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GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

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Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#401

Post by lodovic »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #391
elmo2you wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a government, yes. As a commercial company, operating on a market outside of US jurisdiction, please explain me the legal basis for that (if you can).

They probably did not want to have their CEO nabbed by police in the Vancouver airport for extradition on sanctions violations. You might want to see what happened with Huawei, who aren’t even a US company.

If Huawei wants to do business in the US economy, they can do so but have to abide by the rules. They can also choose to do business with Iran instead, but not both.

Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#402

Post by mcguire »

umarniz wrote: post #382

The US sanctions on Iran has such a massive impact on Iranians that most of us don't realise. All US companies have to comply and majority of the tech companies are unfortunately in the US. I know you can use a VPN and configure it on a router level to make sure that you are always connected via a VPN but just the fact that 1 slip-up can result in account level blocks (which google is notoriously good at and can esse…

Another controversial comment:

This is the other side of the Enlightenment ideal that the legitimacy of a government can only come from the support of its people.

When you declare another people to be, literally, Satan, there may be resulting consequences.

Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#403

Post by zinekeller »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #387
slaymaker1907 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do actually flag payments if you put the word Isis or something in the memo.

Do you have a story about this?

Not parent and not about terrorism directly, but Tardigrade Ltd. was sanctioned in US (because it is an arms dealer without licence in US) causing all "Tardigrade" payments blocked (even innocuous ones): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24450828

Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#404

Post by vernie »

factorialboy wrote: post #396
umarniz wrote: post #382

The US sanctions on Iran has such a massive impact on Iranians that most of us don't realise. All US companies have to comply and majority of the tech companies are unfortunately in the US. I know you can use a VPN and configure it on a router level to make sure that you are always connected via a VPN but just the fact that 1 slip-up can result in account level blocks (which google is notoriously good at and can esse…

(Controversial comment) I am not condoning the actions of the United States government, but arguably the Iranian Islamic theocratic regime has unleashed more horrors on the Iranian people in the last 50 years than any other foreign government.

Hmm... I wonder if the United States government had anything to do with that regime coming to power...

Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#405

Post by bogomipz »

edumucelli wrote: post #399
factorialboy wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Controversial comment) I am not condoning the actions of the United States government, but arguably the Iranian Islamic theocratic regime has unleashed more horrors on the Iranian people in the last 50 years than any other foreign government.

Imagine the horror US has unleashed "invading" almost every country in the world (except 3) with formal or hidden missions.

You realize that there are between 194 and 197 countries in the world depending on who is doing the recognizing[1]. Could you please provide a citation for the 191+ countries you say the US has invaded?

[1] https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/how-many-countries-are-i...

Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#406

Post by qayxc »

jfk13 wrote: post #209
qayxc wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2FA should be bypassable after some longish lockout period. Nope. No backups, no sympathy, simple as that. 2FA is worthless if you start to put holes in it like that. So if you value your data, make backups - preferably locally the old-fashioned way, e.g. HDDs stored in at least two different locations or at least using several different cloud providers (which have their own infrastructure and aren't just relying o…

> There's no such thing as a "trade-off" when it comes to cyber security There are always trade-offs. No security is absolute, but that doesn't mean all security is worthless. And as a rule all security measures come with some associated cost/inconvenience. What trade-offs make sense will depend on many factors, such as the value of your data (both to you and to a potential attacker), the threat models you're concern…

> No security is absolute, but that doesn't mean all security is worthless.

I'm not talking about absolutely secure measures here, I'm talking about watered down security measures.

Just like encryption that has backdoors, weakening 2FA by providing ways around it by design makes it completely worthless. And remember that this doesn't just apply to one user - it affects all users of a platform at the same time if you allow nonsense like this.

There's no trade-off to be had there - you either offer a more secure identification method or you don't.

To put it in a different and simpler context: a safety gate has to have certain properties. If you remove one or more of these, it ceases to be a safety gate and becomes a regular door. A reinforced door with a cheap lock is just as insecure as a cardboard door with a security lock and a second key under the doormat or hidden under a rock outside invalidates the usefulness of even a vault door...

Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#407

Post by elmo2you »

scott00 wrote: post #357
elmo2you wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a government, yes. As a commercial company, operating on a market outside of US jurisdiction, please explain me the legal basis for that (if you can).

Are there European laws that prohibit discriminating against people who live in Iran? Or that prohibit discriminating against companies who employ people who live in Iran? If not, the legal basis is that you can do anything you want unless it's prohibited by law, and the action in question isn't prohibited by law.

Yes, it actually is illegal to arbitrarily discriminate people based on their ethnicity, political views or nationality (unless there is a specific law that allows that for a particular nationality, e.g. in case of a legal embargo)

Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#408

Post by gnopgnip »

elmo2you wrote: post #288
michaelt wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in this particular case, GitHub appears to enforce US foreign policy on what appears to be a company on the EU market. Surely enforcing your politics outside of your jurisdiction is the whole point of an embargo?

As a government, yes. As a commercial company, operating on a market outside of US jurisdiction, please explain me the legal basis for that (if you can).

Github is not outside US jurisdiction, and is required to enforce these laws even if the client is in Europe. They could be sanctioned by OFAC if they don't

Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#409

Post by gnopgnip »

mc32 wrote: post #203
elmo2you wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go quite a step further than that. If this was not an unfortunate incident/mistake, then GitHub/Microsoft has become quite the active enforcer of US (legal) foreign policy. If they do that within the US market, that might be justifiable. But in this particular case, GitHub appears to enforce US foreign policy on what appears to be a company on the EU market. Also in what to me appears to be a rather ruthless,…

...” , this action is arbitrarily discriminatory, and very likely constitutes inflicting serious damage on another company without a legal basis...” Isn’t that what YouTube and FaceBook do day in day out when their influencers run afoul of policy?

If a user runs afoul of policy, the action was not arbitrarily discriminatory.

Re: GitHub blocks entire company because one employee was in Iran

#410

Post by publicola1990 »

factorialboy wrote: post #396
umarniz wrote: post #382

The US sanctions on Iran has such a massive impact on Iranians that most of us don't realise. All US companies have to comply and majority of the tech companies are unfortunately in the US. I know you can use a VPN and configure it on a router level to make sure that you are always connected via a VPN but just the fact that 1 slip-up can result in account level blocks (which google is notoriously good at and can esse…

(Controversial comment) I am not condoning the actions of the United States government, but arguably the Iranian Islamic theocratic regime has unleashed more horrors on the Iranian people in the last 50 years than any other foreign government.

US sanctions are just adding to the troubles of the Iranian people, I should say.
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