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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

#491

Post by chki »

Spoom wrote: post #361
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…

> Slack should offer a configurable notification that could contain other contact methods to the banned user. Slack could also give those users at least sth like 48 hours to inform their contacts about what is going to happen. And it could offer banned users a downloadable archive of all content created to make sure no data is lost. The government could argue that any of these options is "doing business with" an iden…

But sanctions do not just happen from one day to the other (usually). At least in the case of Iran my understanding was that there was a political declaration to withdraw from the Nuclear Deal and impose sanctions, but not immediately. So business did have the opportunity to prepare a transition.

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

#492

Post by soheil »

That’s pretty much the point of sanctions, what did you think was going to happen, people of sanctioned countries getting a medal? The point is to put as much pressure on those countries as possible and there is no better way to pressure a country than to pressure its people to force a change. The question should be whether or not Iran should be sanctioned. But if you agree that it should then this is an example of a perfectly reasonable outcome.

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

#493

Post by xenophonf »

thumb wrote: post #318
xenophonf wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

That's true, but why does that mean they need to shut down her account just because she visited Cuba? Would that mean a grocery store would then have to refuse to sell you their goods because you visited the country once?

The guy's wife didn't do anything wrong. Slack broke the law by providing an embargoed service to someone in Cuba. I'll bet money that when this was discussed with their compliance officer, the lawyers and engineers and everyone else agreed to use certain metrics (like source IP) to determine whether someone fell under the embargo. Otherwise, Slack would have to spend a lot of time and money validating people's identity, etc., in order to comply. I don't really fault them for taking this path because their exposure is huge and compliance is hard.

Your analogy about grocery stores doesn't really work because logging into Slack isn't the same thing as walking into a grocery store, because buying from a grocery store isn't the same thing as exporting food across a national boarder, and because neither food nor medicine is embargoed.

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

#494

Post by soheil »

SamWhited wrote: post #305

I've been mad at the Go community in particular for continuing to promote Slack for ages, and this is exactly the hypothetical situation I always use to explain why (although there are other reasons too; Slack is a perfect embodiment of everything wrong with this industry, but that needs a fuller writeup). At a previous job we had to start doing this exact same thing when we were considering going public; this is the…

That’s pretty much the point of sanctions, what did you think was going to happen, people of sanctioned countries getting a medal? The point is to put as much pressure on those countries as possible and there is no better way to pressure a country than to pressure its people to force a change. The question should be whether or not Iran should be sanctioned. But if you agree that it should then this is an example of a perfectly reasonable outcome.

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

#495

Post by eloff »

soheil wrote: post #494
SamWhited wrote: post #305

I've been mad at the Go community in particular for continuing to promote Slack for ages, and this is exactly the hypothetical situation I always use to explain why (although there are other reasons too; Slack is a perfect embodiment of everything wrong with this industry, but that needs a fuller writeup). At a previous job we had to start doing this exact same thing when we were considering going public; this is the…

That’s pretty much the point of sanctions, what did you think was going to happen, people of sanctioned countries getting a medal? The point is to put as much pressure on those countries as possible and there is no better way to pressure a country than to pressure its people to force a change. The question should be whether or not Iran should be sanctioned. But if you agree that it should then this is an example of a…

He's a Canadian student. How is this acceptable in any way?

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

#496

Post by e_proxus »

eigenspace wrote: post #450
colanderman wrote: post #265

What a great reason to switch to an open-source, self-hosted solution. Fortunately there exist several: http://sdelements.github.io/lets-chat/ https://rocket.chat/ https://mattermost.com/ https://zulipchat.com/

Has anyone here used any of these? I'd love to hear your thoughts vs Slack.

From my experience with Rocket Chat I'd argue it's about a 30% implementation of Slack when it comes to features and polish.

My favorite gripe with it is that quickly typing half a username and auto completing will select the first (or some random) user that's doesn't have anything to do with what you typed. It's a real pain if you're a fast typist.

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

#497

Post by reaperducer »

walterbell wrote: post #303
saryant wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this isn’t about content, it’s about OFAC designations. That’s the office in the US Treasury department that says who Americans can’t do business with. They’re the ones that enforce sanctions and Iran is on their list. Penalties for noncompliance are stiff and there are no safe harbour provisions. (IANAL but I have implemented systems to check OFAC lists at other companies and seen it result in similar situat…

Maybe it's time for Congress to help companies differentiate between: (a) the objectives of laws prohibiting large commercial flows to sanctioned countries and (b) the objectives of laws encouraging many tiny information exchanges on the internet, taking place outside of sanctioned countries Is it worth burning down Internet commerce in the hope of catching a few individuals? Did Congress intend to create a Do-Not-Sp…

Is it worth burning down Internet commerce in the hope of catching a few individuals?

What's happening here isn't an attempt to catch a few individuals. The goal is to put pressure on the entire government of Iran. This is done by making doing business hard for large businesses, as well as individuals, so that pressure to change is put on the Iranian government from above (businesses) and below (the people).

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

#498

Post by reaperducer »

eternalban wrote: post #427
saryant wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this isn’t about content, it’s about OFAC designations. That’s the office in the US Treasury department that says who Americans can’t do business with. They’re the ones that enforce sanctions and Iran is on their list. Penalties for noncompliance are stiff and there are no safe harbour provisions. (IANAL but I have implemented systems to check OFAC lists at other companies and seen it result in similar situat…

One of the replies to the OP in tweeter says "anyone who is legally an Iranian citizen". That basically covers all naturalized American citizens who emigrated to US from Iran. Iran does not recognize changes in citizenship.

Iran does not recognize changes in citizenship.

The U.S. government doesn't care what Iran recognizes. The correct quotation would be "anyone who is legally an Iranian citizen in the eyes of the U.S. government."

When an Iranian citizen becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen, their Iranian citizenship is no longer valid in the U.S.

There is a limited number of nations that have dual citizenship agreements with the United States, and Iran isn't one of them.

https://flagtheory.com/dual-citizenship/

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

#499

Post by black-tea »

kalleboo wrote: post #456
black-tea wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IRC was always a terrible experience for novices Who the hell cares? I figured out IRC when I was about 12 and I'm no genius. If that bar is too high for people in tech then we have serious problems.

In my middle school (late 90's, the age of ICQ) all the self-described "non-technical" girls spent their breaks on mIRC in the computer lab gossiping or whatever teenage girls do. If we're talking about a developer audience (the readers of Hacker News) it really isn't difficult at all.

Yep. It's not hard. People are pretty clever and will work things out if they need to. It's just that we hand feed them shit like slack and tell each other that they're surely too dumb to use anything else.

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

#500

Post by 794CD01 »

darkarmani wrote: post #489
794CD01 wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so clearly wrong about trade sanctions between two countries? Do you think foreign trade is always a moral good?

> What is so clearly wrong about trade sanctions between two countries? What trade sanctions have been applied to Canada?

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Canada doesn't have anything to do with this. Amir's account was closed because of his Iranian ties, not his Canadian ones.
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