8 ms·

Wow the Twitter thread and the experiences which are mentioned here sound so extreme and crazy that I am seriously confused to what believe. - Is this all made

• api 8y ago
  This is what centralized silos are like, have always been like, and will always be like. Unfortunately centralized silos also allow unprecedented convenience and ease of use. Nobody's figured out yet how to duplicate that in a decentralized or federated system.
• pjc50 8y ago
  It's the dystopia of the film Brazil: someone makes a typo in a database, someone else's life is dramatically inconvenienced, and it's impossible for them to access any means of redress. > Is this just how the US ticks right now? Yes.
  • rvense 8y ago
    Maybe Slack just proved that you actually don't have to pick between malice and incompetence.
    • walterbell 8y ago
      Malcompetence?
    • eponeponepon 8y ago
      "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice".
      • tigershark 8y ago
        I love you.
      • beobab 8y ago
        My dad used to say: "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained with stupidity", but I love yours too.
        • wastedhours 8y ago
          Otherwise known has "Hanlon's Razor" [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
          • starbeast 8y ago
            Which is great for politeness, but largely rubbish for working out what people might be up to, given that people not only regularly disguise malice as stupidity, but in some cases find it highly entertaining. Hence the existence of - https://www.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MaliciousCompliance/
        • CalChris 8y ago
          This is a play on Arthur C Clarke: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
        • toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
          “But don’t dismiss stupidity.” Is the ending of the better variation of that quote I think.
  • munchbunny 8y ago
    This is also the future of blind faith in a few companies that control substantial things you depend on personally/professionally. You don't really think about how much damage something like Slack (or god forbid, Google) could do to you by shutting down your account until something like this actually happens. Add to that the dark side of being "data driven," which is that stories like this one are just part of the 1% of edge cases. These companies also try to move away from actual customer service as much as possible because human labor doesn't scale as well as automation, so you'll fall through the cracks as long as the news that it happened to you doesn't get enough press to make it worth an engineer's or VP's time. I know that sounds extremely cynical, but having been on the inside in situations like this, I saw how these dynamics converged despite good intentions. Stuff like this is why sending engineers through front-line customer support rotations tends to dramatically motivate engineering teams to make quality of life improvements. Once you lose the detachment that indirection from the user gets you, suddenly those 1% cases feel more important.
• jstanley 8y ago
  I don't think this is the future of the web. This sort of thing is a temporary blip before everybody figures out decentralised solutions for everything. Decentralisation is clearly the end game as long as politics causes problems like this. A decentralised solution will continue to "just work", while centralised solutions continue to boot people off. It's pretty obvious which one is going to win.
  • adminu 8y ago
    Until taking part in a decentralized system is a crime by itself due to potentially illegal content and your possession and distribution of that content. The distributed system does not stop to work then, but the user might risk punishment for using it, which might be even worse than not being able to use it.
    • tapoxi 8y ago
      I've been thinking about running a Mastodon server so I'm in control of my social media, but I'm worried about letting anyone use it because of the GDPR.
    • mirimir 8y ago
      When decentralized systems are illegal, only criminals will use them. Anonymously. And very likely, using your devices as botnet slaves. But pretty much, you get what you select for.
      • pjmlp 8y ago
        That was the same with the cryptography export restrictions during the 90s.
      • vertexFarm 8y ago
        It will also drop the userbase below a useful threshold. Sure, there will be the technical possibility of still managing to use it illegally and undetected--but there will be no herd immunity, there will be no effects of scale that make the system particularly useful or affordable compared to proprietary, centralized, and more performant alternatives. People can and do still use bittorrent illegally, but it doesn't have even close to enough market share to make centralized streaming services nonexistent or non-competitive. Basically the same idea. The fact that you can't decentralize legislation and physical governance is not insignificant. You can't block the influence of preexisting powerful actors. Those factors do have the power to destroy the decentralization movement, and most likely will.
