33 ms·

“My GitHub account has been restricted due to US sanctions as I live in Crimea”

396 points by pizza 7y ago

ajross 7y ago
[Heh, this is also one of those "Best way to get a correct answer on the internet..." kind of situations. Oh well, live and learn.] This is one of those threads that's going to be coopted as a way to flog arguments against either or both of the US or GitHub when the truth is almost certainly that it's just a mistake. I'm aware of no US sanctions against Crimea. There are sanctions against Russia over the Crimean annexation, but those are targetted to specific industries (which certainly don't include some dude's open source game downloader) and in any case are not actually being enforced by the current administration for reasons that no one here wants to discuss. They messed up. Or plausibly the author is actually not in Crimea or has some other undisclosed affiliation, I guess. But most likely they messed up and will fix it.
- dvt 7y ago
  Technology products are indeed part of the sanctions affecting the Crimean Peninsula, Iran, Syria, and North Korea (if I remember correctly).
- mattigames 7y ago
  >The Crimea peninsula is now cut off from number of products and services, as US law forbids companies from providing services and exporting goods to the disputed territory.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_that_applied_sanctions_during_the_Crimean_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_that_applied...
- elliekelly 7y ago
  The only mistake was that it took GitHub so long to block the account. The Crimea sanctions[1] aren't new but they do pretty clearly cover GitHub: > prohibition on the exportation or importation of goods, technology, or services to or from the Crimea region of Ukraine [1] [PDF] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/ukraine.pdf https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/...
- dogecoinbase 7y ago
  Here is the relevant executive order: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/ukraine_eo4.pdf https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/... And the most recent extension: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20190626.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enfo...
dvt 7y ago
I'm sure HN will try throwing some shade here, but just about everyone has sanctioned Crimea, including Canada[1], the EU[2], and Ukraine itself. MasterCard, Visa, Discover, PayPal, etc., etc. also don't work in Crimea. [1] https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/sanctions/ukraine.aspx?lang=eng https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... [2] https://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/special-coverage/eu-sanctions-against-russia-over-ukraine-crisis_en https://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/special-coverage/eu-sa...
- baroffoos 7y ago
  Does that make it better?
  - dvt 7y ago
    No, it just makes it a geopolitical reality that you have to somehow punish Russia when it mobilizes ground forces and forcibly annexes pieces of land. Don't forget that Russian-backed insurgents literally shot a passenger plane out of the sky[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
    - option 7y ago
      this punishes people who live in Crimea
    - baddox 7y ago
      Something tells me Russia is not particularly bothered by the inability of people in Crimea to use GitHub.
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
        Of course. Nobody is particularly bothered by the loss of one company's services. It's the totality of the effect that you're looking for.
    - 7y ago
exabrial 7y ago
Yikes. Sanctions are a scorched earth policy. In my humble uninformed opinion the best thing would be to attempt to get out for many reasons :(
plazmatic 7y ago
Just wait until Russia invades Ukraine. That'll fix things I'm sure...
kragen 7y ago
During the Cold War, the primary thing that distinguished the US side from the USSR side was that, while speech by USSR people and people sympathetic to the USSR (like, say, CPUSA) was published in the US, publishing speech sympathetic to the US in the USSR would get you arrested. It seems like the US has become what the USSR was: companies who publish speech from people in Iran or Crimea are now violating the law by doing so. Moreover, in cases like this one, already-published material is being destroyed, in a way that wasn't practical in the USSR, due to technological limitations (though they did try — famously Beria was airbrushed out of official photographs). The US doesn't yet have massive prison camp systems full of political dissidents — but then, for the first couple of decades, neither did the USSR. This is a crucially important reason to move away from centralized and proprietary systems and onto decentralized, peer-to-peer, secure, free-software systems. Learn from history. (Edit: previously I gave Noam Chomsky as an example of someone sympathetic to the USSR, but that is at best debatable. The Communist Party USA, now in its 101st year, is a much clearer example, one that published continuously throughout the Cold War despite US prosecutions of its leadership.)
