“My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea” • Hacker News Board

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#321

Post by rusabd » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

tasubotadas wrote: post #261

jhbadger wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Western intellectuals like Chomsky say they have been "censored", they mean that that their publishing house asked them to leave out or add stuff because they felt that such changes would help the book sell better, as their goal was to make money off authors they published. That's quite a bit different from the threats of jail time that Eastern Bloc intellectuals faced.

A modern westerner doesn't really get how it was in the Soviet block. "Wasn't much better than USSR" is such bullshit on so many levels that it's hard to even to begin. In the US: - you didn't have quotas to write "correct literature" - you wouldn't disappear in a gulag for 10 years - you didn't have to worry about standing in a queue for 1-2h to get fresh bread and sausage (it's easier to contemplate stupid shit whe…

Let's not forget "stukach". Your friend or relative might be the one who meets a curator from KGB and reporting everything "interesting" you have said. Each big enough organization had a permanent curator assigned to monitor sentiments. And repercussions were real enough.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#322

Post by ivanhoe » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 3:50 PM UTC

nsajko wrote: post #290

ivanhoe wrote: post #271

This story reminds me of my own growing up in Serbia in 90s under UN sanctions. One of the side-effects of it was that we couldn't access Internet directly for a while, we were almost completely cut off (Belgrade University was half-illegally exchanging emails once a day over a private link to Greece thanks to some professors at University of Athens, but otherwise all connections to the world were cut off). And at th…

I am interested, in case you remember, what do you perceive were the main reasons for the antagonism towards Milošević (where it existed)? I mean, it could be many things, like authoritarianism, censorship, "nationalism", "communism", ethnic policies, ...?

All of the above, plus the lost wars, thousands of people killed and displaced, broken dreams and promises, broken economy, huge rise of crime, mob bosses and crime-connected tycoons, one of the greatest hyper-inflations ever, nationalization and then organized pumping out of banks money and people's savings out of the country to the secret accounts on Cyprus that left millions without their life savings, the whole social and moral structure of society got turned upside-down in very short period of time... the list is quite long, Milosevic was a typical dictator who used force and propaganda to hide his own incompetence and crimes. Contrary to common picture painted of him in West, I don't think he was ever a real believer in communism, nor he was really a hard-core nationalist either, he used the both simply as a source of power when it was convenient for him, but then also made moves that were completely opposite when it was needed. He was really just an opportunist greedy of power. And unfortunately in 90s most of other political leaders in Yugoslavia were pretty much the same, and the old system was broken and unsustainable anymore...

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#323

Post by squirrelicus » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

filleduchaos wrote: post #219

squirrelicus wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could choose to become a citizen of a country you support instead. I'm not saying "get out if you're not all in", I'm not trying to be dismissive. But your citizenship and temperament are accidents of your birth, and you have the power to rectify the former.

> But your citizenship and temperament are accidents of your birth, and you have the power to rectify the former. This is an incredibly naive/somewhat condescending statement, considering that it is far beyond the reach of the vast majority of people.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. But maybe I'm wrong. To know the answer, we'll have to discover the monetary cost of doing so and calculate how long it might take to save up money, and what must be forgone, to acheive it.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#324

Post by squirrelicus » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #242

filleduchaos wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But your citizenship and temperament are accidents of your birth, and you have the power to rectify the former. This is an incredibly naive/somewhat condescending statement, considering that it is far beyond the reach of the vast majority of people.

Agreed, instead of giving up my passport, moving away from my family and job, or going to prison for tax evasion... ... how about we agree that I personally did not want the government to use my tax money to bomb civilians in Eurasia and I desperately would like to find a way to prevent those weapons from being launched. But I think we would have to replace something like 70% of our elected representatives to force t…

Can we agree that the militaries of the West try extraordinarily hard, especially by historical standards, to not harm civilians during wartime?

Can we also agree that zero civilian casualties during war is at least adjacent to impossible?

Can we also agree that a country unwilling to protect its people and interests with military action would be a much less secure country than the ones we have today? Indeed, that the threat of rapid, devastating response is the key reason why we are as close to world peace as we are today and have been for decades?

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#325

Post by rdl » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

edwinyzh wrote: post #207

rdl wrote: post #114

A (very bad) US bank of mine froze my account in a way which was exceptionally difficult to fix because I tried to use the mobile app to check my balance while physically in Ukraine (not anywhere near Crimea; they chose to fucking sanction the entire country because Ukraine got invaded, which was the opposite of the intent of the law).