• hnauz 8y ago
  The guy is bitching so much in the thread, claiming that he's been profiled based on his race (and not the fact that he connected to Slack from Iran at some point), that it's hard to take him seriously.
  • blindwatchmaker 8y ago
    Yeah imagine bitching because you lost a primary communication tool and a bunch of your saved data because of your ethnicity.
    • sudhirj 8y ago
      I disagree with the way Slack handled this, but by now it’s clear (even the original poster seems to have realised) that Slack banned everyone who accessed the service from an Iranian IP, irrespective of who they were or where they were from. It’s pretty clear that’s it not motivated by race or any kind of profiling. Slack has no incentive to boot more people off their platform than necessary, so this overly broad ban could be a result of either misunderstanding the US governments mandate, or that might be just what they were asked to do.
      • robotbikes 8y ago
        Who asked them to do this ? I have serious doubts that this action was directly recommended in any official government communication otherwise we would have had someone leak it and debate about it. My hunch is this isn't directed by a national security letter or anything like that with mandated secrecy otherwise we would see similar actions from other tech service providers. As far as I know Facebook isn't deleting the accounts of everyone who has connected from Iran or Syria. My suspicion is that this is the result of a shoddy communication between the legal department and some coders and I suspect that Slack will be stuck in a hard place explaining it and justifying it. As far as I know there was no official explanation or blog post, the suade velvet secret slack police just started causing people to disappear in the night. It will also be hard for them to walk back this action because they have set at least an internal precedent and opened themselves and other companies up to attack by opportunistic regulators if they now say they were wrong.
• ryanmercer 8y ago
  >- Is this just how the US ticks right now? >- Is Slack just completely gone mad? >- Is this what companies believes is acceptable nowadays? >- Is this the future of the web? Iran has sanctions against it right now. Slack, and other companies that have done this sort of thing with Iran, Cuba, etc the past few years, are trying to stay on the right side of the law. To avoid imprisonment, fines, etc. If you think what they did is wrong, start a company and risk serving prison time to stand up for your what you believe in by creating a similar product and offering it to customers that have direct geographical ties to sanctioned and embargoed countries. I'm serious, imprisonment is a very real risk with dealing with sanctioned and embargoed countries. Doing business with Iran, or a citizen of Iran, can open the door for all sorts of government investigation from fines, to being shut down for an investigation, to having data from other users compromised, to criminal prosecution of employees/officers of the company. It's a lot easier to just immediately sever ties with anyone that has had dealings with an IP geographically connected to Iran than to go one by one "hey, you an enemy of the state? You sure you aren't? Promise? Cross your heart and hope to die? Ok, we believe you, we'll just hope you're telling the truth!" Then there's the fact that Slack uses encryption at rest and in transit, there may be a LEGAL REQUIREMENT not to allow users with ties to Iran to use the product under CFR title 15 chapter VII, subchapter C. Or they may at least suspect they are at risk of running afoul of the cryptography export laws as they stand and simply decided, they don't want to risk it to protect the company and other users. I highly doubt this is some Islamaphobic/Iranaphobic move on Slack's part, this is simply a cover-our-ass move so we can stay in business and not risk prison time. See: - 15 CFR chapter VII, subchapter C. - 31 CFR Part 560 and Appendix A to Chapter V - Public Law 115–44 (the CAATSA)
  • bradleyland 8y ago
    Heh. Seems everyone has decided to shoot the messenger. You may disagree with the policy, but ryaymercer isn't wrong. Living in startup land where everything is light, you move fast, and things get broken, it's very easy to overlook that there is this 500 lb gorilla in the corner just waiting to smash you into pulp for doing the wrong thing. My guess is that something internally at Slack has triggered this. It seems likely that they're in the midst of contracting with a Federal agency, or something of the sort. When you do business with the Federal government, all manner of hell is unleashed on you in the form of paperwork and due diligence. "Negotiation" boils down to litigation, and litigation is god damned expensive. I am not saying what's happening is right. I'm simply pointing out that this is the culmination of decades of policy and momentum within our government. Wagging our collective fingers at Slack isn't going to change a thing. What can Slack do? Let's say they pass on whatever opportunity is driving this ridiculous witch hunt. So then what? Some Federal agency doesn't get to use their messaging platform? Who cares? Nothing changes. It all starts with asking the right questions, and ryanmercer's post likely contains the answers to a number of questions that few people are asking: what's motivating this change, who is responsible for the policy, and how can our community affect change to prevent it in the future?
