Live data from Hacker News

U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

inventati.org

51–60 of 833 posts

Re: U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that would technically fall under the definition of "anyone", yes...

[flagged]

it would be more reasonable, maybe, if the sanctions weren't primarily being used for the anti-encryption, anti-privacy crusade.

Re: U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

#52
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without judging this or trying to axiomatically derive the logic, I think the claim here is that a/I knowingly and deliberately provides services to the PKK, which the US and the EU designate as a terrorist organization.

It’s more than that, I think. I read through the various government statements as I was curious about rationale and precedent: the other two groups impacted by the order are rather unambiguous extremists, so understandable. In the extended justification for this a/I group, the US gov lists a large number of US and EU “Antifa” groups that variously leverage their services, including one that the individual recently ar…

I share most HN'ers priors about this administration and its motives and am commenting positively, not normatively, and only about the specific claim the Treasury Department made.

Signal doesn't knowingly and deliberately provide services to any organization, let alone one formally designated by the US and the EU. The whole point of Signal is to eliminate all pretenses of the service knowing who its users are or what they're doing. To the extent that's also true of Autistici Inventati, the OFAC designation is invalid.

Re: U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

#53
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autistici/Inventati is an Italian collective, active since around 2001, that runs free digital services for activists, grassroots groups and anyone who wants to communicate without being profiled. It provides email accounts, mailing lists, blogs, websites, chat and VPN access.

[flagged]

Do the US then also sanction themselves? Cause the numer of people they have killed in that region of the globe since 1984 easily exceeds that number by orders of magnitude.

And the platform hasn't done any killing. They merely provide email etc. Are we going to sanction road builders too because a murderer has driven on their road since 1984?

Re: U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

#54

Everyone’s missing the big picture here which is that this targeting of infrastructure providers as “terrorists” is unprecedented and concerning: https://decode39.com/16319/autistici-inventati-case-sets-a-n... If a radical group sets up shop on I2P, are I2P users and devs now terrorists? This is a problem. What about Monero users/devs? Veilid? Tox? Signal?

Isn't it just as likely they are using facebook, instagram, and tiktok?

Re: U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

#57
post #22

> Our financial strategy relies exclusively on voluntary donations. That is not a sustainable strategy in the long term. Sure after this news they will get lots of donations, but long term it is not something that is realistic. Since they are now "sanctioned" by the US you cannot legally donate to them even if you wanted to...*[0] [0] *Unless you now know why this collective needs crypto more than ever.

>That is not a sustainable strategy in the long term

they've been around 25 years, which is nothing to sneeze at

Re: U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

#58
post #33

What does it entail, in practice? They are sanctioned, okay, and? What happens practically.

Anything between having their google profiles deleted to abducted and tortured at a CIA blacksite.

in this case, it mostly means trouble getting money, as they are funded via donations

Re: U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

#59
post #4

There is also an article on we will free us [1] if you want to dive deeper into that rabbit hole. [1] https://www.wewillfreeus.org/the-server-called-paranoia-defe...

The article is quite long, but these two give a brief idea of what is going on: a) According to that article, what it seems they are about: > Its manifesto describes the project in explicitly political terms. A/I is antifascist, anti-capitalist and antimilitarist. It promotes free software, encryption, pseudonymity and the independent circulation of knowledge and cultural work. It reserves its limited, volunteer-run…

[flagged]

Re: U.S. sanctions against the A/I Collective

#60
post #22

> Our financial strategy relies exclusively on voluntary donations. That is not a sustainable strategy in the long term. Sure after this news they will get lots of donations, but long term it is not something that is realistic. Since they are now "sanctioned" by the US you cannot legally donate to them even if you wanted to...*[0] [0] *Unless you now know why this collective needs crypto more than ever.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN