321–330 of 638 posts
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It's the dystopia of the film Brazil : someone makes a typo in a database, someone else's life is dramatically inconvenienced, and it's impossible for them to access any means of redress. > Is this just how the US ticks right now? Yes.
Maybe Slack just proved that you actually don't have to pick between malice and incompetence.
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.
It will never happen, at least not on a scale that will affect significant web traffic.
There is another model, not decentralised but a practical middle-ground: the WordPress model.
Consider the following: Wordpress is an example of a profitable open source app that can easily be installed on countless shared hosting platforms or on a VPS. It's easy to switch hosting providers when you want to (and to take your data with you). It's popularity means that one-click installs are widespread.
Unfortunately, there is no common standard for software installation on the server side, and this lack of an easy installation process for everyone else severely limits self-hosting websites and apps.
Many developers think deploying a server-side web app is a non-issue, or they erroneously think that installing Cloudron/providing Docker instances/typing command line instructions are all "easy". Have you seen the server deployment instructions for "web friendly" languages like Ruby and Python? It's ludicrously complicated. And still developers seen nothing wrong in such install procedures. It's so frustrating.
I wish there was some momentum or traction in making server-side web app installation as universally simple as a one-click Wordpress install. It would also unlock countless opportunities for developers to reach more users or customers. But maybe some developers secretly prefer the complexity? It certainly makes selling a SaaS solution much more attractive over the stupidly complicated self-hosting option.
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.
While it's perfectly legal for your wife, a Canadian, to go to Cuba, it's still embargoed by the U.S., and Slack as a U.S. company must comply with the embargo (even though your wife has done nothing wrong per Canadian law).
In this case, if the account was actually opened from Cuba ... that could be a problem.
What they should do is offer recourse and a way to have this resolved.
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.
Hate towards certain ethnicities and countries is a tool used by the leaders (political and business) of the US to further their economic interests, either for selling weapons or sewing discord to take advantage of other people’s natural resources. Kind of ironic when you consider the leaders of a country using patriotism for their personal gain. It’s so weird seeing all the flag toting, national anthem singing popul…
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.
This. It's funny that the West is blaming Iran 24/7 for terrorism while 3/4 of terrorist attacks are just Sunni against Shia mainly in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and the other 1/4 is Sunni against non-muslims.
I think people are talking past each other here because "Sunni vs. Shia" is a distinction that has great meaning to those on the inside of that religious or regional context, but means absolutely nothing to most on the outside - especially but not only those in the US.
Imagine that there was a wave of Buddhist terrorism. Would people in mostly-Christian or mostly-Muslim countries notice or care about mahayana vs. hinayana (vs. other)? Big nope. If they made any distinctions at all, those would be on the basis of country/region or skin color or just about anything besides doctrinal differences. More likely they'd just tar all Buddhists with the same brush. Do people in Iran pay attention to factional differences in the US, or are we all "Americans"?
So it is with US vs. Iran. Sunni vs. Shia might well be important, might be highly visible to you, but to at least one half of the people making geopolitical decisions it's just not part of the equation. Maybe that's a good reason not to have the ecclesiastical and secular authorities so intertwined, as it makes such confusion almost inevitable (cf. Israel vs. Judaism).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the dystopia of the film Brazil : someone makes a typo in a database, someone else's life is dramatically inconvenienced, and it's impossible for them to access any means of redress. > Is this just how the US ticks right now? Yes.
Maybe Slack just proved that you actually don't have to pick between malice and incompetence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
GDPR holds that you own your data and are entitled to be provided a download of it. Not sure what the Canadian equivalent is, if any.
Even if the GDPR applied in this situation, Slack is trying to obey US sanctions. I’d wager a guess GDPR can’t force a company to violate those laws.
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It only is if you think someone who has ever set foot on Iran is an ethnic Irani. You just have to look at this HN thread to see that is false, as this problem also applies to other embargoed countries.
> It only is if you think someone who has ever set foot on Iran is an ethnic Irani. We're both adults here and I assume we both can realize that splitting these hairs doesn't make my statement that banning everyone that's ever logged on Iran from slack is, in effect, a ban on Iranian ethnic users?
On the other, the author of the thread is accusing Slack of profiling him racially. What he's implying is that a human proceeded to stalk him around the Internet, on social networks, etc to check if he is an actual Iranian and ban him based on that. And that is a very, very grave accusation.
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Yeah imagine bitching because you lost a primary communication tool and a bunch of your saved data because of your ethnicity.
I disagree with the way Slack handled this, but by now it’s clear (even the original poster seems to have realised) that Slack banned everyone who accessed the service from an Iranian IP, irrespective of who they were or where they were from. It’s pretty clear that’s it not motivated by race or any kind of profiling. Slack has no incentive to boot more people off their platform than necessary, so this overly broad ba…