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GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

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Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#281

Post by luckylion »

dwheeler wrote: post #193
xvector wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t matter if it’s an honest mistake, this sort of action alongside the canned HR response is completely unacceptable. Honest mistakes don’t exempt your actions from being disgusting.

An action that is an honest mistake isn't disgusting; it is simply a mistake. We all make mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes is not doing anything useful. What matters is doing the right thing after the mistake is discovered. I agree that the canned HR response wasn't acceptable, but that is not all that happened. GitHub quickly restored the project - and that was the most important issue. In addition, GitHub has…

> What matters is doing the right thing after the mistake is discovered.

They didn't. They only did "the right thing" after it went viral on HN.

They did the same thing a few days ago to another developer, and only after it went viral on HN did they do the right thing. They were very aware that a) their flagging process is broken and b) their support process is non-existant unless you make your complaint go viral. The canned response is part of their strategy to filter out everyone that isn't large enough and they'll just ignore those complaints.

> This is required by US law for anyone doing business in the US.

It's required to do it automatically and wrong? I have some serious doubts.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#282

Post by vinay427 »

mirimir wrote: post #218
dsl wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to use an Iranian based VPN. Sanctions are almost always implemented by billing address, not by IP address. Geolocation services are crap when you start getting in to third world countries.

Billing addresses are easy to fake.

For most businesses forced to comply, that seems like a feature, not a bug.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#283

Post by vinay427 »

mike_d wrote: post #279
mirimir wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billing addresses are easy to fake.

Ok? I'm sure most e-commerce websites would scoff at the idea of having shoppers mail in a notarized copy of their passport before they can make a purchase.

A passport generally doesn't even indicate where someone lives or has lived.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#284

Post by piokoch »

rezonant wrote: post #172
natfriedman wrote: post #113

Hi HN, I'm the CEO of GitHub. Flagging this account was obviously a terrible mistake, and I apologize to anyone who was affected by it. We're investigating why it occurred and will make changes to make sure it doesn't happen again. I am glad that we restored access to the account in less than an hour after Aurelia filed their appeal. For context on why any account flagging is ever necessary, unfortunately, every comp…

You need to do a post-mortem on this. What exactly did Aurelia do to trigger this to start with? A contribution from a sanctioned country? A github issue posted by someone from a sanctioned country? How exactly are open source projects supposed to avoid this possibility if they don't happen to literally be Rob Eisenberg? How many other project repositories have been disabled because of this problem? Is Github doing a…

Fun fact. My friend works in a bank. In this bank its account has a factory that produces curtains. Now, curtain in Polish is "firana", and any time those guys are doing a bank transfer it is thrown into some kind of lengthy manual processing mode because company name contains dreaded word "iran".

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#285

Post by vinay427 »

luckylion wrote: post #225
dsl wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maintainers would be afraid that if they accept our contribution they may face consequences But that isn't a result of GitHub's actions, if anything they are trying to protect maintainers by blocking Iranian contributions. Sanctions are 1) implemented at a federal government level and 2) intended to make it almost impossible for the sanctioned country to get anything done. It's like not letting your kid take their…

> But that isn't a result of GitHub's actions, if anything they are trying to protect maintainers by blocking Iranian contributions. By blocking the repository of the maintainers? Is that like "I'm just trying to keep you safe. I'm going to kill you so nobody can murder you"?

No, but by blocking Iranian contributions, as you cited in your content.

Blocking the repository isn't protecting maintainers, but this comment thread is about GitHub blocking contributions from Iran as well.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#286

Post by gertrunde »

piokoch wrote: post #284
rezonant wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to do a post-mortem on this. What exactly did Aurelia do to trigger this to start with? A contribution from a sanctioned country? A github issue posted by someone from a sanctioned country? How exactly are open source projects supposed to avoid this possibility if they don't happen to literally be Rob Eisenberg? How many other project repositories have been disabled because of this problem? Is Github doing a…

Fun fact. My friend works in a bank. In this bank its account has a factory that produces curtains. Now, curtain in Polish is "firana", and any time those guys are doing a bank transfer it is thrown into some kind of lengthy manual processing mode because company name contains dreaded word "iran".

Seems crazy that the "Scunthorpe Problem" still rears its head after probably more than 25 years. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem]

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#287

Post by vinay427 »

malberto wrote: post #117
coffeemug wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To pick an extreme example, do you seriously believe the US has less legitimacy in this respect than North Korea?

YES! NK never bombed my country. Please grow up and realize that you can not claim anything as long as your country act as a terrorist

Thankfully, that isn't how the world actually works. People are able to understand that any country, including the US, is composed of people who work on different things with different views, and that there are things US entities still say and do that can be valuable and trusted.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#288

Post by thdespou »

gertrunde wrote: post #286
piokoch wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact. My friend works in a bank. In this bank its account has a factory that produces curtains. Now, curtain in Polish is "firana", and any time those guys are doing a bank transfer it is thrown into some kind of lengthy manual processing mode because company name contains dreaded word "iran".

Seems crazy that the "Scunthorpe Problem" still rears its head after probably more than 25 years. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem ]

History repeats itself

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#289

Post by httpsterio »

luckylion wrote: post #275
blanche_56 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that does seem hysterical. I wonder what kind of overlap exists between those who have been panicking about "Russian hackers" for the last four years and those who now believe that reluctance in allowing remote Russian developers access to potentially sensitive or valuable US code bases is "racist".

> allowing remote Russian developers access to potentially sensitive or valuable US code bases is "racist". You do realize that GitLab is open source, right?

yes, the issue wasn't access to the source of gitlab, but customers who host their closed source code on gitlab.

Re: GitHub shuts off access to Aurelia repository, citing trade sanctions

#290

Post by rndgermandude »

luckylion wrote: post #275
blanche_56 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that does seem hysterical. I wonder what kind of overlap exists between those who have been panicking about "Russian hackers" for the last four years and those who now believe that reluctance in allowing remote Russian developers access to potentially sensitive or valuable US code bases is "racist".

> allowing remote Russian developers access to potentially sensitive or valuable US code bases is "racist". You do realize that GitLab is open source, right?

While their code is open source, the data and metadata in their hosted repositories belonging to their customers/users a lot of times is not.
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