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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

#231

Post by mirimir »

jwildeboer wrote: post #214
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.

OP here. I would partly agree. But at the time I posted the link, I only had examples from Iranian people that are living in other countries using Slack and getting banned. Now that I have heard more stories about people from Syria and even one US person, I wouldn't post it again with that description. I'll leave it to the mods to change the description accordingly, if they feel inclined to do so. UPDATE: The mods ha…

I meant no criticism. I'm just trying to understand what they're doing. And damn, just the realization that they have access logs going back years is mind-boggling. If they didn't have the logs, they'd arguably be better off.

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

#232

Post by mbesto »

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.

So, uhh, just stop using Slack then? There are plenty of alternatives now.

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

#233

Post by corebit »

spacehome wrote: post #221
bgarbiak wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but cutting you off your everyday job and crucial documents (causing stress, money problems, hopefully not: unemployment) only because you happened to open an account in a random country seems like a reason good enough for a lawsuit. What to gain: compensation, and that damn' account.

You are not entitled to Slack's infrastructure, no matter how much you came to depend on it for your day-to-day life.

Well that's not strictly true. Presumably there is a contract of some sort, and Slack must abide by it, entitling users to Slack's infrastructure to some degree.

It's not completely arbitrary. Plus there're notions of estoppel potentially at play.

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

#234

Post by simias »

jstanley wrote: post #188
dustinmoris wrote: post #147

Wow the Twitter thread and the experiences which are mentioned here sound so extreme and crazy that I am seriously confused to what believe. - Is this all made up to prove some point? - Is this just how the US ticks right now? - Is Slack just completely gone mad? - Is this what companies believes is acceptable nowadays? - Is this the future of the web? The fact that I am not sure what to believe and that I wouldn't b…

I don't think this is the future of the web. This sort of thing is a temporary blip before everybody figures out decentralised solutions for everything. Decentralisation is clearly the end game as long as politics causes problems like this. A decentralised solution will continue to "just work", while centralised solutions continue to boot people off. It's pretty obvious which one is going to win.

Except looking at the past 20 years or so it seems clear that the trend is going the other way around. Slack itself is an example of that, not long ago it would've been a set of self-hosted tools. People have ditched IRC in favor of Discord and friends, they've ditched decentralized forums, BBSs and mailing lists for social networks, everybody hosts everything using the same four or five cloud providers, streaming and direct download is much more popular than BitTorrent etc...

Maybe this trend will reverse eventually but I don't really see the signs yet. The Cryptocurrency crowd keeps shouting "decentralization" but they still fail to create applications that can compete with the centralized alternatives in terms of usability, performance and cost. There have been many attempts at making decentralized social networks but they failed to gain mainstream adoption. IPFS works pretty well but again, hardly anybody uses it.

I'm all for decentralization but there's no denying that there seems to be a path of least resistance towards centralized solutions. They're easier to develop, easier to maintain, easier to upgrade and often easier to use.

So for me decentralization is the objective, but unfortunately it's not "clearly the end game".

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

#235

Post by thrw9090 »

If anyone did notice the hashtag on his twitter. Iranian permanent residency applicants in Canada are being thoroughly scrutinized before granting them permanent residency in Canada and hence the hashtag. AFAIK, citizens from a couple of nationalities undergo this vetting process by Canadian immigration before being granted permanent residency in Canada. This is probably a call to get attention for the campaign.

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

#236

Post by dade_ »

jstanley wrote: post #38
dade_ wrote: post #23

Smart move. This shouldn't surprise anyone that makes a point of avoiding US prosecution and jail: https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/07/huawei-cfo-accused-of-frau... https://www.bassberrygovcontrade.com/iran-sanction-violation...

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.

Trump has essentially declared that prosecution of US sanctions is now political:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-12/trump-say...

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

#237

Post by ryanmercer »

dustinmoris wrote: post #147

Wow the Twitter thread and the experiences which are mentioned here sound so extreme and crazy that I am seriously confused to what believe. - Is this all made up to prove some point? - Is this just how the US ticks right now? - Is Slack just completely gone mad? - Is this what companies believes is acceptable nowadays? - Is this the future of the web? The fact that I am not sure what to believe and that I wouldn't b…

>- Is this just how the US ticks right now? >- Is Slack just completely gone mad? >- Is this what companies believes is acceptable nowadays? >- Is this the future of the web?

Iran has sanctions against it right now. Slack, and other companies that have done this sort of thing with Iran, Cuba, etc the past few years, are trying to stay on the right side of the law. To avoid imprisonment, fines, etc. If you think what they did is wrong, start a company and risk serving prison time to stand up for your what you believe in by creating a similar product and offering it to customers that have direct geographical ties to sanctioned and embargoed countries. I'm serious, imprisonment is a very real risk with dealing with sanctioned and embargoed countries.

Doing business with Iran, or a citizen of Iran, can open the door for all sorts of government investigation from fines, to being shut down for an investigation, to having data from other users compromised, to criminal prosecution of employees/officers of the company.

It's a lot easier to just immediately sever ties with anyone that has had dealings with an IP geographically connected to Iran than to go one by one "hey, you an enemy of the state? You sure you aren't? Promise? Cross your heart and hope to die? Ok, we believe you, we'll just hope you're telling the truth!"

Then there's the fact that Slack uses encryption at rest and in transit, there may be a LEGAL REQUIREMENT not to allow users with ties to Iran to use the product under CFR title 15 chapter VII, subchapter C. Or they may at least suspect they are at risk of running afoul of the cryptography export laws as they stand and simply decided, they don't want to risk it to protect the company and other users.

I highly doubt this is some Islamaphobic/Iranaphobic move on Slack's part, this is simply a cover-our-ass move so we can stay in business and not risk prison time.

See:

- 15 CFR chapter VII, subchapter C.

- 31 CFR Part 560 and Appendix A to Chapter V

- Public Law 115–44 (the CAATSA)

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

#238

Post by bborud »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #165
malloryerik wrote: post #91

This kind of thing can kill Slack or other networks because if you have a team of 100 people and just one can't use the platform, you'll switch. The network effect seems likely to work in reverse in this case. Beyond that I find it outrageously unethical.

> Beyond that I find it outrageously unethical. What, complying with national and international sanctions and erring on the side of caution? Losing part of your customer base is preferable over getting fined to the tune of hundreds of millions of USD.

She/He makes a valid argument so I think a downvote is uncalled for.

As someone else pointed out: if anything is unethical here, it is the sanctions. Ensuring your company operates within the law is a business decision and not everyone has the ability to go toe to toe with the government.

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

#239

Post by DanAndersen »

yholio wrote: post #126

Welcome to the brave new world of the "cloud": you data, business, money, most intimate secrets and livelihood is at the whims of a foreign corporation that will stop at nothing if it means 2 cents more on their bottom line, or gets them on the good side of a government entity. You have no rights, you have no intrinsic human valuu and you have no means to fight for yourself.

>at the whims of a foreign corporation that will stop at nothing if it means 2 cents more on their bottom line, or gets them on the good side of a government entity.

Or if it gets them out of a flash-in-the-pan PR issue fomented by the latest political outrage mob, or a couple 'woke points' to score with their ideological allies.

The tech community had its chance to stand firm and demand openness and liberty of use when it comes to accessing communication services provided by mega-corps. They instead let themselves be seduced by "it's a private company they can do whatever they want go build your own platform" when it was being wielded against less sympathetic targets.

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