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They may not be impersonating Amazon, but they are using Amazon's services to circumvent the intent of policies (laws) that Amazon wants to comply with. Amazon

They may not be impersonating Amazon, but they are using Amazon's services to circumvent the intent of policies (laws) that Amazon wants to comply with. Amazon has decided to stop be an unwitting participant in this particular mechanism of circumventing oppression. For the record, I'm of the opinion that the US should insist that American companies not help dictators abroad in their censorship efforts. But it's hardly unreasonable for Amazon to say, "this type of stuff is illegal in Egypt. We don't want any trouble, so please stop using us as a means of circumventing Egyptian law."

fwn 8y ago
It is perfectly understandable why Amazon did that and siding with oppressive regimes is of course not unreasonable at all. Just unethical, hence the discussion.
- collinmanderson 8y ago
  Amazon isn’t nesessarily against censorship. They just don’t want to provide this sort of spoofing service. Regardless of whether the spoofers are good or bad.
  - bonesss 8y ago
    I believe this is the fundamental issue, from Amazons PoV: this altruistic project with nice goals is abusing a network nuance, but most other actors using this capability are likely to be bad actors. I don't think Amazons reasoning was "oh, lets help dictators dictate", but more "hey, isn't this a potential security hole ripe for abuse that would make us look incompetent?".
- manigandham 8y ago
  AWS is not siding with oppressive regimes, what's with the misleading political slant? They don't want customers breaking terms of service, whatever those terms are, and especially when it means the rest of their customers are affected. It's not a single company involved here and they're looking out for everyone else they serve.
  - DEFCON28 8y ago
    Exactly! These countries may start blocking Amazon and Cloudfront domains. Amazon needs to put its foot down.
  - thecrash 8y ago
    In this case, enforcing their Terms of Service does constitute siding with oppressive regimes. You could argue that it's not AWS' goal to help oppressive regimes, but in the struggle against censorship, that is the side they have put themselves on in practice. On one side, there are people all over the world who want to communicate freely. On the other, there are authoritarians who want to suppress and surveil that communication. AWS policy used to help the former, and now helps the latter. I think maybe you're trying to express that under a free market ethical framework, AWS has done nothing wrong here. Which is true, and an insightful indictment of the free market as an inherently liberatory force.
    - manigandham 8y ago
      That's not what "siding with" means. AWS is remaining neutral to politics as a company, which is a very good thing. Why do you want multinational corporations to get more involved in geopolitics? Do you think that will somehow lead to a better outcome? Signal had an strategy, but it involves breaking the terms of service, so that vendor has no reason to comply and put the other customers at risk. Signal just needs to figure out another option. It's a technical issue and nobody is stopping Signal itself. AWS will still host them just fine as long as they follow the terms. By the way, the free market is what allowed companies like AWS and Signal to exist in the first place, and lets you contributed effort and money if you'd like, so perhaps you should widen your context before throwing around indictments.
smsm42 8y ago
Reasonable, but cowardly and disgusting.
- manigandham 8y ago
  Maybe point that anger towards the government and military then, instead of a private corporation with thousands of business customers and millions of consumers.
  - na85 8y ago
    .... Because the US Military is responsible for changing a sovereign state's law if Americans don't like it? What the fuck?
    - manigandham 8y ago
      Yes. It's called war. What's confusing here? If a citizen of a nation thinks that another nation is not behaving as they would like (whichever country or whatever behavior that is), the proper channels to enact change are through government action, either diplomatic or militarized. Asking a private corporation to be international police is not good for anyone, as well intentioned as it may seem.
      - jaakl 8y ago
        Military (or state in general) may have other, softer and more covert means of influencing other countries besides war, like “persuading” home corporations to act on their behalf. Thats not unheard of nowadays
        manigandham 8y ago
        Sure, even more of a reason why companies should not be in the business of politics on either side.
      - na85 8y ago
        You're being very nonchalant about going to war to make things easier for Amazon. I find that chilling.
illumin8 8y ago
Yes, but I don't think you're considering the significant direct cost to the owner of SOUQ.COM for DNS queries. If all of a sudden I get millions of extra DNS queries for my domain because Signal is using it to front their traffic to CloudFront, I might get a huge DNS bill. Should any government coerce me into paying a large DNS bill just to sponsor freedom of speech? Even if it is a noble cause, we shouldn't coerce innocent 3rd parties into doing this.
- surrealize 8y ago
  It's not a significant direct cost. Millions of extra DNS queries amounts to single-digit dollars (route 53 pricing).
  - tempestn 8y ago
    And the owner of souq.com isn't some random person; it's Amazon.

