8 ms·

Sorry, I'm not on board with using an Amazon owned domain for this. That's got the potential to get Amazon itself blacklisted in some places, so they're absolut

Sorry, I'm not on board with using an Amazon owned domain for this. That's got the potential to get Amazon itself blacklisted in some places, so they're absolutely not going to be okay with it.

smileysteve 9y ago
Or it forces oppressive regimes to realize that they are being an oppressive regime. Want to censor the internet, fine, send your citizens back to the dark ages; see how long it is until they protest or move.
- criley2 9y ago
  Amazon isn't in the business of forcing oppressive regimes to realize they are oppressive regimes, they are in the business of selling goods and services regardless of the oppressiveness of the regime governing the region where the currency comes from. If you want Amazon to stop doing business with oppressive regimes, contact your politicians about sanctions.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 9y ago
    The problem is deeper than that; even if Amazon doesn't sell stuff to oppressive regimes, they host the sites/services of companies who do. And if the solution was to force Amazon to block any access from their servers to those oppressive regimes, that wouldn't help Signal at all, because they too would be blocked.
  - smileysteve 9y ago
    You're not wrong, it would certainly not be in shareholder's financial interest for amazon to take this stance. For the record, U.S. politicians have voted on sanctions on Russia for cyber crimes and brought representatives to the UN raising the issue of their human rights records.
    - adventured 9y ago
      > For the record, U.S. politicians have voted on sanctions on Russia Indeed, the US nearly destroyed Russia's largest aluminum company - Rusal - recently in a sanctions move against an oligarch close to Putin (Oleg Deripaska, who owns the majority of Rusal). The best way to deal with oppressive regimes, is generally to go through powerful political bodies/groups, whether the UN, G7, or US Congress. The impact a company like Amazon (or Google, Facebook, etc) can make is very trivial. So trivial as to be meaningless to a typical oppressive regime. Congress, in tandem with large allies, can hammer eg Russia's primitive industrial economy, by comparison, with targeted sanctions on steel, aluminum, whatever.
      - Bendingo 9y ago
        > oligarch close to Putin (Oleg Deripaska ...) For the record, Deripaska is no friend of Putin, who forced him to start paying tax and stay out of politics. Look at how Putin humiliated him several years ago during an industrial dispute, when Putin took the side of workers against Deripaska. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XfbWnDXCx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XfbWnDXCx8
        nasredin 9y ago
        Yep. He hates Putin so much he invited one of his ministers (?) to sail on his yacht with some escorts. /s
        criley2 9y ago
        For the record -- OF COURSE he's a friend/loyal to Putin, because in the Russian state all of the oligarchs owe fealty to the leader. Look to Mikhail Khodorkovsky to see what happens to those that aren't Putin's friends.
      - 18pfsmt 9y ago
        Actually, this has changed: "On April 23, however, the US government gave Rusal's American customers "more time to comply with sanctions", even saying it would "consider lifting them if United Company Rusal Plc’s major shareholder, Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, ceded control of the company." Department of the Treasury gave these clients until October 23, 2018 to comply with (wind down business) the Rusal sanctions." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions-rusal/u-s-extends-deadline-for-rusal-sanctions-aluminum-prices-dive-idUSKBN1HU1N8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions-rusa...
- freedomben 9y ago
  I'm guessing you haven't spent much time looking into how oppressive regimes work. They aren't going "to realize that they are being an oppressive regime" and have an epiphany where they realize, "Hey maybe I'm an evil dictator?" If you are up for reading, I highly recommend Michael Malice's book, Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il . After reading that you will completely understand why "see how long it is until they protest or move" is a silly thing to say. [1] https://smile.amazon.com/Dear-Reader-Unauthorized-Autobiography-Jong/dp/1495283259 https://smile.amazon.com/Dear-Reader-Unauthorized-Autobiogra...
  - CodeMage 9y ago
    > I'm guessing you haven't spent much time looking into how oppressive regimes work. > They aren't going "to realize that they are being an oppressive regime" and have an epiphone where they realize, "Hey maybe I'm an evil dictator?" Not to mention that, in a truly oppressive regime, people don't have the liberty to either move or protest.
    - hamhock666 9y ago
      They might not have reasonable freedom to move or protest, but people will always have the radical freedom to oppose an oppressive regime. It is just much more costly and requires the knowledge that you live in an oppressive regime and access to information in order to break it.
  - beefield 9y ago
    > After reading that you will completely understand why "see how long it is until they protest or move" is a silly thing to say. I wonder if you could give TL;DR on this, assuming there is something else than the basic prisoner's dilemma going on?
    - freedomben 9y ago
