Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access • Hacker News Board

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#171

Post by colinmhayes » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

opnitro wrote: post #165

colinmhayes wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik the U.S. no longer sponsors terrorists. I'd love a link if I'm misguided. Further, elimination of zionists is still a stated goal of the Iranian government. I'm not saying Israel is guilt free of course, but afaik they've never threatened nuking anyone. Again, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Link on current US funding: https://theintercept.com/2019/10/26/syrian-rebels-turkey-kur... As other comments saying, this info always lags a few years. But there's never been any official reckoning when these details come out, so no reason to assume it has stopped. See also US promotion of Elliot Abrams, despite his connection to the EL Mozote massacres. On your second point, I want to be clear that I'm not defendin…

Thank you for the link. I think there's an argument that the syrian rebels were fighting terrorism before they were themselves terrorists, but I agree that the US should not be involved in the conflict, and definitely shouldn't fund paramilitary groups with the potential to become terrorists. The U.S. now admitting it was a mistake is important though, because the point of sanctions is to force a government to change its policies.

Geopolitics is messy. In the end I don't see any other strategy besides war that could force Irans hand. If the choices are 1. Show the world that purposefully funding terrorism goes unpunished 2. war, or 3. sanctions I think sanctions are the choice that provides the greatest amount of utility, even if they do harm many.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#172

Post by crb002 » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

Siira wrote: post #128

I am Persian. From what I gather, the middle-plus class here still mostly believes that changing the regime is costly and risky (especially since it might very well lead to a civil war, as the regime has no humanity and has shown that it will kill every single one of the people to survive). These sanctions certainly help align our incentives more with the US agenda, but they do not seem to be enough after all. Obama'…

Grow a pair. Racism to Persians is wrong.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#173

Post by opnitro » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #171

opnitro wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link on current US funding: https://theintercept.com/2019/10/26/syrian-rebels-turkey-kur... As other comments saying, this info always lags a few years. But there's never been any official reckoning when these details come out, so no reason to assume it has stopped. See also US promotion of Elliot Abrams, despite his connection to the EL Mozote massacres. On your second point, I want to be clear that I'm not defendin…

Thank you for the link. I think there's an argument that the syrian rebels were fighting terrorism before they were themselves terrorists, but I agree that the US should not be involved in the conflict, and definitely shouldn't fund paramilitary groups with the potential to become terrorists. The U.S. now admitting it was a mistake is important though, because the point of sanctions is to force a government to change…

Purposely funding terrorism does go unpunished, if you're a US ally. This is my point, that our sanctions against Iran have nothing to do with "morality". They are about power.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#174

Post by whoisjuan » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

miracle2k wrote: post #88

People should resist the temptation to defend this. 1. Blocking Iranian IPs, as opposed to accounts, is almost certainly over-compliance. Note that the vast majority of websites do not do this. Even big ones, such as Gmail, do not do this. 2. It does not speak well of the United States justice system if someone could be prosecuted for failure to block Iranian IPs. If this were required, the law should be clear. Other…

Come on dude. You are not a lawyer and your assessment of the situation clearly goes against federal law. You can personally feel bad about this but if the government tells you to comply with this and your vendors tell you to comply with this (so they can comply with federal law) then there's absolutely zero things you can do.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#175

Post by bigbubba » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

da39a3ee wrote: post #103

dijit wrote: post #84

Quick note that anyone using a US based cloud provider will likely be blocking all sanctioned countries. It’s not configurable at all. It was a sticking point for us when deploying the sequel to a game I was working on. Ultimately we determined that the benefits of using the provider outweighed the benefit to users since we weren’t shipping the game there officially anyway. (With one notable exception) It still leave…

You might want to delete the "and the citizenry did nothing wrong" ending to your otherwise reasonable post. I don't think you meant it the way it sounds.

What do you think the citizenry of Crimea did wrong?

