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Tell HN: GitHub is partially blocked in India

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Re: Tell HN: GitHub is partially blocked in India

#121
post #74

The fact that people rely on GitHub, even when it is based on git, which is free and distributed software, shows how easy it is for big companies to force users into their closed software.

I don't see how that is relevant. of what worth is git if the website where you fetch most of your repos is dead?

It's relevant because the repo owner can just point you to other git peers.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub is partially blocked in India

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Works for me, no repro, not an issue, right? The post specifically mentions which one ISP is doing the blocking. If you're not using them, then it likely wouldn't affect you... until your ISP also starts following the order. If anything, your comment is trying to heavily downplay what is happening.

If other ISPs start following the same, you are right in saying I'm downplaying the situation. But I also mentioned it is unlikely to happen since all major IT Consultancy firms in the country rely on GitHub for their work in one way or another. And not just with their code but also with their client's code.

The fourth largest ISP in India blocking Github for the past week is a big deal. Them outright saying it was blocked due to a court order is a bigger deal. 2 million subscribers don't have access to Github right now.

Just because your ISP hasn't caught up does not mean it's not news. Why, exactly, do 2 or more ISPs need to do this for it to become important enough for you to care?

And why, exactly, do you think that getting to HN front page is "blowing it out of proportion"? The poster was upfront about what was happening, who it's affecting, and why it's being done. People interested in this have brought it up to the front page. What, exactly, did OP do that made it "blown out of proportion"?

And how is you anecdotally saying that it's not affecting you therefore a non-issue not downplaying the situation? The definition of "downplaying" is "make (something) appear less important than it really is" which is literally what you're doing.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub is partially blocked in India

#123
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLS, not Tor

The GP's link, the one they maintain, says DNS over Tor.

DoT is DNS over TLS: https://techdocs.akamai.com/etp/docs/configure-dot-doh, https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/dns-over-tls/, https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/dns-over..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_over_TLS

Android ≥ 9 natively supports DNS over TLS: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/04/dns-over-t...

So does iOS ≥ 14: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/d..., https://support.quad9.net/hc/en-us/articles/360057889591-Set...

The link you’re referring to, https://github.com/celzero/rethink-app, supports DNS over Tor, but does not call it “DoT”. It does not support DNS over TLS (https://github.com/celzero/rethink-app/issues/441), and it is not something that phones have built-in.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub is partially blocked in India

#124
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you being oppressed by a SaaS offering that charges you nothing and uses a standard protocol (git)?

It uses your code in a paid closed-source service (Copilot), and creates vendor lock-in using proprietary features like GitHub Actions. Not to mention that it's quite absurd for the majority of free software projects to be hosted on a proprietary platform.

It seems to bother you, I don't have any issues with people using code I put into the public domain which I why I use the unlicense. GitHub Actions is YAML based, and the reason most people use a SCM provider like Github or GitLab is because they have superior collaboration and auditing features. At the end of the day no one forces you to use a public repo(copilot) or GitHub Actions.

If I use Jenkins am I any less locked in?

Re: Tell HN: GitHub is partially blocked in India

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence the "no fallback" point. Bad guys can always block entire IPs, and by not having a fallback to insecure SNI, that's their only choice.

Doesn't that mean that places like AWS will be fighting ECH, then? Right now, evil governments can block sites based on their domain; so if irrelevant-aws-customer.com does something controversial, super-important-customer-also-on-aws.com can still receive traffic. If evil governments lose this ability and irrelevant-aws-customer.com needs to be blocked, then they just block all of AWS, forcing super-important-custom…

> to move to Azure or GCP

Who will also be blocked following the same logic.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub is partially blocked in India

#127

Pointing to cloudflare dns circumvents the issue for now. move away from ISP DNS to 1.1.1.1 to temporarily solve the issue.

Some ISPs still tamper with DNS traffic irrespective of which DNS server they're to/from. githubusercontent.com has no DNSSEC, so it's not tamperproof.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub is partially blocked in India

#128
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It uses your code in a paid closed-source service (Copilot), and creates vendor lock-in using proprietary features like GitHub Actions. Not to mention that it's quite absurd for the majority of free software projects to be hosted on a proprietary platform.

It seems to bother you, I don't have any issues with people using code I put into the public domain which I why I use the unlicense. GitHub Actions is YAML based, and the reason most people use a SCM provider like Github or GitLab is because they have superior collaboration and auditing features. At the end of the day no one forces you to use a public repo(copilot) or GitHub Actions. If I use Jenkins am I any less lo…

> I don't have any issues with people using code I put into the public domain which I why I use the unlicense.

Good for you. I use the GNU GPL, so I do have a problem with my code being used for proprietary software.

> they have superior collaboration and auditing features

What exactly makes GitHub/GitLab better in this aspect than other alternatives?

> If I use Jenkins am I any less locked in?

I don't know anything about Jenkins, but being able to change your Git host independently of your build service is definitely good.

Re: Tell HN: GitHub is partially blocked in India

#130
post #28

The insane irony of this given the sheer number of Indians working in software/IT and using GitHub and contributing to India’s GDP. You’d think that the Gov/ISP/Courts, somebody would put GitHub on a Do-Not-Block list and stop this madness.

Most Indian government bureaucrats won't understand tech. Court judges are even worse; not only will they not understand tech, but as unelected officials they don't even particularly care about the economy, and are accountable to no one but themselves.
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