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I'm one of the people who got banned: https://twitter.com/aaomidi/status/1075621119028314112 https://twitter.com/aaomidi/status/1075621119028314112 Just FYI fo

I'm one of the people who got banned: https://twitter.com/aaomidi/status/1075621119028314112 https://twitter.com/aaomidi/status/1075621119028314112 Just FYI for everyone here, the US government explicitly allows instant messaging applications to be exempt from sanctions: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/internet_freedom.pdf https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/... This is to foster more secure and wider internet access for Iranians.

dylz 8y ago
Slack is generally B2B paid service for collaboration, is it not? You would imagine instant messaging and social networking to be something where Skype.com falls under the umbrella, but Lync/Skype for Business does not. The PDF also constantly uses the word personal. > such as instant messaging, chat and email, social networking, sharing of photos and movies, web browsing, and blogging. In order to qualify for that authorization, such services and software had to be publicly available (widely available to the public) at no cost to the user
- saghm 8y ago
  I'm fairly certain that Slack is available for free usage; I think there's just a limit on the number of users you can have in your "organization" (where "organization" doesn't necessarily mean anything formal like a company) without needing to pay
  - dylz 8y ago
    Yes, sure, you can make a free workspace just like you can run a trial of Lync, but presumably this categorization brings them out of personal messaging and into a B2B-relationship for business purposes, and the majority of their business is funded by paid B2B contracts. NB: I'm not saying this is fair to anyone and it's just my personal interpretation, but it reads to me that the OFAC PDF linked is overly intent on specifically personal messaging, for personal individuals, not for business collaboration, B2B contracts, anything related to work or commercialness
    - pilsetnieks 8y ago
      But Slack isn't strictly for businesses. It's "teams" in "workspaces" which could mean whatever. Especially in the case of free accounts there's a fair possibility that those could just be some people.
      - yellowapple 8y ago
        Indeed; I know of (and have joined) multiple Slack "organizations" that are just individuals chatting about things. Didn't cost me anything.
  - extra88 8y ago
    Slack's free tier doesn't limit number of team members, I'm in one with thousands. Slack's free tier limits the number of messages you can access to the most recent 10,000. There are also limits on the amount of storage, number of integrations with other services, and video calls can't be multi-party, only 1-to-1. https://slack.com/plans https://slack.com/plans
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
cco 8y ago
It is possible that they saw activity that made them slam a panic button or they were explicitly told by the US government to stop traffic; they've been working on this problem for a long time and this response strikes me as sudden.
- mannykannot 8y ago
  The activity that they saw, I suspect, was the arrest of Meng Wanzhou. The C-suite wants to be absolutely sure it could never happen to them. The cheapest solution is to mine their extensive data on customers to exclude any hint of a possibly-infringing connection. Any more nuanced response that involves humans making judgements about individual cases would be orders of magnitudes more expensive.
- belltaco 8y ago
  This isnt about stopping traffic to /from Iran, it's about banning people who ever logged in from there even once.

dylz 8y ago

Slack is generally B2B paid service for collaboration, is it not? You would imagine instant messaging and social networking to be something where Skype.com falls under the umbrella, but Lync/Skype for Business does not. The PDF also constantly uses the word personal. > such as instant messaging, chat and email, social networking, sharing of photos and movies, web browsing, and blogging. In order to qualify for that authorization, such services and software had to be publicly available (widely available to the public) at no cost to the user

saghm 8y ago
I'm fairly certain that Slack is available for free usage; I think there's just a limit on the number of users you can have in your "organization" (where "organization" doesn't necessarily mean anything formal like a company) without needing to pay
- dylz 8y ago
  Yes, sure, you can make a free workspace just like you can run a trial of Lync, but presumably this categorization brings them out of personal messaging and into a B2B-relationship for business purposes, and the majority of their business is funded by paid B2B contracts. NB: I'm not saying this is fair to anyone and it's just my personal interpretation, but it reads to me that the OFAC PDF linked is overly intent on specifically personal messaging, for personal individuals, not for business collaboration, B2B contracts, anything related to work or commercialness
  - pilsetnieks 8y ago
    But Slack isn't strictly for businesses. It's "teams" in "workspaces" which could mean whatever. Especially in the case of free accounts there's a fair possibility that those could just be some people.
    - yellowapple 8y ago
      Indeed; I know of (and have joined) multiple Slack "organizations" that are just individuals chatting about things. Didn't cost me anything.
- extra88 8y ago
  Slack's free tier doesn't limit number of team members, I'm in one with thousands. Slack's free tier limits the number of messages you can access to the most recent 10,000. There are also limits on the amount of storage, number of integrations with other services, and video calls can't be multi-party, only 1-to-1. https://slack.com/plans https://slack.com/plans
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

cco 8y ago

It is possible that they saw activity that made them slam a panic button or they were explicitly told by the US government to stop traffic; they've been working on this problem for a long time and this response strikes me as sudden.

mannykannot 8y ago
The activity that they saw, I suspect, was the arrest of Meng Wanzhou. The C-suite wants to be absolutely sure it could never happen to them. The cheapest solution is to mine their extensive data on customers to exclude any hint of a possibly-infringing connection. Any more nuanced response that involves humans making judgements about individual cases would be orders of magnitudes more expensive.
belltaco 8y ago
This isnt about stopping traffic to /from Iran, it's about banning people who ever logged in from there even once.