Can you name the bank?

e*trade. I actually pinged a friend at State to re-educate them, but I don't know if it went anywhere.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#326

Post by shitgoose » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

zzzcpan wrote: post #253

egorfine wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukrainian society is ill and this is one of the recent inflammations that hurts. Being unable to fix roads or economy, they have directed their frustration towards symbolic things, fighting everyone who calls Kiev "Kiev" instead of "Kyiv", renaming streets, etc. Now they have decided that "the Ukraine" is somehow referencing Ukraine as a territory and not a state. God knows where any of this comes from, but any "patr…

> fighting everyone who calls Kiev "Kiev" instead of "Kyiv", renaming streets, etc. It's an organized effort, part of government propaganda, not an ill society. Society is so healthy, that it didn't trust the government at all and voted all those people out. Really, it doesn't get healthier than that.

changing one oligarh for another is hardly healthy (Poroh for Benya). Ukraine deserves better.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#327

Post by jwieczorek » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

riku_iki wrote: post #319

acqq wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which punishing Russian government They obviously don't "punish the Russian government" when they prevent the people living in Crimea contributing to the open source project.

US government doesn't know if people who access github will contribute, or just take and use including military and government applications.

There's hardly any military work that would involve using code from GitHub in Crimea. All the R&D is done in mainland Russia. This targets common people who use GitHub for their pet projects or just regular work.

In general, this thread demonstrates that here there's very little understanding about the mass psychology of Russians, and, really, any nation other than Americans. No one in Crimea is going to rebel against the Russian government because of the U.S. sanctions against them exclusively. A policy like this only validates the Russian government's narrative of the U.S. going after Russia as such. If the U.S. government wanted to seek allies in Crimeans, they could perhaps focus on sanctioning Moscovian oligarchs. Well, except they won't, because Russian oligarchs that lose leverage in the Kremlin later make for good dissidents to be used by the U.S. as an ideological tool against Russia. And the oligarchic system is keeping Russia from modernizing, which is also in the U.S. interest.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#328

Post by colechristensen » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

maxheadroom wrote: post #233

colechristensen wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would be doing that to prevent money laundering, trying to stop people going to sanctioned places and transferring money around for the locals at hefty profit. (in other words, not the opposite of the intent of the law)

> They would be doing that to prevent money laundering, trying to stop people going to sanctioned places and transferring money around for the locals at a hefty profit. (in other words, not the opposite of the intent of the law) Did they forget we have modern inventions, like VPN and airplanes? Localising it to Ukraine (in this context) sounds like they're generally just after the low-hanging fruit (read: the poor wh…

It's the result of a risk calculation with limited information. Hanging out near war zones and sanctioned countries significantly increases the chance that you're committing financial crimes, so when they have some information that you're doing that kind of thing you're much more likely to trip an alarm.

VPNs don't help you with bank apps that report your GPS position.

Sanctions aren't particularly excellent at stopping bad actors.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#329

Post by dogma1138 » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #88

dogma1138 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Crimea is a defacto Russian state now and for the most part a large portion of the population and the current government is participating in it. The sanctions are for the most part per the request of the Ukrainian government. If Catalonia becomes a separatist state tomorrow and Spain and its allies sanction it everyone in it will be under sanctions regardless of who or what they support. This is what happens…

>for the most part the population is participating in it If anyone ever dared to assert that I support US war mongering just because I live the US..... lord

>If anyone ever dared to assert that I support US war mongering just because I live the US..... lord

It's not the same, the majority of the population are ethnic Russians, a large number of them actively support what Russia did.

There was a referendum, and countless polls, it doesn't excuse the annexation but reality isn't black and white.

You need to be intentionally misleading to not acknowledge the fact the Russian presence in Crimea and in fact their actions are supported by a sufficiently large part of the Crimean population to make this situation very problematic.

This isn't Russia occupying Belgium, the geopolitics behind this situation don't make anyone look good.

Hence why I gave the example of Catalonia not only it's a good western analogy but it appears that Crimea has more pro-Russian support than what the separatist movements in Spain or other places in Europe like Italy have.

However our current legal system does not allow individuals to simply say "i don't want to be part of your legal system any more" hence why these referendums are essentially illegal. And while we do need to face reality sometimes and make exceptions these have to be exception otherwise the "sovereign citizens" movement would actually become a reality since you can't simply put a cap on how many people want to break away from the existing legal system you enforce on them.

Re: “My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

#330

Post by jwieczorek » Fri, Jul 26, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

dvt wrote: post #15

baroffoos wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that make it better?

No, it just makes it a geopolitical reality that you have to somehow punish Russia when it mobilizes ground forces and forcibly annexes pieces of land. Don't forget that Russian-backed insurgents literally shot a passenger plane out of the sky[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

After the Ukrainian air traffic control spent weeks bringing the same flight closer and closer to the war zone, even though a ban on air traffic over that territory should have been put there immediately. No one is questioning the Ukrainian side how come they've "lost" and have not put forward before the Dutch Safety Board the primary radar recordings of the Dnepropetrovsk area from that period. The Ukrainian government, and the U.S., at that very moment needed something like this to happen to get the Western European governments to put their stake in that war and the Western European societies to approve it. They're partially responsible for this crash and in that regard your description of this event is highly misguiding.