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How is it like to be a dev in Iran

shahinsorkh.ir

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Re: How is it like to be a dev in Iran

#111

Post by jacobolus »

throwaway-klsdj wrote: post #96
throwaway-ba9 wrote: post #74

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. I'm one of those operations people who have been required by a legal department to block access from sanctioned countries - I've literally written the HTTP rules to deny access to folks like the original author. I think about how the infrastructure I write and operate creates situations like these, and while I know I'm partly to blame, it's worth highlighting that this is a by-p…

This is a good point. To add a slightly different perspective, I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored. I think most people don't realize how incredibly serious this is, and how basically there is already a global war being fought. And the nations with the most freedom have the most to lose. Certainly most of the people in Iran are…

The main reason for US policy changes vis-à-vis Iran in the past couple years has been spite toward the previous US administration.

There are some nasty folks in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but Iran is a large, diverse, and complicated place, and there are many other internally powerful people with different agendas (just like most large diverse countries).

In general openness and cultural/economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners.

Re: How is it like to be a dev in Iran

#112

Post by Thaxll »

miracle2k wrote: post #94
Thaxll wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what are the details but I worked for a major company and they didn't even try to see if the service was against embargo they just blocked it. Gmail might not be blocked but can you create an email?

Yes, you can create an email. The fact that your company "did not even bother to check" is a poor argument for "everyone has to do it".

They probably did checked but it was most likely complicated / subject to various limitations and with all those complications they decided to not provide services, like most US companies, that was pre 2018.

When a county is under embargo it's more complicated that just checking a website from the comfort of your chair, I remember many Iranians complaining about that but the chance that you're infringing some rules could lead to very very serious / expensive sanctions ( with DoJ / DoT ) it's just not worth it.

http://techland.time.com/2012/08/29/world-of-warcraft-blocke...

Re: How is it like to be a dev in Iran

#114

Post by _ptgt »

jacobolus wrote: post #111
throwaway-klsdj wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good point. To add a slightly different perspective, I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored. I think most people don't realize how incredibly serious this is, and how basically there is already a global war being fought. And the nations with the most freedom have the most to lose. Certainly most of the people in Iran are…

The main reason for US policy changes vis-à-vis Iran in the past couple years has been spite toward the previous US administration. There are some nasty folks in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but Iran is a large, diverse, and complicated place, and there are many other internally powerful people with different agendas (just like most large diverse countries). In general openness and cultural/economic exchange help…

>In general openness and cultural/economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners.

I've read in various places that the opposite is actually true -- sanctions from the liberal US strengthens the liberals in Iran by highlighting how the regime's aggressive policy is resulting in economic pain for Iranians.

This didn't really work with China either. Granted, there are plenty of examples where sanctions have failed/backfired but I'd like to reject any "general" statement on the best way to liberalize a country through foreign policy.

Re: How is it like to be a dev in Iran

#115

Post by williamchangnpu »

strooper wrote: post #50

Dear Iranian devs, let's learn to take advantage of the situation instead of complaining about it. Why not learn from the devs in China?! To my knowledge, China blocks no less online service than Iran. China monitors citizens' online activities in ways that very few other countries can. Yet their internet services flourish and engage users in ways nowhere else is seen. Let's build/clone fancy/popular services locally…

Yet their internet services flourish and engage users in ways nowhere else is seen.

But comparing to those services in the western countries, these services(dev tools and online resources etc) are just too immature and unstable and not well-documented,( I'm saying some opensource project from alibaba and so on ,and highly biased)

Re: How is it like to be a dev in Iran

#116

Post by kaveh_h »

mattigames wrote: post #41
smnrchrds wrote: post #6

Dear devs, Please stop using Google Cloud Platform to host your projects. GCP blocks Iran, so by hosting any part of the app on GCP, your apps become impossible to access from Iran. Azure and AWS do not do this. This form of blocking is exclusive to GCP. After the switch to GCP, Iranians lost access to gitlab. Firefox Monitor is blocked in Iran for the same reason. The list goes on and on. I don't believe Mozilla tea…

Or... maybe developers should not play the games the Iran goverment want them to play and every effort should go towards throwing the current dictatorship not to stop using what they want us to stop using?