      I'd be happy to give a very brief TL;DR with the disclaimer that I recommend either the book for a full picture or the Michael Malice interview on Joe Rogan's podcast (WARNING: NSFW language) [1] There are a few factors involved (and please bear in mind I'm leaving out a lot of detail here, and this is nowhere near a comprehensive list). 1. There is extensive "brainwashing" regarding the great leader. He is praised for everything. There's a famous story about a western optometrist that performs surgery routine every where else in the world, but rare in N Korea that restores eye sight. The first thing people often do after receiving their sight is not thank the doctor, but to praise a poster of the great leader, thanking him for restoring their sight (I think this was a Nat Geo thing but I don't remember exactly). 2. There is a culture of tattling that heavily incentivizes ratting out your friends and family to the authorities. You will be punished for even having unclean thoughts, let alone taking bad actions. The pervasiveness of this makes it such that people often self-report themselves for thought crimes due to feelings of guilt or concern over getting turned in by friends/family (you may do less time in the prison camp for self-reporting). 3. Families are harshly punished for actions taken by their family members. This means that if you escape, your family will be likely killed or sent to prison camp. If you die in camp, your son/daughter/father/mother will have to take your place to finish your sentence. Thus even suicide/death in prison camp is a betrayal of your family. There is no way out. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B_idqiEoUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B_idqiEoUE
- RIMR 9y ago
  You think oppressive regimes don't already realize what they are? They simply don't care.
  - tonyztan 9y ago
    They would care if there are financial consequences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom
    - dingaling 9y ago
      One of the common characteristics of an oppressive regime is that they already suffer financial consequences for their actions; sanctions, overseas account seizures, trade embargoes. Hoping that they'll throw their hands in the air and give-up instead of blocking AWS etc is naive. The people making the decision don't suffer the consequences as do their subjects.
      - noobermin 9y ago
        You ignore the many times that financial pressure has worked. The best example is Iran and the Iran deal.
    - adventured 9y ago
      That premise has a very mixed bag of results historically. It works on some regimes, and fails entirely on others. Cuba defied an aggressive embargo by the US for ~50 years, which is partially responsible for Cubans typically having present incomes of about $20 per month. [1] By contrast, Haiti, which is one of the poorest nations on earth, has a higher median income than Cuba. The Castro brothers were simply unmoved by the extreme financial consequences (and the people of Cuba also did not topple them across more than half a century). Similarly it didn't work against North Korea across 60 years. Even while the North watched South Korea develop and grow into one of the 20 or so richest nations. It also didn't work very well against the USSR. The West heavily limited its trade and economic cooperation with the USSR across the entire post WW2 era until their collapse. The West rapidly developed advanced technological economies, the USSR did not, their people suffered extraordinary poverty and backwardness. The regimes in Moscow didn't care. What finally brought down the USSR, was the collapse of the price of oil brought on by a strong dollar shock in the late 1980s (by contrast they were doing far better economically in the 1970s and early 1980s as the price of oil was very high). [1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/07/17/10-economic-facts-about-cuba/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/07/17/10-e...
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  Sure, but the point being is that Amazon is not consenting to being a bargaining chip in this manner. If you're in control of a site, and you want to say, "If you block them, my site will be blocked too, in solidarity," that's just fine. But it would be pretty awful for you to involve me in that, as well, if I don't wish to be part of it.
  - QuinnyPig 9y ago
    Right, and them taking that stand isn't what most of their customers want from them. "We don't want to make political points in other countries, we're just here to sell ads" is the generic corporate position.
    - s73v3r_ 9y ago
      I think most of their customers don't know about the situation, and would prefer that their sites remain up.
- kakarot 9y ago
  What country are you from and how old are you? I find it incredible anyone could be so naive about how oppressive organizations operate.
- marme 9y ago
  china did this and it just caused every major service to be recreated for chinese users on their side of the internet
  - tonyztan 9y ago
    China is huge compared to those other oppressive regimes out there. Also, AFAIK, China hasn't been able to recreate GitHub. Since GitHub is HTTPS-only and China needs it enough to not block it, a lot of censorship circumvention tools are available in China through GitHub.
- balls187 9y ago
  I'm from the US, sometimes self referred as the land of free, and it's not easy for me to move to a different country. Imagine how much worse it would be if it was under an oppressive regime, with strict internet censorship.
kayone 9y ago
that's exactly why domain fronting works. it forces the blocker to block a major domai. that would be considered too much collateral damage.
illumin8 9y ago
It also forces the poor domain owner who is being fronted, in this case SOUQ.COM, to absorb a huge Route 53 bill for all of the DNS queries that are originating from Signal users. Not fair at all.
- mmosta 9y ago
  Souq.com is owned by amazon

