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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

#181

Post by yongjik »

barry-cotter wrote: post #173
chewbaxxa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the illiberal government. Libya complied with all arms control treaties and is buddy buddy with Italy. Doesn’t matter, as soon as someone whispers democracy the US does their level best to fan the flames of war. There’s an authoritarian democratically elected governm…

> Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the illiberal government.

This makes sense only if you define "liberal" as "aligned with the interests of Washington and/or American corporations". For god's sake, USA supported Saddam Hussein while he was gassing Kurdish civilians during the Iran-Iraq war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq...

> Joost R. Hiltermann says that when the Iraqi military turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds during the war, killing approximately 5,000 people in the town of Halabja and injuring thousands more, the Reagan administration actually sought to obscure Iraqi leadership culpability by suggesting, inaccurately, that the Iranians may have carried out the attack.

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

#182

Post by wolco »

barry-cotter wrote: post #173
chewbaxxa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the illiberal government. Libya complied with all arms control treaties and is buddy buddy with Italy. Doesn’t matter, as soon as someone whispers democracy the US does their level best to fan the flames of war. There’s an authoritarian democratically elected governm…

The US record in central/south America or the support for the princes in UAE and Saudi Arabia shows they will choose stability over democracy.

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

#183

Post by _ptgt »

rb808 wrote: post #148

The modern computer world is so interwoven in the internet now. It was only 20 years ago when every company I worked had physical computers, no internet access (except email) and every piece of software had to be installed from CD. I wonder if/when a big war or disaster occurs much of our computer world will just break. We've built an extremely fragile system now.

This is also a subject of intense interest to me. We're in uncharted territory here, and the most relevant historical example imo is WW1 where all major participants began the war without giving any real thought to oil and left the war knowing oil (and the vehicles it powers) was arguably the single most important strategic factor in wars during that time period (and still today really aside from speculation).

It seems plausible, if not very likely, a similar paradigm shift will occur after the first serious cyberwar occurs. We will learn a lot of lessons.

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

#184

Post by knowThySelfx »

I do not know how others feel. But I feel resentment towards embargoes (and calling their poodle countries to follow suite) placed on other countries just because they don't tow your line. Going to Iran's backyard and threatening them and then cry when they retaliate (a pretext to start war)...its so...pathetic. In fact most of the 20th century wars were started using this kind of baiting.

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

#185

Post by grrowl »

Iv wrote: post #168

Am I the only one to see this as a positive side effect of sanctions? Now Iranians have a legitimate reason to use TOR: bypassing sanctions. Turns out it allows them to bypass censorship as well and brings more people into the Tor network.

The user experience on Tor is not great at the best of times. I can't imagine trying to do something like `docker pull` or `npm install` over it, let alone technical research.

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

#186

Post by throwaway-klsdj »

h0l0cube wrote: post #119
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…

> 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…

Maybe I can consider this in more familiar terms, as if both sides have guns. Do they use them differently? I at least can't know for sure. What it boils down to for me is which side do you want to win? Being fair and impartial doesn't mean considering that both of the nations are the same and the outcome will be the same if either side wins, with only a different name and flag for the victor.

If the US wins, a rough semblance of the freedom and democracy the "West" is accustomed to will be able to face other existential internal or external threats. If Iran wins, the end. We start over at square one winning back our freedoms. Maybe we start immediately, maybe it takes 1,000 years. If I have to choose, I want the US to win this one. It doesn't matter who started it, who is doing it worse. I would like things that support the regime in Iran to stop supporting that regime (in the most humane way possible). And I would like the US, with all its warts and flaws, to win a cyber war with Iran if one must be fought.

Maybe this all sounds extremely unlikely, but the first step towards a superpower like the USA to lose to Iran is for the USA to not be trying at all, and Iran to be trying very hard. Also nuclear weapons are a great leveler.

Therefore the USA must do two things at minimum. Try to have cybersecurity supremacy over Iran, and try to keep Iran from having nuclear weapons. If both of these objectives can be met we don't need to fight them, we can leave them in peace. If either is not met, this war might have to get very physical very quickly. So right now the sanctions don't look so bad, among available options. Not saying there aren't better options, but it's above my pay grade.

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

#187

Post by ryanlol »

judge2020 wrote: post #83
juskrey wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why you shouldn't use CloudFlare, whose good intentions lead to not so good places

When 80% of traffic from an IP is malicious and the other 20% is regular traffic, but both sources look like the same traffic (impersonating browser headers, sometimes running headless chromium), what else can you do? Cookies and stateful cookie-like objects, such as privacy pass. Can anyone report how well privacy pass works nowadays?

So uh, why does “malicious” traffic need to be blocked?

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

#188

Post by _ptgt »

yongjik wrote: post #181
barry-cotter wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the illiberal government. Libya complied with all arms control treaties and is buddy buddy with Italy. Doesn’t matter, as soon as someone whispers democracy the US does their level best to fan the flames of war. There’s an authoritarian democratically elected governm…

> Given the choice between a government that poses no threat to it but is illiberal and any possibility of a liberal government the US always opts to harm the illiberal government. This makes sense only if you define "liberal" as "aligned with the interests of Washington and/or American corporations". For god's sake, USA supported Saddam Hussein while he was gassing Kurdish civilians during the Iran-Iraq war. https:/…

"Supported" in the sense of "not letting being conquered completely by Iran." Who was carrying out its own mass executions of non-Muslims and implementing its own cultural revolution around that time.

America definitely had some self-interest in protecting Iraq, but it's not like the alternative was clearly a better choice either.

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

#189

Post by misingnoglic »

My heart breaks for these devs. I've been able to launch a successful development career specifically because I was born in the US (and my parents left Iran). If I was the same person in a different geographic area I'd be struggling under sanctions.

Companies definitely need to push back on extra egregious legal teams who want to block services Iran, as it's mostly paranoia and not that the services actually fall under the jurisdiction of our sanctions. I know amazing people at Google who are doing this work, and I hope others at other companies do the same.

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

#190

Post by lsiebert »

There are of course arguments against doing this and in support of sanctions, but I feel for this person.

I think, given that the Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Roberts, never met a first amendment argument that he didn't like, these restrictions could probably be eliminated if not narrowly tailored.

Any significantly large software company could sue to overcome general software export restrictions on First amendment grounds, but most likely they won't. Politically it would be shooting themselves in the foot and inviting wrath from Trump, and they don't get paid to support free speech, they usually just do it incidentally.

Perhaps a little more likely, The EFF could sue again.

Somebody should ask the EFF about export controls on software during their Defcon panel on the 10th or something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States

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