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Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

ahmadhaghighi.com

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Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#331

Post by DetroitThrow »

miracle2k wrote: post #274
dijit wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gitlab is hosted on google cloud, and fronted by cloudflare... those IP restrictions apply to google cloud, AWS, Azure and Oracle Cloud. (and Cloudflare since that's a US company also)

To my knowledge, services hosted on AWS are not blocked in Iran. Also, if that were the case, literally have the internet would cease to function w/o VPN, which should give pause to those who would shrug off such a policy.

>To my knowledge, services hosted on AWS are not blocked in Iran.

Your knowledge is blatantly wrong, despite multiple people telling you otherwise:

https://reclaimthenet.org/amazon-aws-iran-proxies-vpn-sancti...

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#332

Post by DetroitThrow »

CKN23-ARIN wrote: post #302
dijit wrote: post #84

Quick note that anyone using a US based cloud provider will likely be blocking all sanctioned countries. It’s not configurable at all. It was a sticking point for us when deploying the sequel to a game I was working on. Ultimately we determined that the benefits of using the provider outweighed the benefit to users since we weren’t shipping the game there officially anyway. (With one notable exception) It still leave…

Other than GCP, which US based cloud providers do this?

AWS: https://reclaimthenet.org/amazon-aws-iran-proxies-vpn-sancti...

I'm not sure Azure has been available for Iranian IPs for the past few years or ever, feel free to Google "Azure Blocked Iran" though - plenty of petitions.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#333

Post by miracle2k »

DetroitThrow wrote: post #331
miracle2k wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge, services hosted on AWS are not blocked in Iran. Also, if that were the case, literally have the internet would cease to function w/o VPN, which should give pause to those who would shrug off such a policy.

>To my knowledge, services hosted on AWS are not blocked in Iran. Your knowledge is blatantly wrong, despite multiple people telling you otherwise: https://reclaimthenet.org/amazon-aws-iran-proxies-vpn-sancti...

This article is talking about Iranians being able to use AWS to host services. We are talking about services I host on AWS being accessible in Iran without a VPN.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#334

Post by miracle2k »

DetroitThrow wrote: post #326
miracle2k wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prominent examples disagree with you. Gmail for example. They even allow accounts! Now maybe Google wants to argue that Gmail qualifies for the personal communication tools exception. But wait, GitHub doesn't block Iranian IPs either! They allow free accounts as well! Call in the feds! Is there any government guidance or legal precedent that says IP blocking is required? There is not. Any evidence that the government…

>Prominent examples disagree with you. Gmail for example. They even allow accounts! Now maybe Google wants to argue that Gmail qualifies for the personal communication tools exception. But wait, GitHub doesn't block Iranian IPs either! They allow free accounts as well! Call in the feds! Both Google and Github block accounts by Iranian IPs, and this is easily verifiable if you know anyone who lives in Iran and can acc…

Your own link from the Github docs has this to say:

> GitHub is committed to continuing to offer free public repository services to developers with individual and organizational accounts in U.S.-sanctioned regions. This includes limited access to free services, such as public repositories for open source projects (and associated public Pages), public gists, and allotted free Action minutes, for personal communications only, and not for commercial purposes.

They do not ban Iranian IPs from accessing their site on a network level, and they do allow Iranians to have accounts to work on open source projects. These are both things that Gitlab is accused of doing here. This leaves us with a couple of options:

1. Github is not in compliance. 2. Gitlab, not allowing any Iranian to access their accounts, and blocking IPs, is over-complying. 3. It is not clear what is required to be in compliance, and Americans think that having to fear prison time in the face of such uncertainty is normal.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#335

Post by boomboomsubban »

Causality1 wrote: post #309
boomboomsubban wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though refusing to do business with them will cause some of their family to die of starvation or lack of medicine?

Yes. It's the same reason I don't shop at Hobby Lobby despite a boycott potentially causing innocent workers to lose their livelihood.

They can find new jobs, the people you've killed for disagreeing with your foreign policy are dead forever.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#336

Post by miracle2k »

DetroitThrow wrote: post #325
miracle2k wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are quoting a very specific claim. That big providers such as Gmail and GitHub do not block Iranian IPs. Are you saying they do?

>You are quoting a very specific claim. That big providers such as Gmail and GitHub do not block Iranian IPs. Are you saying they do? Yes I am saying they block accounts by Iranian IPs, and this is easily verifiable if you know anyone who lives in Iran and can access a website - attempting to use Github functionality for anything other than viewing repositories right now is currently blocked, and enterprise accounts…

So, I responded to you in another thread above. You seem to agree that Github is allowing Iranian IPs to browse the website, as well as have accounts to work on OpenSource projects. These are things Gitlab is not doing. Not sure where your disagreement is then.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#337

Post by dijit »

miracle2k wrote: post #333
DetroitThrow wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To my knowledge, services hosted on AWS are not blocked in Iran. Your knowledge is blatantly wrong, despite multiple people telling you otherwise: https://reclaimthenet.org/amazon-aws-iran-proxies-vpn-sancti...

This article is talking about Iranians being able to use AWS to host services. We are talking about services I host on AWS being accessible in Iran without a VPN.

Those are also blocked, but I genuinely implore you to make an Iranian friend (somehow) and ask them what works.

For myself, I saw my users go to zero when I migrated to AWS+GCP over my European based co-location provider.

I was hosting services that had 30,000~ monthly active users from Iran at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Iran#Un...

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#338

Post by miracle2k »

null_deref wrote: post #38
goku99 wrote: post #31

Isn't sharing project/code, or any intellectual property with Israel or nations which Iran Supremo doesn't approve, banned too? (in Iran) I find this ridiculous, trying to stop flow of intellectual knowledge.

Yes, that's was an interesting case of what you mentioned https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24364793

It's also ironic, because this is an Iranian having and using a Github account without being blocked, which some commentators here appear to believe is impossible due to US sanctions.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#339

Post by Causality1 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #335
Causality1 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's the same reason I don't shop at Hobby Lobby despite a boycott potentially causing innocent workers to lose their livelihood.

They can find new jobs, the people you've killed for disagreeing with your foreign policy are dead forever.

I've found myself in an awkward position defending sanctions I don't really agree with anyway. I'm not sure these differences of opinion are reconcilable. Some people think the appropriate response to death threats is to ignore them, and others like me think the appropriate response is a cruise missile.

Re: Gitlab Blocked Iranians’ Access

#340

Post by dharmab »

dessant wrote: post #48
dharmab wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they could not have. The law is very clear that absolutely no business activity is allowed. Source: I implemented part of the sanctions compliance for a major tech company’s platform (and saw other projects get sunset because they didn’t implement it)

GitLab has been responding to private support requests from Iranians regarding the account closures, isn't that service considered business activity? Btw, doesn't blocking by IP address go beyond what is required by law, since only Iranian residents are subject to sanctions? Would preemptively restricting accounts that have logged in from an Iranian IP address and asking for proof of residence break the law?

> Btw, doesn't blocking by IP address go beyond what is required by law, since only Iranian residents are subject to sanctions?

The penalties for violating sanctions are so severe that it is worth the risk of potentially blocking legitimate customers.

> Would preemptively restricting accounts that have logged in from an Iranian IP address and asking for proof of residence break the law?

It would be extremely expensive and in a literal sense not worth the time.

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