GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
1–10 of 33 posts
Re: GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
#2I cannot comment on the reasons, why's or whatnot of this particular issue, but I do wonder about the outcry of "not having access to download the repo"?
I mean, aside from maybe not having any forks (because you can fork another repo to your repo, but not do anything with it - so you may not have a copy) - your stuff should reside on your local box, right?
Unless you've been editing everything in the repo using the editors provided by github, or some other similar service, and never did a git clone of your own repo?
That is - you were using git...well, I can't say "wrong", but maybe "wrong-ish"...?
Re: GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
#3Misleading title. A more accurate title would be "Github block accounts of Iranain nationals to comply with US trade embargo"
Aside from that, HOLY SHIT.
Re: GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
#4While author is obviously in a pretty unenviable situation, it seems strange to me to entrust anything that you can't do without to a free service...
Re: GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
#5Put bluntly, fuck ITAR.
I understand and applaud the intent of keeping extremely dangerous weapons out of the hands of just anybody. But the implementation is insane. Until recently, this same regulation was preventing people from freely distributing SSL libraries!
I also understand that Microsoft feels forced to act on this, but as a developer I consider it user-hostile and will investigate other alternatives. Losing access to your repositories on a whim with no chance to download backups is a worst-case scenario. This really vidates the concerns that people had when GitHub was acquired.
The US really needs to reassess a lot of its laws which heavily impact electronics - it's not just ITAR, but also things like the CFAA.
In the meantime, remember to mirror your repositories locally, because it looks like GitHub is no longer an unlikely point of failure.
Re: GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
#6Put bluntly, fuck ITAR. I understand and applaud the intent of keeping extremely dangerous weapons out of the hands of just anybody. But the implementation is insane. Until recently, this same regulation was preventing people from freely distributing SSL libraries! I also understand that Microsoft feels forced to act on this, but as a developer I consider it user-hostile and will investigate other alternatives. Losin…
> fuck ITAR.
As someone who has to deal with ITAR stuff I couldn't agree more. For example, its ok for us to mirror a bunch of open source stuff on the public internet, but we cant put that mirror on a CD and ship it overseas. What a joke.
Re: GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
#7While author is obviously in a pretty unenviable situation, it seems strange to me to entrust anything that you can't do without to a free service...
We can't even commit to private repos of the company we work for! this puts our job security in danger!! even if you or the company is not in Iran!!!
Re: GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
#8I cannot comment on the reasons, why's or whatnot of this particular issue, but I do wonder about the outcry of "not having access to download the repo"? I mean, aside from maybe not having any forks (because you can fork another repo to your repo, but not do anything with it - so you may not have a copy) - your stuff should reside on your local box, right? Unless you've been editing everything in the repo using the…
If I lost GitHub access I'd lose access to a couple dozen gists, certain branches I decided I didn't need locally any longer, and certain repos I started years ago and never felt the need to re-clone when I upgraded computers.
Github is not a backup service, but I can reasonably see how he doesn't have copies of everything locally
Re: GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
#9Put bluntly, fuck ITAR. I understand and applaud the intent of keeping extremely dangerous weapons out of the hands of just anybody. But the implementation is insane. Until recently, this same regulation was preventing people from freely distributing SSL libraries! I also understand that Microsoft feels forced to act on this, but as a developer I consider it user-hostile and will investigate other alternatives. Losin…
Good luck dealing with any US based company on this. Tech companies hands are tied here, the risk of not following through is being literally tried for treason.
Re: GitHub blocked my account and they think I’m developing nuclear weapons
#10> I do live and work in Finland
So, they are blocking based on nationality rather than on location? How do they determine a user's nationality?
Do ITAR laws really require blocking a nationality regardless of their physical location? Would an Iranian living in the U.S. also be blocked?