An Apology and an Update • Hacker News Board

Re: An Apology and an Update

#211

Post by mirimir » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #193

hrktb wrote: post #126

It’s still profoundly disturbing to my eyes. Technically their underlying problem is relying on IP ranges, wich is flawed and raises false positives all the time. They seem to recognize they shouldn’t be doing irreversible and critical action with only that info, yet will still use it to drop traffic. To me their message is “sorry we screwed with your accounts, going forward we’ll only screw with your messages”. Am I…

I've never seen the whois info for an IP address resolve to the wrong country though. The owner is registered with the regional IP something (RIR if I'm not mistaken - like ARIN, RIPE, etc.) so that should be quite reliable. Posting this I'm sure someone will take the challenge and can find an example where it wasn't assigned to the right country, but is it more than one in a billion IP addresses? GeoIP databases on…

Consider HideMyAss server fun-tv.prcdn.net (5.62.58.220). They claim that it's in Tuvalu.

However, https://www.iplocation.net/ reports some results indicating that it's in the UK, and some indicating that it's in Tuvalu.

According to Hurricane Electric's BGP Toolkit, the origin AS for 5.62.58.0/23 is AS198605, with "Country of Origin: Czech Republic".[0]

But results from many ping probes (ping.pe, asm.ca.com and maplatency.com) indicate that the server is in Miami, FL, US.[1]

That's a lot different from Tuvalu, the UK or the Czech Republic.

0) https://bgp.he.net/AS198605

1) https://www.ivpn.net/blog/wp-content/img/HMA-fun-tv.prcdn_.n...

Re: An Apology and an Update

#212

Post by fulafel » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #210

pyrophane wrote: post #11

This is yet another good reason to prefer decentralized networks. When Slack or Facebook or whomever agrees to block someone there is no resolution other than appealing to a company with a closed decision making process, something I don't think any of us really want.

Why is this a good reason to prefer decentralized networks? Slack is a tool for employees at a company to communicate with each other. At some point those communications need to arrive back at a server that lives inside the boundaries of a nation state that is one of the world's major economies. Most of the major governments of the world work together to regulate the worlds networks. But even if that wasn't true, wha…

If you are not US based, you may want to trade and work with us-embargoed countries. Especially as the embargoes may come and go unpredictably as US foteign policy gets increasingly erratic.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#213

Post by xfitm3 » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #137

rootkea wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope sorry. Slack is a walled garden. And relying on a walled garden means handing over your control, freedom and privacy which eventually gonna lead to similar kind of exploitation/abuse. As another HN commenter @SamWhited put it, "Using a proprietary protocol that doesn't allow any form of federation is an unacceptable way to build a global community". We need to develop and use FLOSS protocols/tools as much as pos…

These are good points, but wow are the walls Slack has built beautiful. The webhooks make so many things better. Is there a service you recommend?

Webhooks are great, but slack's notification semantics are infuriating.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#214

Post by nulbyte » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

jkaplowitz wrote: post #163

dogecoinbase wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope -- the stipulations of the licensing policy on Internet freedom in Iran are still in effect: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/... See specific of the current application of the rules here: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Sanctions/Page... "Specifically, section 560.540 of the ITR authorizes the exportation from the United States or by U.S. persons, wherever located, to pe…

That says "personal communications". Slack is aimed at businesses, not personal use. It also requires "no cost to the user." Very well may not exempt their business model, though some room for argument exists. Of course, any sanctions regime that does still apply wouldn't require the collateral damage of Slack's excessive initial ban.

Corporations and other business entities are persons.

Also, the license applies to services for a fee.

Also, exchanging information isn't embargoed.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#215

Post by burtonator2011 » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 8:27 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #40

I'm a big fan and critic of apologies. This one is pretty good. They admit the mistake was theirs and they take responsibility for it. They say sorry. They explain what they're going to do to fix the situation. They say they're going to learn from this and not have similar mistakes in the future. Pretty solid. The only thing that is missing, in my view, is personalization. Tell me who you are, speaking for the organi…

This is confusing:

> We do not collect, use, or possess any information about the nationality or ethnicity of our users.

No nationality? Don't they kind of have to collect nationality in order to comply with the law on implementing sanctions?

Re: An Apology and an Update

#216

Post by e1ven » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

burtonator2011 wrote: post #215

mabbo wrote: post #40

I'm a big fan and critic of apologies. This one is pretty good. They admit the mistake was theirs and they take responsibility for it. They say sorry. They explain what they're going to do to fix the situation. They say they're going to learn from this and not have similar mistakes in the future. Pretty solid. The only thing that is missing, in my view, is personalization. Tell me who you are, speaking for the organi…

This is confusing: > We do not collect, use, or possess any information about the nationality or ethnicity of our users. No nationality? Don't they kind of have to collect nationality in order to comply with the law on implementing sanctions?

They need to block people who are in (for example) Iran, not all Iranian citizens, or all people who have visited Iran in the past.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#217

Post by sam_goody » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

lazerwalker wrote: post #207

n_e wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2 days for people being locked out of their account, through no fault of their own, is a long time. In absolute terms yes. Compared to how for example google handles this it’s outstanding.

Most times Google has issues like that, it's for a free service, rather than something affecting paid customers, yeah?

No.

We had someone locked out of their email while using Google's paid company mail service (App engine, I think it was called). Several days with no mail and no useful support taught me that relying on Google can leave you with no recourse.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#218

Post by SpikeDad » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 9:32 PM UTC

throw-far-away wrote: post #121

speedplane wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The apology wasn't good just because it accepted responsibility, it was good because they acted responsibly. The incident lasted two days, and it was quickly corrected. Many other companies would ignore it for months, and a similar apology in that case would be feel far less sincere. It's okay to mess up if you quickly correct the issue or at least quickly recognize it and try to correct it. The problems arise when i…

Apologies mean nothing without a believable promise to not behave similarly in the future. Furthermore, "sorry" doesn't excuse all behaviors. Doing something shitty like closing someone's account without warning and without an appeal process is inexcusable.

I think also apologies require explaining what changes they made and why they decided to do it that way. A look behind the curtain on why they chose way A when they could have chosen way B is illustrative to users.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#219

Post by unethical_ban » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 10:07 PM UTC

What countries are embargoed for chat?

I work in banking, and when we discuss certain kinds of remote access, it's notable that there is no "OFAC" list. There are shit tons of lists for different things. I wonder which list Slack uses.

Re: An Apology and an Update

#220

Post by xf86alsa » Sat, Dec 22, 2018, 10:08 PM UTC

mikenew wrote: post #136

techntoke wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still hoping they'll implement an SMS gateway. If Matrix could replace Google Voice too, that would rock my world.

There is one. I'm using it, it works, but it's a little buggy: https://github.com/tijder/SmsMatrix . I haven't been able to ignore my message app and trust the bridge 100% yet. I'm hoping to spend some of my christmas break contributing some work to the project. I agree, bridging SMS into a chat service that you can use from anywhere is a killer feature.

If you do make any updates, feel free to throw them into the This Week in Matrix room which may catch some more dev's attention!

https://matrix.to/#/#twim:matrix.org