Sorry, I'm not on board with using an Amazon owned domain for this. That's got the potential to get Amazon itself blacklisted in some places, so they're absolutely not going to be okay with it.

smileysteve 9y ago

Or it forces oppressive regimes to realize that they are being an oppressive regime. Want to censor the internet, fine, send your citizens back to the dark ages; see how long it is until they protest or move.

criley2 9y ago
Amazon isn't in the business of forcing oppressive regimes to realize they are oppressive regimes, they are in the business of selling goods and services regardless of the oppressiveness of the regime governing the region where the currency comes from. If you want Amazon to stop doing business with oppressive regimes, contact your politicians about sanctions.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 9y ago
  The problem is deeper than that; even if Amazon doesn't sell stuff to oppressive regimes, they host the sites/services of companies who do. And if the solution was to force Amazon to block any access from their servers to those oppressive regimes, that wouldn't help Signal at all, because they too would be blocked.
- smileysteve 9y ago
  You're not wrong, it would certainly not be in shareholder's financial interest for amazon to take this stance. For the record, U.S. politicians have voted on sanctions on Russia for cyber crimes and brought representatives to the UN raising the issue of their human rights records.
  - adventured 9y ago
    > For the record, U.S. politicians have voted on sanctions on Russia Indeed, the US nearly destroyed Russia's largest aluminum company - Rusal - recently in a sanctions move against an oligarch close to Putin (Oleg Deripaska, who owns the majority of Rusal). The best way to deal with oppressive regimes, is generally to go through powerful political bodies/groups, whether the UN, G7, or US Congress. The impact a company like Amazon (or Google, Facebook, etc) can make is very trivial. So trivial as to be meaningless to a typical oppressive regime. Congress, in tandem with large allies, can hammer eg Russia's primitive industrial economy, by comparison, with targeted sanctions on steel, aluminum, whatever.
    - Bendingo 9y ago
      > oligarch close to Putin (Oleg Deripaska ...) For the record, Deripaska is no friend of Putin, who forced him to start paying tax and stay out of politics. Look at how Putin humiliated him several years ago during an industrial dispute, when Putin took the side of workers against Deripaska. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XfbWnDXCx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XfbWnDXCx8
      - nasredin 9y ago
        Yep. He hates Putin so much he invited one of his ministers (?) to sail on his yacht with some escorts. /s
      - criley2 9y ago
        For the record -- OF COURSE he's a friend/loyal to Putin, because in the Russian state all of the oligarchs owe fealty to the leader. Look to Mikhail Khodorkovsky to see what happens to those that aren't Putin's friends.
    - 18pfsmt 9y ago
      Actually, this has changed: "On April 23, however, the US government gave Rusal's American customers "more time to comply with sanctions", even saying it would "consider lifting them if United Company Rusal Plc’s major shareholder, Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, ceded control of the company." Department of the Treasury gave these clients until October 23, 2018 to comply with (wind down business) the Rusal sanctions." https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions-rusal/u-s-extends-deadline-for-rusal-sanctions-aluminum-prices-dive-idUSKBN1HU1N8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-sanctions-rusa...
freedomben 9y ago
I'm guessing you haven't spent much time looking into how oppressive regimes work. They aren't going "to realize that they are being an oppressive regime" and have an epiphany where they realize, "Hey maybe I'm an evil dictator?" If you are up for reading, I highly recommend Michael Malice's book, Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il . After reading that you will completely understand why "see how long it is until they protest or move" is a silly thing to say. [1] https://smile.amazon.com/Dear-Reader-Unauthorized-Autobiography-Jong/dp/1495283259 https://smile.amazon.com/Dear-Reader-Unauthorized-Autobiogra...
- CodeMage 9y ago
  > I'm guessing you haven't spent much time looking into how oppressive regimes work. > They aren't going "to realize that they are being an oppressive regime" and have an epiphone where they realize, "Hey maybe I'm an evil dictator?" Not to mention that, in a truly oppressive regime, people don't have the liberty to either move or protest.
  - hamhock666 9y ago
    They might not have reasonable freedom to move or protest, but people will always have the radical freedom to oppose an oppressive regime. It is just much more costly and requires the knowledge that you live in an oppressive regime and access to information in order to break it.
- beefield 9y ago
  > After reading that you will completely understand why "see how long it is until they protest or move" is a silly thing to say. I wonder if you could give TL;DR on this, assuming there is something else than the basic prisoner's dilemma going on?
  - freedomben 9y ago
