Gitlab considers not hiring SREs and Support Engineers in China and Russia

Post by cjbprime » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

iiertiosas wrote: post #96

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #19

I'm shocked (in a positive way) about the amount of transparency Gitlab provides. Even as a reader, it almost feels as if someone misconfigured the ACLs or I'm reading leaked internal documents, not an intentional decision to make this open. Some of the discussions seem highly sensitive, and yet it seems to work for them. Thank you, Gitlab, for being so open! I've learned a lot about compliance from just reading this…

I also learned a lot and some of the employees made great points. I’m wondering, can the US government legally issue a National Security Letter to an individual employee that forces them to comply and spy for them? If they can, does this also mean the employee has no legal recourse since NSLs must be kept secret?

Post by joatmon-snoo » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 4:58 AM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #81

zwayhowder wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does block them from moving to that country. So if a current employee was planning to move to either country soon they'd be prevented from doing that. I've danced this dance at a previous company when we had an employee working from a country of interest for an extended period of time. They were air-gapped from our systems and it worked because they submitted everything by pull requests (the original way, sending…

I've done some travelling to risky places before (Kiev and other places) and even though the networks were hostile there, I still don't understand the point of pretending that Russia et al can't get into Gitlab whenever they want to. They can. Air-gapping isn't going to slow them down.

Post by slackfan » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 4:59 AM UTC

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:09 AM UTC

logical_person wrote: post #112

jhurewitz wrote: post #72

Personally for me, coming into a company that was so transparent was very difficult at first, especially as an attorney. However, over time I realized how much I developed and grew from it. I became much more open and accepting of criticism and feedback. Instead of becoming defensive, I listened to it and learned from it. I also welcomed all of the extra eyes on my work, it helped me create much better work product,…

why do you all show up in this thread on another website. isn't it embarassing that your company has no concept of a "federal" branch that restricts access to selected vetted employees? this seems like a very basic business decision that preempts all this hubbub.

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 5:17 AM UTC

kyboren wrote: post #107

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t matter. As long as a security clearance isn’t required, discriminating based on notational origin is a big no no from an ethical perspective, even if it was legal. I hope we learned our lesson during WW2.

> discriminating based on notational origin is a big no no from an ethical perspective However, discriminating based on exposure to coercive pressure from aggressive and hostile foreign powers is probably OK, even if such exposure is heavily correlated with national origin. The key is that the discrimination must be based on an individual analysis of the applicant and his/her life circumstances. It's not OK to blanke…