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#176

Post by whoisjuan » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

miracle2k wrote: post #109

542458 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a little confused at people who are mad at GitLab here. I’m under the impression that sanctions and export control laws tend to be fairly strict, and penalties for knowing non-compliance are harsh, including the possibility of jail time. GitLab’s hands are pretty tied here.

There are tens of thousands of companies in the US which actively provide web-services, and which do not actively go fishing for accounts that may possibly be Iranian. Are they all possibly facing jail time? Is there a requirement to actively monitor the service for possible Iranians? What kind of actions are required specifically to be safe from jail? Is it a requirement to actively block IPs? Spoiler: These things…

Omission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omission_(law)) creates the exact same liabilities. It's not about fishing for accounts. Just because you're not being prosecuted, doesn't meant that you don't need to comply with law. For a large company like GitLab is a fiduciary responsibility to do this whether or not they have the federal government telling them to do it at the current time.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#177

Post by samim » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

Weaponising open source is a new low, even for this particularly clueless US regime. But this is really only meaningful in the short-term. In the mid-term (2030ish), the tech game is very likely to have drastically changed: Other countries will have taken the technological lead (china & co), while the US is still engaged in endless internal conflicts (in effect a mafia-state, akin to what happend in Russia after 1990). All the global talent that once powered the US tech innovation motor (droves of Chinese, Indian, Russian and European PhD students etc.) will have disappeared. At that point, we might see headlines along the lines of "Globally leading open source platform Gitea Blocked US Access". Personally, i would prefer to see yet another scenario, where the entire global Intellectual property market collapsed and was replace by "open source everything" - but that might be a more long term vision.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#178

Post by DetroitThrow » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

miracle2k wrote: post #88

People should resist the temptation to defend this. 1. Blocking Iranian IPs, as opposed to accounts, is almost certainly over-compliance. Note that the vast majority of websites do not do this. Even big ones, such as Gmail, do not do this. 2. It does not speak well of the United States justice system if someone could be prosecuted for failure to block Iranian IPs. If this were required, the law should be clear. Other…

>Blocking Iranian IPs, as opposed to accounts, is almost certainly over-compliance. Note that the vast majority of websites do not do this. Even big ones, such as Gmail, do not do this.

I wish dang would ban users for blatant misinformation such as this. The number of people who end up believing these lies as truth probably outweighs the benefit of any civil discussion it could lead to: in the US, it's now obvious that "alternative facts" has led to a breakdown of civil discussion, after all.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#179

Post by sleepyhead » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

dsabanin wrote: post #81

sleepyhead wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The country that invaded the neighbouring countries of Iran and killed hundred of thousands of people is saying Iran is an asshole and needs to be sanctioned. Got it. Regardless of what you think of the regime in Iran, please do educate yourself and at least try to look at the situation objectively.

It's very hard to have compassion to a theocratic authoritarian dictatorship regime (Ali Khamenei is in power since 1981). It's also very hard to see them as victims or as the good guys. Sorry.

No one is saying you should have compassion towards the Iranian regime. No one is saying you should see them as victims. No one is saying you should see them as the good guys. The only thing you should be sorry about is not trying to accurately understand the replies you are getting here or look objectively at the situation.

BTW since you like whatabouism with your argument regarding Russia: Please do compare the Iranian and Saudi Arabian regimes for me; one is an enemy with sanctions and the other an ally. Internally they are not that different. Externally there is a major difference though: only one is engaging in a hostile war in another country which has resulted in civilian deaths and famine. While there are claims to be made about Iranian foreign interference it is nowhere near that level. So again please take some minutes to ponder objectively how these countries are treated.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#180

Post by trhway » Sun, Oct 25, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

bigbubba wrote: post #175

da39a3ee wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to delete the "and the citizenry did nothing wrong" ending to your otherwise reasonable post. I don't think you meant it the way it sounds.

What do you think the citizenry of Crimea did wrong?

they voted wrong way.