#86

Post by wolf550e » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #18

If they are just deleting accounts where someone logged in from a treasury-barred country’s IP, I wonder what happens if you BGP hijack a small amount of that address space, somehow get admins or high profile users to connect via this (run WiFi? Some kind of proxy?), and then observe the chaos.

(I was wrong)

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#87

Post by Iv » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

If Slack has a presence in France, they can be sued for this. And I think in any country with anti-discrimination laws which I thought included many US states?

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#88

Post by u801e » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

startupdiscuss wrote: post #59

I think Slack is sending a clear and strong message: use a VPN!

Or use open source alternatives instead.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#89

Post by sneak » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

jordank wrote: post #80

My wife’s Slack account was closed yesterday. She created the account while traveling in Cuba (legally) years ago and hasn’t been back to Cuba or any other sanctioned country since. She is a cofounder of an org that uses Slack heavily and has now lost access to all her messages and files from the past couple years of work. There appears to be no appeal process here.

The appeal process is filing a lawsuit against Slack, provided the person wronged didn’t already agree to give up that right when accepting Slack’s TOS.

Re: Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

#90

Post by detaro » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

wolf550e wrote: post #86

rdl wrote: post #18

If they are just deleting accounts where someone logged in from a treasury-barred country’s IP, I wonder what happens if you BGP hijack a small amount of that address space, somehow get admins or high profile users to connect via this (run WiFi? Some kind of proxy?), and then observe the chaos.

(I was wrong)

He said having been to Iran and maybe having used app a few months ago might have triggered it.