fwn 8y ago

It is perfectly understandable why Amazon did that and siding with oppressive regimes is of course not unreasonable at all. Just unethical, hence the discussion.

collinmanderson 8y ago
Amazon isn’t nesessarily against censorship. They just don’t want to provide this sort of spoofing service. Regardless of whether the spoofers are good or bad.
- bonesss 8y ago
  I believe this is the fundamental issue, from Amazons PoV: this altruistic project with nice goals is abusing a network nuance, but most other actors using this capability are likely to be bad actors. I don't think Amazons reasoning was "oh, lets help dictators dictate", but more "hey, isn't this a potential security hole ripe for abuse that would make us look incompetent?".
manigandham 8y ago
AWS is not siding with oppressive regimes, what's with the misleading political slant? They don't want customers breaking terms of service, whatever those terms are, and especially when it means the rest of their customers are affected. It's not a single company involved here and they're looking out for everyone else they serve.
- DEFCON28 8y ago
  Exactly! These countries may start blocking Amazon and Cloudfront domains. Amazon needs to put its foot down.
- thecrash 8y ago
  In this case, enforcing their Terms of Service does constitute siding with oppressive regimes. You could argue that it's not AWS' goal to help oppressive regimes, but in the struggle against censorship, that is the side they have put themselves on in practice. On one side, there are people all over the world who want to communicate freely. On the other, there are authoritarians who want to suppress and surveil that communication. AWS policy used to help the former, and now helps the latter. I think maybe you're trying to express that under a free market ethical framework, AWS has done nothing wrong here. Which is true, and an insightful indictment of the free market as an inherently liberatory force.
  - manigandham 8y ago
    That's not what "siding with" means. AWS is remaining neutral to politics as a company, which is a very good thing. Why do you want multinational corporations to get more involved in geopolitics? Do you think that will somehow lead to a better outcome? Signal had an strategy, but it involves breaking the terms of service, so that vendor has no reason to comply and put the other customers at risk. Signal just needs to figure out another option. It's a technical issue and nobody is stopping Signal itself. AWS will still host them just fine as long as they follow the terms. By the way, the free market is what allowed companies like AWS and Signal to exist in the first place, and lets you contributed effort and money if you'd like, so perhaps you should widen your context before throwing around indictments.

smsm42 8y ago

Reasonable, but cowardly and disgusting.

manigandham 8y ago
Maybe point that anger towards the government and military then, instead of a private corporation with thousands of business customers and millions of consumers.
- na85 8y ago
  .... Because the US Military is responsible for changing a sovereign state's law if Americans don't like it? What the fuck?
  - manigandham 8y ago
    Yes. It's called war. What's confusing here? If a citizen of a nation thinks that another nation is not behaving as they would like (whichever country or whatever behavior that is), the proper channels to enact change are through government action, either diplomatic or militarized. Asking a private corporation to be international police is not good for anyone, as well intentioned as it may seem.
    - jaakl 8y ago
      Military (or state in general) may have other, softer and more covert means of influencing other countries besides war, like “persuading” home corporations to act on their behalf. Thats not unheard of nowadays
      - manigandham 8y ago
        Sure, even more of a reason why companies should not be in the business of politics on either side.
    - na85 8y ago
      You're being very nonchalant about going to war to make things easier for Amazon. I find that chilling.

illumin8 8y ago

Yes, but I don't think you're considering the significant direct cost to the owner of SOUQ.COM for DNS queries. If all of a sudden I get millions of extra DNS queries for my domain because Signal is using it to front their traffic to CloudFront, I might get a huge DNS bill. Should any government coerce me into paying a large DNS bill just to sponsor freedom of speech? Even if it is a noble cause, we shouldn't coerce innocent 3rd parties into doing this.

surrealize 8y ago
It's not a significant direct cost. Millions of extra DNS queries amounts to single-digit dollars (route 53 pricing).
- tempestn 8y ago
  And the owner of souq.com isn't some random person; it's Amazon.