• walterbell 8y ago
  For more than a decade, Section 230 [1] has protected internet platforms from censorship of user-generated content. Why is Section 230 not applicable here, or is a similar law needed with wider scope? [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 > It is the policy of the United States— (1) to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services and other interactive media; (2) to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation; (3) to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services;
  • saryant 8y ago
    Because this isn’t about content, it’s about OFAC designations. That’s the office in the US Treasury department that says who Americans can’t do business with. They’re the ones that enforce sanctions and Iran is on their list. Penalties for noncompliance are stiff and there are no safe harbour provisions. (IANAL but I have implemented systems to check OFAC lists at other companies and seen it result in similar situations)
    • walterbell 8y ago
      Maybe it's time for Congress to help companies differentiate between: (a) the objectives of laws prohibiting large commercial flows to sanctioned countries and (b) the objectives of laws encouraging many tiny information exchanges on the internet, taking place outside of sanctioned countries Is it worth burning down Internet commerce in the hope of catching a few individuals? Did Congress intend to create a Do-Not-Speak list, or one such list for every Internet company? Should Internet UGC platforms now relocate outside the USA, when Congress is also encouraging companies to repatriate assets to the USA?
      • reaperducer 8y ago
        Is it worth burning down Internet commerce in the hope of catching a few individuals? What's happening here isn't an attempt to catch a few individuals. The goal is to put pressure on the entire government of Iran. This is done by making doing business hard for large businesses, as well as individuals, so that pressure to change is put on the Iranian government from above (businesses) and below (the people).
• IncRnd 8y ago
  Just because he said that he has no connection to Iran does not make that true. If you carefully read the tweets, Amir says that he travelled to Iran. It might be that Slack did something ridiculous, but that can't be seen from the data.
• user5994461 8y ago
  It's always been like that. The US sanctions are not new and many countries have equivalent. Established businesses simply block connections/signup/login from sanctioned countries. It's part of the checklist for new apps. It's really basic. Slack is just another startup to discover that there are regulations to follow. They did very poorly on the interpretation though.
• chisleu 8y ago
  Did he visit Iran and forget to uninstall Slack before he went?
  • yamazaki 8y ago
    It's not about visiting a country, it's about where your Slack account was created. If you created your Slack account from an embargoed country, regardless of your citizenship or ethnicity, they will probably disable it.
    • cbracken 8y ago
      He states that he created the account in Canada [1], though may have used it from Iran. [1] https://twitter.com/a_h_a/status/1075691620081623041 https://twitter.com/a_h_a/status/1075691620081623041
• mtgx 8y ago
  I mean, Slack recently announced that they would give employees complete access to employee's private conversions. When a company starts thinking this way, you know there's no turning back, and more such (censorship/surveillance-friendly) actions will be taken in the future.
• parhamn 8y ago
  I'm an Iranian-American and Coinbase did something very similar to me in 2017. Here is the notice they sent me: https://i.imgur.com/xnJe0kd.png https://i.imgur.com/xnJe0kd.png We were very convinced it was name/ethnically based as I hadn't been to Iran for a few years before. The general counsel at my last job sent a strongly worded email suggesting they may have been using names to do this (thanks AA!). The email quickly resulted in my account being reinstated without any commentary on their methodology.
• samirm 8y ago
  What's there to be unsure about in terms of belief? Hundreds of people are having their accounts closed and that's a fact.