Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know • Hacker News Board

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#81

Post by andrewshadura » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:25 PM UTC

detritus wrote: post #42

ilammy wrote: post #5

Wait a minute. Why would Fastmail preemptively block Russian IPs if they don't have any legally vulnerable presence in Russia? Just to deny Roskomnadzor the joy? There is Russian proverb that aptly describes such behavior: "назло маме отморожу уши" (cut off your nose to spite your face). > What you can do if you're affected > - Talk to Roskomsvoboda: a digital rights advocacy organization. I like when private compani…

O/T > There is Russian proverb that aptly describes such behavior: "назло маме отморожу уши" (cut off your nose to spite your face). Curious to finally learn its origin, I had a Google - particularly as the phrase popped into mind this morning on my walk to work. It Doesn't appear to be of Russian origin, per se. Certainly, It was something I heard a fair few times coming out of the mouths of Scottish family when I w…

The Russian phrase has a different literal meaning though. ‘I’m going to freeze my eats to spite my mum’ which refers to mothers insisting their kids wear warm hats in winter.

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#82

Post by hnaccount_rng » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

deeblering4 wrote: post #79

I highly recommend scheduling a regular mbsync job to keep a local copy of your emails in sync with the imap server. With this it's easy to pick up and move to a different provider or recover from outages, account closure, etc. If you couple this with your own domain your email will be very portable.

How do you sync back your local copy of the IMAP database? I had the problem of a misconfiguration in my email rules deleting everything older than 28 days. Not a _big_ problem due to backups, but I didn’t manage to restore those as any local restore got deleted as soon as the sync with the IMAP server started

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#83

Post by varispeed » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #60

>We have made the decision to block signups for all IP addresses we identify as coming from within Russia. We have also removed our app from the Apple and Google app stores for customers in Russia. WTF? Why would you ever do that? You said you have no legal presence in Russia, why f*ck over the users? Instead of ignoring hostile stupidity you're helping it, this is mind boggling. Sorry, I can't "feel good" about your…

Soon similar will be happening because of the EU's TERREG - only difference is that even if you block EU IP addresses, the law is still going to apply if you have a "significant" EU user base. This means companies who want to opt out will have to request proof of citizenship of all their users to establish how "significant" is their user base and then either terminate the accounts or set up a legal presence in the EU with a censorship officer.

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#84

Post by rakoo » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #65

rakoo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. GDPR asks that every website comply with their laws for anything that relates to EU . An italian citizen has to agree about it even if they live in Nepal. But a nepalese website doesn't have to care about GDPR as long as they don't have a presence in the EU. The fact that websites put a cookie wall for everyone is the strategy of said websites to make everyone think they are victims of GDPR, but that is not tr…

> ...A nepalese website doesn't have to care about GDPR as long as they don't have a presence in the EU. Sure. You don't have to care. But this is blatantly wrong according to GDPR.

No, because you're not targeting EU citizens and are also not operating in the EU.

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#85

Post by varispeed » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #67

rakoo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong. GDPR asks that every website comply with their laws for anything that relates to EU . An italian citizen has to agree about it even if they live in Nepal. But a nepalese website doesn't have to care about GDPR as long as they don't have a presence in the EU. The fact that websites put a cookie wall for everyone is the strategy of said websites to make everyone think they are victims of GDPR, but that is not tr…

> But a nepalese website doesn't have to care about GDPR as long as they don't have a presence in the EU. Not really 'presence' but customers in the EU, or simply targeting people in the EU.

EU TERREG changes the scope so that the location no longer matters and it applies to services with "significant" user base of EU citizens. It essentially mean to opt our from having to support 1hr SLA for content removal, services will have to check papers of all users to ensure they are not EU citizens.

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#86

Post by Sylamore » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #4

I wonder if the fastmail protocol could be hidden in AWS-like data streams to take an approach like telegram. If they try to block it, they shut down their entire digital business infrastructure. I have been looking for an alternative to Gmail, does anyone have recommendations? Fastmail? Proton mail? What put me over the edge is my young friend had a heart attack, went to the hospital and (during recovery) logged int…

I've been a paying customer for a few years (since Dreamhost shutdown catch-all support) and when I 1st migrated I tripped over a bug in their IMAP implementation that made thousands of messages disappear from my mailbox. Their support identified the bug and pushed a code fix into production in less than 24 hours, which immediately resolved my issue.

Gmail on the other hand keeps kicking my devices out of being able to log in and activating a security lock down, and the closest thing to support I can get about it is a webpage that implies that can only happen if my devices are hacked.

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#87

Post by nszceta » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #62

abcd_f wrote: post #12

Where did all the brouhaha with Russia banning Telegram end? From what I understand it seems to be operational and rather popular there. Did the state give up or did Telegram end up “cooperating” with them?

Telegram started to collaborate with Russia and they let it live.

Untrue

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#88

Post by grumple » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:34 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #39

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the Russian government, I think that their general goal is sensible and we'll see more and more of this from all countries. By their general goal I mean " the Russian media regulation body, the Roskomnadzor, demanded that Fastmail comply with Russian data laws. This is because Russia has a national goal of controlling the flow of information within their borders. " (from the blo…

Compliance with legal features of various nations does not divorce companies from the responsibility for the results if they choose to comply.

Actively participating in oppressive behavior makes companies complicit. This is why companies today rightly face criticism for use of slave labor, abusive labor, resource exploitation, helping governments restrict speech, helping governments breach privacy (which results in people actually dying in places like Russia). Just because these things are legal to not make them right or acceptable to Western exployees, shareholders or governments. If Russia demanded that I must take actions that would potentially result in deaths from their authoritarian regime, like by giving them access to our customer's communications, I'd tell them to get bent.

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#89

Post by Volundr » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #64

Sebb767 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like when private companies tell their customers what politics they should engage in. Well, if they can't provide a service or are having problems doing so for legal reason, it's only sensible to ask their customers to lobby for a better legal framework if they wish to receive that service. It's a problem (IMO) if what they ask for is unrelated to their business, but quite a few people would disagree with that, a…

> ask their customers to lobby for a better legal framework Do you understand the absurd level of naïvete of this position?

I genuinely don't. Can you explain it to me?

Re: Fastmail accounts blocked in Russia, here's what we know

#90

Post by longcommonname » Wed, Jun 09, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #77

UseStrict wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's up to Fastmail to fix the nonsense coming out of the Kremlin. The Russian government wants them to basically compromise their service to comply with their spying needs, Fastmail simply opted out. I think they chose a reasonable option.

They didn't comply, which is perfectly reasonable. But they should have stopped at that. I don't know what "fixing" you're talking about.

We recently did a similar thing at the company I work for in response to similar pressures.

The effort to make that change was significantly less than the continual effort required to deal with the pressures. From a cost perspective their decision makes sense, from a customer perspective less so.