    I'd be happy to give a very brief TL;DR with the disclaimer that I recommend either the book for a full picture or the Michael Malice interview on Joe Rogan's podcast (WARNING: NSFW language) [1] There are a few factors involved (and please bear in mind I'm leaving out a lot of detail here, and this is nowhere near a comprehensive list). 1. There is extensive "brainwashing" regarding the great leader. He is praised for everything. There's a famous story about a western optometrist that performs surgery routine every where else in the world, but rare in N Korea that restores eye sight. The first thing people often do after receiving their sight is not thank the doctor, but to praise a poster of the great leader, thanking him for restoring their sight (I think this was a Nat Geo thing but I don't remember exactly). 2. There is a culture of tattling that heavily incentivizes ratting out your friends and family to the authorities. You will be punished for even having unclean thoughts, let alone taking bad actions. The pervasiveness of this makes it such that people often self-report themselves for thought crimes due to feelings of guilt or concern over getting turned in by friends/family (you may do less time in the prison camp for self-reporting). 3. Families are harshly punished for actions taken by their family members. This means that if you escape, your family will be likely killed or sent to prison camp. If you die in camp, your son/daughter/father/mother will have to take your place to finish your sentence. Thus even suicide/death in prison camp is a betrayal of your family. There is no way out. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B_idqiEoUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B_idqiEoUE
RIMR 9y ago
You think oppressive regimes don't already realize what they are? They simply don't care.
- tonyztan 9y ago
  They would care if there are financial consequences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom
  - dingaling 9y ago
    One of the common characteristics of an oppressive regime is that they already suffer financial consequences for their actions; sanctions, overseas account seizures, trade embargoes. Hoping that they'll throw their hands in the air and give-up instead of blocking AWS etc is naive. The people making the decision don't suffer the consequences as do their subjects.
    - noobermin 9y ago
      You ignore the many times that financial pressure has worked. The best example is Iran and the Iran deal.
  - adventured 9y ago
    That premise has a very mixed bag of results historically. It works on some regimes, and fails entirely on others. Cuba defied an aggressive embargo by the US for ~50 years, which is partially responsible for Cubans typically having present incomes of about $20 per month. [1] By contrast, Haiti, which is one of the poorest nations on earth, has a higher median income than Cuba. The Castro brothers were simply unmoved by the extreme financial consequences (and the people of Cuba also did not topple them across more than half a century). Similarly it didn't work against North Korea across 60 years. Even while the North watched South Korea develop and grow into one of the 20 or so richest nations. It also didn't work very well against the USSR. The West heavily limited its trade and economic cooperation with the USSR across the entire post WW2 era until their collapse. The West rapidly developed advanced technological economies, the USSR did not, their people suffered extraordinary poverty and backwardness. The regimes in Moscow didn't care. What finally brought down the USSR, was the collapse of the price of oil brought on by a strong dollar shock in the late 1980s (by contrast they were doing far better economically in the 1970s and early 1980s as the price of oil was very high). [1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/07/17/10-economic-facts-about-cuba/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/07/17/10-e...
s73v3r_ 9y ago
Sure, but the point being is that Amazon is not consenting to being a bargaining chip in this manner. If you're in control of a site, and you want to say, "If you block them, my site will be blocked too, in solidarity," that's just fine. But it would be pretty awful for you to involve me in that, as well, if I don't wish to be part of it.
- QuinnyPig 9y ago
  Right, and them taking that stand isn't what most of their customers want from them. "We don't want to make political points in other countries, we're just here to sell ads" is the generic corporate position.
  - s73v3r_ 9y ago
    I think most of their customers don't know about the situation, and would prefer that their sites remain up.
kakarot 9y ago
What country are you from and how old are you? I find it incredible anyone could be so naive about how oppressive organizations operate.
marme 9y ago
china did this and it just caused every major service to be recreated for chinese users on their side of the internet
- tonyztan 9y ago
  China is huge compared to those other oppressive regimes out there. Also, AFAIK, China hasn't been able to recreate GitHub. Since GitHub is HTTPS-only and China needs it enough to not block it, a lot of censorship circumvention tools are available in China through GitHub.
balls187 9y ago
I'm from the US, sometimes self referred as the land of free, and it's not easy for me to move to a different country. Imagine how much worse it would be if it was under an oppressive regime, with strict internet censorship.

kayone 9y ago

that's exactly why domain fronting works. it forces the blocker to block a major domai. that would be considered too much collateral damage.

illumin8 9y ago

It also forces the poor domain owner who is being fronted, in this case SOUQ.COM, to absorb a huge Route 53 bill for all of the DNS queries that are originating from Signal users. Not fair at all.

mmosta 9y ago
Souq.com is owned by amazon