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Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

blog.coursera.org

141–150 of 196 posts

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#141
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think the way that Cuba is run is the same as the way that the US is run, there is no evidence that will ever change your mind

I don't think both countries are run in the same way, I know they are not. What I don't know is how you inferred I did think in that way from my comment.

I don't know, could it be the way you sarcastically drew parallels between the two as if they were the same? If you had just said what you meant, instead of trying to be clever or cute, maybe there wouldn't be such room for misinterpretation.

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#142
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Laws are not always meant to be respected; they're meant to be broken and challenged in court. As quoted from parent. So if I ask the OP to explain, that is trolling? What do you define as discussion? And my question still remains, who decides what is good or bad?

This is ridiculous. Are you purposely ignoring the ____NOT ALWAYS____ in the qoute? Do you understand what this picture is? http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/11/jackson-ms-sit-in.jpg Do you understand the good that comes from Google disabling censorship in China even though it was not lawful under Chinese law to do so? I'm not going to get into some silly pedantic debate about who gets to decide right & wrong. If you don't…

I will make this simple:

1. Not always means that you have to make a decision, the question is on what principle do you decide to challenge a law in court, and why that principle will be superior than somebody else principles.

2. I did not discuss this with you at all, I am asking bambax, so if you want to jump into a discussion, and suddenly decides to throw a tantrum, good luck to you.

3. Google censorship or radgeek does not add to this discussion, all I want to know is what makes bambax decide when to challenge the law and on what principle.

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#143
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to write a script to scan all the internet (or at least the popular websites) and determine which ones are blocked? If you can find or make a list of websites you want to scan, you can script it. The biggest problem is doing it in a way that doesn't bring you to the attention of those doing the blocking. 1. Where can I find a list of all domain names, top 1000, top 100000? Alexa's "top 1,000,000" list…

Thanks. They do not use DNS-based blocking. I will try using the HEAD method if I find a way to do it anonymously.

If you have the option writing it to look for instances of US blocking that only incidentally finds local censorship may give you some ass-coverage.

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#144
Thought Experiment:

Imagine a large cohort of reasonable, well intentioned, creative, knowledgeable and empowered people came together and asked each other this question:

How can we as Homo sapiens, organize society, design and deploy systems, create technologies that allow us to live and pursue the lives that we want on a day to day basis.

More urgently, how can we as well save ourselves from eventual but certain destruction, in the event that we are too complacent to venture outside planet earth, remaining fragile to cosmological scale events that other evolved animals couldn't survive?

--

Run a 1000 simulations in 2014 January, include whoever you think is smarter than you or Obama - say Gates, Page, Musk, Zuckerberg, Jobs - Snowden, Theil, Kurzweil, Hawking, Dawkins or anyone who you think is competent.

Solution: First - Invent the Nation State. Create ~200 Nations of random sizes, resources, people, but create a bureaucratic institution that nobody takes seriously called the UN. All nations will be treated equally. Then create armies, spend billions on mutually assured destruction. Create a fake crime called 'sedition', create concepts of espionage. Use the nation state to justify everything, like a modern religion. Inspire democides and dictatorships. Prevent access and create isolation. Prevent Spotify from running anywhere, make ibooks store in most countrues have only titles without book covers from the victorian era 'because they are in public domain'. Have people blocked or restricted access to BBC because they are not in britain so they can't appreciate a neuroscience documentary. Create visas and passports and foreign embassies and diplomatic immunities. Restrict movement on land air water and radio waves or optic fibres. Have people do paperwork to see Niagra falls or prove their nationality before they are allowed to apply for a ONLINEprogram...

Then finally restrict and kill access to knowledge, with NO paywalls.

Can someone please tell me if they think this solution would show up?

Common, we have to recognize that the best invention since the wheel was not a stupid technology like the nation-state. Even if it was, this is ample proof that we've lived with it to a point where it's maladaptive. I hope we can see the writing on the wall and convince ourselves that we need to dissolve and bury this human invention, like most religions.

Our survival is literally at hand.

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#145
post #66

As an Iranian I can't really blame them. They are forced to comply with the law, and unfortunately the law is very broad. Can't really blame the US government for this sort of blanket ban either because exceptions to laws create loopholes. It won't take long until people find ways to ship missile chips as educational material. Maybe if our government didn't threaten other nations with annihilation, this sort of shit…

> Maybe if our government didn't threaten other nations with annihilation, this sort of shit wouldn't happen to us. Who knows.

yes, you can blame our government, even when US is putting the pressure on our people, not the government. it makes prefect sense.

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#146

As someone who lives in Iran, this is sad but not news. I have gotten used to see half the websites blocked by my government(Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, WordPress, etc) and the other half by your government(Java SE or anything else from Oracle, Google Code, Google Play Store, anything from Xilinx, etc). If one of my favorite websites was blocked, I may have considered not using it anymore. When virtually all websites…

How do you pay for the VPN?

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#147
as an iranian, i dont give a damn. i already route all of my traffic to my vps in US, so i can access everything that is blocked to me either by iranian or american government. but this kind of sanctions, just like financial sanctions on iran, increases the hatred of americans in iran, and shows their hypocrisy.

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#148
> How is Coursera identifying students in sanctioned countries?

"Coursera has implemented an IP address block that prevents users in sanctioned countries from logging into a Coursera account. When attempting to sign in, these users will see a message explaining that we cannot allow them to access the site due to U.S. export control restrictions. In rare instances, students with IP addresses bordering on but not geopolitically within the bounds of these countries will be affected. Our engineers are working to mitigate this issue while pursuing a broader solution to the restrictions."

Translation, the USA gov is acting kinda stupid, we can't help it. Use a proxy and you're fine.

NOTE: A link to TOR would be nice :-)

Re: Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria

#149

This is ridiculous! What is the use of being the premier institute in the world, and do just about nothing about such a obvious immorality!? The kids in these countries are already suffering under oppression/war/famine/ you name it.. things you won't want upon yourself, much less on your kids.I know a guy who plays a rpg with me who is from Syria, he is 14 year old, and his school is defunct. Just few months back I r…

If I don't remember incorrectly Khan is running on App Engine and therefore already blocked.
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