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Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

ahmadhaghighi.com

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Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#251

Post by [deleted] »

opnitro wrote: post #173
colinmhayes wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#252

Post by voltagex_ »

navaati wrote: post #91
AsyncAwait wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's not racism on GitLab's part, but the U.S. officials behind these sanctions themselves do use phrases like that they want to 'choke Iran's economy', that is in the middle of a pandemic where people's respiratory systems are at risk, it certainly doesn't look good on their part. Also worth noting that GitLab has previously banned hiring from China/Russia, so it's no stranger to blanket bans of questionable…

They also ban hires from France FWIW, but that's because they wouldn't touch our labour code with a 10-foot pole haha.

Wait, what?

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#253

Post by jessaustin »

f6v wrote: post #214
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’s heated debate whether companies have to be political or not. Even whether it’s in principle possible to not be political. If someone thinks all companies should have political stance, then “silence is violence”, even worse, since gitlab is complying. US sanctions against Iran aren’t universally supported even by US satellites, and some would say are immoral. So time for some activism?

So time for some activism?

Anyone on earth with access to the internet in non-sanctioned and non-sanctioning IP ranges could set up a mirror to help Iranians and other sanction victims. Private repos might be a little more difficult to handle, but still possible. Like the "Great Firewall", USA's petty totalitarianism can be routed around if people care to do so.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#254

Post by freehunter »

names_are_hard wrote: post #154
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…

In the past I worked for an Israeli company listed on a US stock exchange. They were proud that they had customers in virtually every corner of the world, and had just six countries they couldn't do business in. One (Lebanon) because of the Israeli government, and five (including Iran) because of the US. Most interesting to me: apparently when they first went public and became subject to US regulation they had to clo…

It’s interesting to me that the US views Iran more harshly than Israel does.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#255

Post by jessaustin »

powersnail wrote: post #244
manmal wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully agree. My guess is that this is targeted at hackers, to make it more difficult for them to influence the upcoming election.

What kind of hacker cannot bypass an IP block, but is capable of hacking the election?

One wonders if the people who worry about election hacks ever worry about the fact that voting machines are closed-source, never audited by the public, and sold by people who make no secret of their strong political leanings.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#256

Post by Tijdreiziger »

542458 wrote: post #89
PestoDiRucola wrote: post #28

Gitlab blocked Iran's Access* This happened because of US sanctions[0]. [0] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/code-of-condu...

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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24886783

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#257

Post by Tijdreiziger »

navaati wrote: post #91
AsyncAwait wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's not racism on GitLab's part, but the U.S. officials behind these sanctions themselves do use phrases like that they want to 'choke Iran's economy', that is in the middle of a pandemic where people's respiratory systems are at risk, it certainly doesn't look good on their part. Also worth noting that GitLab has previously banned hiring from China/Russia, so it's no stranger to blanket bans of questionable…

They also ban hires from France FWIW, but that's because they wouldn't touch our labour code with a 10-foot pole haha.

Wait, I was under the impression that GitLab was originally a Dutch company (it appears to be American now)? Are the labor laws in France that much more lax than in the Netherlands?

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#258

Post by mcny »

freehunter wrote: post #254
names_are_hard wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past I worked for an Israeli company listed on a US stock exchange. They were proud that they had customers in virtually every corner of the world, and had just six countries they couldn't do business in. One (Lebanon) because of the Israeli government, and five (including Iran) because of the US. Most interesting to me: apparently when they first went public and became subject to US regulation they had to clo…

It’s interesting to me that the US views Iran more harshly than Israel does.

Iran, Israel, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia... There is so much going on there. Are they all at conflict with one another? Who are allies? How does this work?

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#259

Post by dijit »

Symbiote wrote: post #170
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…

I only use Amazon Route 53. Does anyone know if that's ever been blocked in Iran etc? It doesn't seem to be blocked at the moment, but it's also something I can't find any official documentation on.

It would only affect you if your doing direct DNS requests to route53- which is almost never the case for clients.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#260

Post by jessaustin »

stevefan1999 wrote: post #192
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…

It’s fear all the time. Fear is the biggest weapon for all kind of states. That’s why some of us might have self-censorship because we fear that we will get penalised hard if we do not play by the rule.

Just look here on this page. Lots of people who would decry censorship and cruelty on the part of some nations, are here arguing in support of the same qualities of the nation that could do the most harm to them.
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