- mattigames 7y ago
  They would have blocked _all_ Russia if they hadn't learn from history.
- elliekelly 7y ago
  This has nothing to do with free speech - the sanctioned account was able to open an issue on GitHub complaining of the way their account had been handled. The account is the victim of a trade embargo, not a gag order.
  - jMyles 7y ago
    Their Github Pages page was censored. They are unable to participate in the maintenance of an open source repository. This was done, according to Github, as a requirement to comply with the laws of its state. If that's not a free speech issue, there are no free speech issues.
realusername 7y ago
That's exactly the reason why we need to decentralise Github, that's way too much power for a corporation.
- tnorthcutt 7y ago
  What does “decentralize Github” mean?
  - realusername 7y ago
    For me, that means having all the features of Github available in p2p.
    - techntoke 7y ago
      Pretty much like IPFS. You can already host your pages and DNS using an IPFS gateway.
  - killjoywashere 7y ago
    people could commit to a box in another legal regime? Which is a viable option now but requires a smidge of additional overhead.
  - zzzcpan 7y ago
    This is something that needs to happen. Megacorp/government controlled source code hub is simply not acceptable for cultural and ideological reasons. There should be no centralized control of a repository distribution, if you publish it and people use it, no government or corporation should be able to censor it.
- fortran77 7y ago
  git is already decentralized. You can use it easily without github. This restriction is from the U.S. Government, not a "corporation."
  - realusername 7y ago
olivierduval 7y ago
Sadly, US companies are more and more unreliable, but not for technical reason, not for economical/business reasons, but for political reasons. Sadly, it looks, more and more, like "America First" will shift to "America Alone". Hopefully, it will require other countries/organisations to build alternatives and not rely on the US. These new players will grow stronger, on their own market, building their success on US defiance. And might be someday US competitors (hello Baidu, Tencent and co.)
- drstewart 7y ago
  That makes the assumption that these alternatives would give up access to the US market in order to serve sanctioned markets like Crimea, North Korea, or Iran.
  - olivierduval 7y ago
    Like "open source" alternatives, you mean ? ;-) On my toy android app, I'm trying to avoid anything Google-licensed: replacing Maps by OSM for example. Just a small step... but a new mindset. Problem is: today the US sanctionned some well-known "bad" actors (under UN scrutiny) but will sanction EU too... just because of business or strategical interest (and without any UN consensus).
    - solidasparagus 7y ago
      You think the US is going to sanction the EU?
      - olivierduval 7y ago
        I'm affraid that the current US administration has a really wide interpretation of what "US national security" is, far wider than any other administration, including not only the political or geostrategical scope but the business scope too. And technology is a core part of business. Before this US administration, EU was considered a "friend" or "allied" of the US, meaning sharing common values, like human rights, universality, or that it's better to have win/win trade than win/loose trade. There was competition AND cooperation. But now, it seem that the US administration sees the EU only as a competitor and as a foe. This US administration is only restricted to bully the EU because the EU is strong enough to not let it be that way and may retaliate. So yeah, sadly, I think that US will try to sanction the EU in some or other way (and in fact already started). The more the US is centered on itself, the less it cares about the rest of the world and the more it think that it DOESN4T NEED allies and friends, and it can treat EU like a servant. And more sadly, I think that EU will have to stand for itself, to not depend nor a Russia or China... but not on US too.
option 7y ago
sanctions like these only alienate (otherwise mostly pro-democracy) people from US/West. Do impose sanctions on individuals who are associated with the rules of undemocratic regimes. But punishing whole populations (especially if they don’t have a democratic voice in the matter) is dumb and immoral.
- fredthomsen 7y ago
  This. The ruling class in the countries can still get the products and services they want. Can someone actually point to a case where broad sanctions like this has made a difference? Cuba has survived these sanctions for decades. When politians like Marco Rubio says the regime is about to break if we keep the pressure on, I just laugh.
