They don't have a choice it's not githubs fault
GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
101–110 of 515 posts
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Although I agree the export embargo is fucking stupid, especially when it comes to online technology, I really want to see less criminal behavior from companies, not more. The law is not stupid, it's criminal. By following it, companies are precisely engaging in criminal behavior.
Yeah, that's not how the world works.
citation needed
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#103Is GitHub going to take itself down when one of their employees goes to Iran for holiday and logs into their GitHub account? If not, then why are they treating others with such contempt?
I think it is ridiculous to treat this misbehavior of letting someone log in from Iran as a mere transgression of a subsidiary. Clearly Microsoft needs to shut down all their servers as they are paying for Github.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#104Entrusting your business to an american entity is the stupidest idea you could have thought about. Especially us europeans should not rely on American services at all.It's not worth it. American corporations are just as much a liability as their counterparts in China.
>Especially us europeans should not rely on American services at all.It's not worth it.
Sure, please let me know how the EU plans to build Office 365, AWS, GitHub competitors of similar scale, quality and success.
We have no private investors that would pony up enough money to go against US tech titans and fat chance the EU would ever fund such initiatives and if they would, the money would evaporate over night to companies with political connections and overpriced consultants who would just produce documentation.
Let's face it, the ship of EU dominance in tech has sailed a long time ago, we might as well get comfy with the US pulling the strings on that front.
The only way the EU would ever stand a chance is if the EU would pull a Chinese style great firewall and outright ban foreign tech companies on their internal market, leaving space for local companies to spring up and fill the void but that will never happen.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#105Entrusting your business to an american entity is the stupidest idea you could have thought about. Especially us europeans should not rely on American services at all.It's not worth it. American corporations are just as much a liability as their counterparts in China.
I'm in Africa and most companies here host their systems either locally (very expensive and slow) or in America. The other day at work I had a pretty heated argument at work with a colleague when I mentioned it is really not good for us to host any of our stuff in America (all of it is currently in America). He basically freaked out about it. I just wanted to hear his thoughts about it, but he took personal offence (he's an aws fanboy).
There are problems with the laws, copyright laws too, US gov agencies etc that are all incompatible with our own laws. If something bad were to happen, our own courts have zero power to help us. We also don't have a direct fiber line to America so all our traffic hops through Europe and more recently through South America, so about 200ms added to most requests.
The only reasons to use American hosting companies is because of:
1) The financial cost can in some cases work out to be lower than local options.
2) It can be easier to scale your service vs self-hosting on premisses.
3) American hosting platforms have really nice GUI's and tooling, while being well integrated with the billing side - everything mostly just works as expected.
But other than that, if money and skills are not a problem, then on-prem is best here.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#106I can’t imagine what a bad workday this is gonna be for the rest of the company.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#107This means that as a disgruntled employee I can simply visit Iran, log in my company Github account and boom! I have now taken revenge on my whole company with minimal effort.
Only if you're okay with the legal consequences of sabotaging the company. They absolutely can sue you for it, and you might even face criminal prosecution for such a thing.
There is also another scenario.
I steal with social engineering (or phishing or other method) the GitHub credentials of an employee from a company I wish to harm.
And then I simply log in GitHub(or use a VPN to appear in Iran) with those stolen credentials.
Sounds like a very easy DOS method.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#108I'm on GitHub/Microsoft's side here. They are not responsible for the content of US export control laws, and they have an incredible amount to lose if they are found to be in violation of US export control laws.
Presumably GitHub needs some automated tool to prevent inbound traffic from sanctioned countries, and it's hard to be certain that they are complying with US law if such automated tools have some wiggle room allowing for a non-zero amount of usage from sanctioned countries.
The whole situation isn't great, but none of it is GitHub/Microsoft's fault.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#109Entrusting your business to an american entity is the stupidest idea you could have thought about. Especially us europeans should not rely on American services at all.It's not worth it. American corporations are just as much a liability as their counterparts in China.
This is ridiculous.
China requires access to your company code and pretty much owns you.
The USA government is interfering as much as Europeans government do, by making stupid laws and demanding access when they can think of an excuse. Sure, it's bad but it's not as bad as China.
You can't trust any government, but some are better than others.
Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran
#110So many dimensions come to play here. 1. There's the obvious legal aspect i.e. how these laws are framed and interpreted. 2. Then there's the geopolitical aspect. Is it fair to impose sanctions on Iran. 3. There's another aspect around GitHub policy that asks if an entire organization be banned for the location of one team member. 4. Finally, there's the aspect of relinquishing control. Your app development is on the…
> You have relinquished so much control, why be surprised if that stares you back in the face?
We live in a market-based economy with highly specialized division of labor. The idea of "keeping control" of all our necessities and dependencies, is an archaic one. The system generally works, because we create sensible laws that foster trust, vet for partners who are trustworthy, and name-and-shame entities that violate our trust.
If you're a behemoth the size of FANG or a nation-state, maybe it is worth the effort needed to insulate yourself against these black-swan scenarios. But for a startup or small-medium-business that no one has heard of? That just sounds like bad prioritization.
All of which is to say... we should absolutely be surprised when a vendor like GitHub blocks an entire company because of an employee logging in from Iran while on travel. And this surprise, and the resulting name-and-shame, is what keeps the wheels of our economy turning.