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Slack closes account of an Iranian user living in Canada

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

#201

Post by thinkloop »

robteix wrote: post #105

Aside from the obvious wrong of blocking people based on their origin, what's up with these companies closing accounts with no warning and no recourse? I know they're private companies and they _can_ do it, but just because you can doesn't mean you should. Why not give the user even a few days notice so they can communicate with support to try and clear things up? Taking the OP's story at face value, Slack should eas…

I wonder if it's like being fired, they are concerned that you may fly off the handle with your last bit of time so they confiscate all your tools as quick as possible.

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

#203

Post by AJ007 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #159
robteix wrote: post #105

Aside from the obvious wrong of blocking people based on their origin, what's up with these companies closing accounts with no warning and no recourse? I know they're private companies and they _can_ do it, but just because you can doesn't mean you should. Why not give the user even a few days notice so they can communicate with support to try and clear things up? Taking the OP's story at face value, Slack should eas…

> I know they're private companies and they _can_ do it, but just because you can doesn't mean you should. Actually, if you look at the image, Slack is beholden to US law, export regulations and economic sanctions - companies doing business with countries they shouldn't are in big trouble. See also: Huawei, who despite sanctions continued to do business with Iran, which caused the US to give them a huge fine. I don't…

This is another strong case for open source software development along with open, publicly available, standards and protocols.

This isn't about Slack, it isn't about US sanctions law. It is about any private entity creating closed sourced, remotely hosted software. Everyone knows that APIs can be pulled at any time (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) Spying can be mandated whether it is the US government, China, or anyone else.

As end users it is never clear what is going on behind the curtain. It is never certain the product will be here tomorrow - whatever the reason. No one would build a high rise where all of the elevators could suddenly vanish, yet we are increasingly putting the critical pieces of our businesses and our lives in the hands of entities that only need to flick a switch and everything instantly vanishes.

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

#205

Post by pjc50 »

InGodsName wrote: post #56
jstanley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning people because of the country they were born in is not "smart", it's abhorrent. That the US, supposedly the leader of the free world, is threatening prosecution and jail to those who want to treat everyone in the world equally, is a ludicrous state of affairs.

Country is made up of its citizens. If a country does smth, citizens are punished. This has been case throughout the history. Alexander took the losing kingdom's citizen as slaves and American bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, again the citizens of Japan who were living there.

"Collective punishment" of this form is a war crime under the Geneva conventions.

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

#206

Post by tmerse »

debaserab2 wrote: post #100
jimijazz wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree about going to the self-hostable path. I would add as an alternative, looking for non-US products, maybe from neutral countries. As someone mentioned in the twitter thread, this could happen to any product: Google, Facebook, even taking the bus!

Neutral countries? What’s a neutral country?

Switzerland

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

#207

Post by mirimir »

jwildeboer wrote: post #161

So it seems that Slack is going through their log files and closing down accounts that have used IP addresses that are considered to be in embargoed countries. I base that assumption on various comments here and on Twitter. If true, it is definitely the worst way to do. It doesn't take into account any circumstantial evidence that could explain the use of such an IP address (vacation, VPN, BGP or a mistake in the geo…

Yeah, and from jordank's comment about his wife, they're using logs from years ago. That is impressively stupid.

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

#208

Post by jstanley »

konspence wrote: post #158
mont wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are still reliant on your isp however.

Don’t forget your electricity provider as well. Of course you could run a solar system and mesh WiFi.

Even if you run a solar system with mesh WiFi, you're still reliant on getting food and clean water.

/s

Incremental improvements are still improvements, even if you still rely on some people for some things.

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

#210

Post by kypro »

mirimir wrote: post #190

So is this really an accurate title? It seems most likely that Slack has geolocated IP addresses from account access logs, and closed accounts with hits from sanctioned countries. Perhaps going back years. That in itself seems over the top. But it doesn't constitute ethnic profiling. But if someone has a counterexample, that would be OK too.

Yeah, they're clearly not checking the ethnicities of everyone using their service, but this still seems rather harsh, and with no appeals process too?
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