And play the game the US government wants them to play?

US is creating the situation were enough conservative Iranian (their are enough) are going to support their government just because sanctions and muslim ban exists.

Re: How is it like to be a dev in Iran

#117

Post by miracle2k »

user5994461 wrote: post #69
smnrchrds wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the actions of large US tech companies, as described above and in my other comment [0], I believe the rule of thumb is "Don't take Iranian money." If you are blocking access to a free-to-use service or the free tier of a paid service, you are using a stricter blocking scheme than seems to be required based on the actions of legally-savvy tech companies. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20494402

At this point, you clearly show that you have no understanding of export regulations or sanctions, and you're basically arguing that there can't be any because you've seen a well known company not block all access outright. Get legal advise if you run a business. Don't do legal based on a hunch or an internet discussion.

It'd be pretty sad state of affairs if I had to hire a sanctions lawyer (they are a fair amount more expensive than regular ones) so I can sell, say, icon packs on the internet, but fortunately, that is not the case.

The reason Google's GCP block is outrageous is that they are on a mission to become one of the backbones of the internet, and as such, they are on a mission breaking the internet in US sanctioned countries. You defend this based on the largely misguided notion that US sanction law is so aggressive and unpredictable, that anyone one running a website would be better off with an auto-block of those countries, or risk his freedom.

In reality, the lack of such an auto-block from currently much larger providers (by multiples), and a lack of enforcement actions that could have been prevented by such a block, would tell us that this is FUD.

Re: How is it like to be a dev in Iran

#118

Post by sansnomme »

Any DApp developer/startup care to comment on this? Blockchain/distributed ledger is often touted to be resilient against attacks, censorship resistant etc. etc. blah blah blah, so how well will they function against the will of the United States?

@muneeb? @perlin-network?

Re: How is it like to be a dev in Iran

#119

Post by h0l0cube »

throwaway-klsdj wrote: post #96
throwaway-ba9 wrote: post #74

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. I'm one of those operations people who have been required by a legal department to block access from sanctioned countries - I've literally written the HTTP rules to deny access to folks like the original author. I think about how the infrastructure I write and operate creates situations like these, and while I know I'm partly to blame, it's worth highlighting that this is a by-p…

This is a good point. To add a slightly different perspective, I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored. I think most people don't realize how incredibly serious this is, and how basically there is already a global war being fought. And the nations with the most freedom have the most to lose. Certainly most of the people in Iran are…

> I work for a US company that routinely has to deal with cyber attacks by Iranian professionals, probably government sponsored.

It's hard to posit a moral high-ground here, when basically every state is actively seeking to undermine the others' cyber security, including the US. Stuxnet is one of the most formidable state-sponsored cyber security exploits, and that was targeted at Iran, it seems easy justification to increase their offensive capability.

I have to admit some naivete here, I don't know the frequency and scale of cyber attacks emanating from Iran, but I'd guess that hostile foreign policy from the US would only intensify that threat towards the US.

Re: How is it like to be a dev in Iran

#120

Post by chewbaxxa »

_ptgt wrote: post #114
jacobolus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason for US policy changes vis-à-vis Iran in the past couple years has been spite toward the previous US administration. There are some nasty folks in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but Iran is a large, diverse, and complicated place, and there are many other internally powerful people with different agendas (just like most large diverse countries). In general openness and cultural/economic exchange help…

>In general openness and cultural/economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners. I've read in various places that the opposite is actually true -- sanctions from the liberal US strengthens the liberals in Iran by highlighting how the regime's aggressive policy is resulting in economic pain for Iranians. This didn't really work with China either. Granted, there…

I doubt that US foreign policy has anything to do with the desire to “liberalize” a country. Unless you’re using that term in a different sense...
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