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GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

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Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#91

Post by [deleted] »

astronautjones wrote: post #67
tomohawk wrote: post #23

Crimea: Illegal occupation by Russia. Ethnic cleansing. Syria: Using chemical weapons, sponsoring terrorism Iran: Assisting Syria; Actively developing nukes they say they will use, nuclear proliferation, biggest sponsor of terrorism, .... On the other hand, some people can't use an internet service. Oh! The inhumanity! Get a sense of proportion.

> Iran: Assisting Syria; Actively developing nukes they say they will use, nuclear proliferation, biggest sponsor of terrorism, .... all four of these statements are demonstrably more true of the USA than they are of Iran

[deleted]

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#92

Post by viraptor »

blodovnik wrote: post #50
red_admiral wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted. Github was subject to US law before MS took it over; gitlab is not MS-owned but had to do the same (not sure about bitbucket but I imagine it's similar). Whether the #1 place to host open-source projects should be owned by a company that makes a closed-source OS is a good debate question but it's completely orthogonal to whether they have to comply with US law. I'm not saying I agree either with the sancti…

So why haven't all websites cut off these countries? Why haven't the ISPs cut off these countries? Github has acted because github is under the control of a giant corporation, Microsoft or otherwise. So there's a line that runs precisely from Microsoft acquisition to cutting off countries from the world's largest open source repository. It's a direct outcome of the Microsoft acquisition.

A lot of pages have. Or at least they don't take payments from them. Larger CDN providers will maintain "US sanctions" blacklists which you can enable with one click. A lot of companies just don't care.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#95

Post by meddlepal »

stenl wrote: post #69
sethammons wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignorant here; how has the US illegally occupied territories in the middle east? Illegal under which jurisdiction? For an invading force, there would be only potential jurisdictions, no? International and/or their own. If it were International, the US would face sanctions. If it were illegal under US law, how could it persist?

For example, the Iraq war was not approved by the UN Security Council, which is the only forum that can approve the use of force between (UN member) countries, apart from self defence. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War for more details.

The UN doesn't have any legal authority and even if it did it wouldn't be able to enforce it without the US and it's allies.

Remember, international "law" doesn't exist. There is no legal/illegal. It's all governered by treaties and gentlemen's agreements between nation's.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#96

Post by chriswwweb »

r3bl wrote: post #52
gtirloni wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for a well-known project, they won't miss GitHub visibility benefits. They can host the git repository anywhere. Self-host an issue tracking system or find a non-US company that does that (and is not required to follow US sanctions due to trade agreements, that'll be hard). It's an annoyance, for sure.

The problem is that they'd require a payment method to rent the server somewhere else or to use a non-US company that doesn't offer a generous free plan. The most prominent payment providers (Visa, MasterCard, PayPal) are all US-based. > (and is not required to follow US sanctions due to trade agreements, that'll be hard). I really don't know much about sanctions against Syria and Crimea, but Iranian developers could…

It's unfortunately not that easy. Iranian students studying in the UK for example, currently have a lot of trouble to pay their tuition fees. Because the U.S. insists that any bank (from the EU or wherever in the world) that wants to do business in the U.S. must comply to U.S. sanctions, which means an U.K. bank has to choose if it wants to block Iran or get blocked itself in/by the U.S. for doing business with Iran. More about this can be found on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_sanctions_agains....

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#97

Post by AmericanChopper »

mugsie wrote: post #85
AmericanChopper wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally I find it quite abhorrent, and would cite this as a reason not to use US based companies in future. Then I’d highly recommend that you try doing that. I consulted for a company once that tried this, and it was an absolute nightmare. Every single piece of technology they used was worse than second rate. Making comments on HN is really easy, backing them up with action, in this case, is not.

Any company that does business in the US, or with another company that does business in the US. Not just US based companies are subject to these restrictions (if they want to sell into the US)

Don’t make it too hard on yourself. If you want to use your own economic clout to take a swing at the US, then just stick to boycotting US companies. See if it’s even possible to operate your project like that. You’ll be taking a step back in time by at least 10 years.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#98

Post by cdmckay »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #89
wickerman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of harassment that citizens of any state that the US claims to hate at any given time endure on a daily basis is disgusting. Exiled iranians living outside of Iran for 20 years have got their bank accounts closed solely for being Iranian. I can't help but think that these internet services will be going that way in the future. The fact that the "free software" community is not putting their foot down for t…

Ya know what was actually disgusting? The war in Iraq, or any other recent regime change the US executed. If economic warfare is the way it’s done now, then that’s great. Let the casualties be inconvenienced github users, rather than ya know, actual casualties...

You realize that sanctions also kill people through lack of supplies like medicine being available, people being unable to economically support themselves, and, if the sanctions cause the government to collapse, all the death that results from that.

So let’s not pretend sanctions are somehow nonviolent.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#99

Post by gdy »

tomohawk wrote: post #39
acollins1331 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you sanction a country that has been invaded and is being ethnic cleansed? Get a sense of not being an idiot.

After ethnically cleansing, who is left / moves in? The perpetrators. I'm sure you will figure it out if you think about it a little more.

You keep repeating 'ethnic cleansing' without providing any proof of it.

Re: GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea

#100

Post by mugsie »

blodovnik wrote: post #50
red_admiral wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted. Github was subject to US law before MS took it over; gitlab is not MS-owned but had to do the same (not sure about bitbucket but I imagine it's similar). Whether the #1 place to host open-source projects should be owned by a company that makes a closed-source OS is a good debate question but it's completely orthogonal to whether they have to comply with US law. I'm not saying I agree either with the sancti…

So why haven't all websites cut off these countries? Why haven't the ISPs cut off these countries? Github has acted because github is under the control of a giant corporation, Microsoft or otherwise. So there's a line that runs precisely from Microsoft acquisition to cutting off countries from the world's largest open source repository. It's a direct outcome of the Microsoft acquisition.

I doubt it - I would suggest the rapidly escalating tensions in the Gulf, combined with a much more activist / impulsive administration has caused this.
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