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Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

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Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#81

Post by jeroenhd »

tgma wrote: post #37
adastra22 wrote: post #20

OP, some context from the other side might be helpful. Yes, there are fines for American companies if they do business with Iranians. That's how sanctions work as I'm sure you're aware. But the story doesn't stop there. If an American finds out they are transacting with a sanctioned individual, or citizens of a sanctioned country like Iran or North Korea, the stakes go up: $1M USD fine and up to 20 years in federal p…

This is partially true, but not the entirety of the story. There are blanket sanction waivers ( General License ) by OFAC to allow certain things. There's also the possibility to get an OFAC license (as GitHub did.) The real issue is there is little to no advantage (realistically no money to be gained from Iran) or even awareness (sometimes the cloud infrastructure bans Iran by default and you don't have enough users…

This kind of assumes Microsoft has not already tried to get an exception, or that its legal team considers it likely that an exception will be granted.

Various tools hosted on Github can be considered dual-use (i.e. AES/TLS libraries). Furthermore, Microsoft was made to apply sanctions against Karim Khan of the ICC for his involvement in investigating the genocide of Palestinians; I doubt Microsoft would be granted an exception so they can serve Hamas' greatest supporter after that.

I don't know if Microsoft has applied for any exceptions, but even if they did, I doubt they'd be able to get them. That's on top of the probability of bad publicity ("Microsoft wants to cut deal with Iran") and the lack of incentive you mentioned.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#82

Post by bigyabai »

number6 wrote: post #62
tgma wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is partially true, but not the entirety of the story. There are blanket sanction waivers ( General License ) by OFAC to allow certain things. There's also the possibility to get an OFAC license (as GitHub did.) The real issue is there is little to no advantage (realistically no money to be gained from Iran) or even awareness (sometimes the cloud infrastructure bans Iran by default and you don't have enough users…

[flagged]

The Iranian government didn't delete his data.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#83

Post by theshrike79 »

adastra22 wrote: post #58
notjosh wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your comment is helpful context, especially as a foreigner. but would you be able to edit the "pounding in the ass" phrase out in future when referring to prison? thank you <3

Your comment is understandable as a foreigner! Look up our federal prison system sometime. The description is apt. You either kill someone, or become someone's bitch on the first day, then you'll be alright. (It's an Office Space reference, btw, but our prisons are genuinely inhumane and not rehabilitative.)

American prisoners are, if you look at it objectively, slaves.

They are forced to work for for-profit companies for minimal pay, which is deducted by their living expenses and basic amenities.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#84

Post by reeredfdfdf »

Most educated Iranians hate their government. The problem is that a revolution isn't easy when the government has all the guns, and the military & revolutionary guard remain loyal, and have no problem with shooting masses of innocent civilians to retain their power.

Sanctions that worsen things for ordinary people really isn't going to change much in countries like this. It would be much more productive to try turn the army against the regime, or organize political and armed resistance.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#85

Post by theshrike79 »

slg wrote: post #64

>Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. The "your decision" in that response is really off-putting. I know the law is what it is with sanctions like this. However, it is a failing of basic human empathy to blame other common citizens of a country for the actions of their government while we almost certainly do not endorse all…

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Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#86

Post by don_esteban »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #46
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership. That's the theory, but has it ever worked? That something that never works (not even in cases where it has been going on for multiple generations, as in the case of Cuba or Iran) keeps being tried makes it impossible to believe that the intention is making it "work" in the sense you mean. The sanctions are just to sink those countries for p…

> has it ever worked? Yes. About a third of the time [1]. [1] https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/863435/mod_resource/conte... Table 6.1 page 159

I am citing here from the conclusions of that book (better, have a look yourself):

Overall, we found sanctions to be at least partially successful in 34 percent of the cases that we documented.

By our standards, successful cases are those with an overall success score of 9 or higher. We emphasize that a score of 9 does not mean that economic sanctions achieved a foreign policy triumph. It means only that sanctions made a modest contribution to a goal that was partly realized, often at some political cost to the sender country.

Yet in many cases, it is fair to say that sanctions were a necessary component of the overall campaign that focused primarily on the projection of military force.

Second, we classify some sanctions as failing to produce a real change in the target’s behavior when their primary if unstated purpose—namely, demonstrating resolve at home, signaling disapproval abroad, or simple punishment—may have been fully realized.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#87

Post by jeroenhd »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56
sorushn wrote: post #32

> I am NOT asking for the removal of the sanctions targeted at the Islamic Republic of Iran. All sanctions are designed to hurt civilians, so that they may overthrow their government. Just a bullying tactic by the US with zero moral justifications, despite how it's framed by the media.

> All sanctions are designed to hurt civilians Objectively untrue. Many of the Russian sanctions, for example, targeted Putin’s inner circle.

They may not be normal civilians, but many of Putin's friends targeted by sanctions are not government officials, which does make them civilians. In other cases sanctions are targeted at government officials personally rather than the parts of government they influence, like targeting their side business, their stock, or their personal property.

There are sanctions targeting governments specifically, but usually government sanctions also target civilians. You can't exactly expect a sanctioned government to be transparent, it'll hide its government business under company names if you let it.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#88

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #78
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has it ever worked? Yes. About a third of the time [1]. [1] https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/863435/mod_resource/conte... Table 6.1 page 159

That's interesting, but (at least from a quick look and a few text searches) they don't seem to explain what their "sanction contribution score" is. How are they sure that the cases where they "worked" are not regression to the mean (some authoritarian regimes just fall from time to time)? And how are they sure that there is not an equal number of cases where they do the opposite of what they intend? (maybe the Castr…

> they don't seem to explain what their "sanction contribution score" is

“The success score is an index on a scale of 1 to 16, found by multiplying the policy result index by the sanctions contribution index” (page 77).

Simpler: Table 4A.1 shows their scoring for individual cases. They break at 9 for success versus failure, so maybe eyeball those to see if they gel with your intuition. If not, adjust and re-run the numbers.

My eyeballing suggests it would be quite difficult to zero out the list.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#89

Post by reeredfdfdf »

preisschild wrote: post #43
aarroyoc wrote: post #19

These sanctions are not really effective. I think Cuba is the country that has had them for the most amount of time and... Nothing changed. Instead they force them to develop in house tech which may be better for them in the long term

> Nothing changed This is not true. The sanctions definitely hurt countries like Cuba or Russia. They have a far harder time growing their economy. Cuba is stuck in the last century and often has total blackouts that last for days. Russia needs to beg countries like Iran or North Korea now for imports.

Yet the ruling elites and military still enjoy decent quality of life, it´s mostly the ordinary people who suffer. In case of Russia that´s okay since large parts of the population genuinely support the war, but I´m not so sure about Iran and Cuba, where most are not supportive of their governments anyway.

Re: Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

#90

Post by theshrike79 »

tmnvdb wrote: post #40
sorushn wrote: post #32

> I am NOT asking for the removal of the sanctions targeted at the Islamic Republic of Iran. All sanctions are designed to hurt civilians, so that they may overthrow their government. Just a bullying tactic by the US with zero moral justifications, despite how it's framed by the media.

Citation needed. As far is I know this is simply false. Different sanctions have different goals. Regime change is very rarely a goal. Often it is to reduce economic growth to keep/make the country weak, or to achieve some other goal. See for example sactions on India, which are definitely not meant to overthrow the indian government.

Sometimes it's both.

"Your country is sanctioned because your government is being a global ass, wink-wink"

Implying that a change in government will lift the sanctions.

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