  - option 7y ago
    the UK is especially disgusting in this. For example, Chelsea is still owned by Abramovich (a close Putin’s ally) who has no trouble traveling, buying property and otherwise enjoying what West has to offer. Tons of “Untied Russia” party members own property in Miami and London with no issues whatsoever
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    It’s hard to prove causation, but South Africa only started making real progress towards ending apartheid after broad sanctions started getting passed.
    - amfsn 7y ago
      It's the time of China, I doubt this would work anymore.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  I agree. Back during the cold war we used to run radio stations broadcasting into enemy territory to create sympathy and show that we are humans too. Today we seem to be doing the opposite.
- 7y ago
dngray 7y ago
I'm from a US-friendly nation but I get terribly sad when I hear things like this. Contribution to the free software world should transcend where someone is from whether it be China, Russia, Iran or whatever new "enemy" our leaders decide. As much as I dislike Facebook for privacy related reasons, maybe it's time that more tech companies setup a Tor Hidden Service and not ask where people are from. Could this be used to protect them against having to implement sanctions against various countries if they don't actually know where their users are from? It would also make blocking those websites difficult by repressive regimes too. They could implement the ability to upload a private PGP key so email notifications can be encrypted end-to-end, Facebook also allows for this. The impending bifurcation of the Internet is something that I hate to think of, but it seems something a lot of governments are hell bent on, particularly with their insistence on "backdoors in encryption". One country's back door will be another country's vulnerability. Now I think I will go and and donate to Tor Project to make myself feel better.
- moksly 7y ago
  Would that really change anything? I think what we’re seeing is the inevitable result of the internet and tech companies becoming the most important aspect of modern civilisation. We’re not a bunch of hippie geeks fooling around with open tech anymore while the political level largely ignores us. With almost everyone in the world using the internet for hours a day, regulation was simply bound to come. Not knowing where your customers come from isn’t going to make the regulation go away, but it might make your entire company illegal. It’s not something I think is good by the way, but the regulation and legislation is likely going to get more and more restrictive as our governments catch up.
  - dngray 7y ago
    > Would that really change anything? I think what we’re seeing is the inevitable result of the internet and tech companies becoming the most important aspect of modern civilisation. I think what we are seeing is the implementation of authoritarian governments, something that has been on the increase nearly everywhere, in the last 20 years. People have in the developed world had it, too good for too long. Complacency and populism is what led to this. We voted in "strong leaders" and this is what we're gonna get, strong policies that might not really be all that smart. What these policies forget is a lot of general citizens don't have much choice over the regime that leads them. They are just often people doing their thing. Free software is actually something which brings us together, as it's about what we do and have in common, rather than race, religion or politics. I think that's why it feels so awful.
chr15m 7y ago
It may be possible for you to route around this with Tor: https://github.com/chr15m/gitnonymous/ https://github.com/chr15m/gitnonymous/
- avierax 7y ago
  This is forbidden by github. The consequences of this is having your account suspended.
busterarm 7y ago
Most software is exportable to OFAC sanctioned companies under their rules. In fact, it's possible to apply for an exemption to transact business with sanctioned countries. GitHub would probably have a good case for such an exemption and their parent company is already exempted to sell things like Microsoft Office to there. https://complyadvantage.com/knowledgebase/sanctions-2/ofac-sanctions-what-are-the-consequences-of-breaking-them/ https://complyadvantage.com/knowledgebase/sanctions-2/ofac-s...
shmerl 7y ago
So it affects even those who aren't Russian citizens (let's say Ukranian citizens) who live in Crimea?
- colechristensen 7y ago
  According to Crimea and Russia and the basic facts on the ground, people living in Crimea are Russian citizens and have been for 5 years, Russia has poured billions into the region's infrastructure. While it was definitely engineered by Russia doing things to violate the sovereignty of Ukraine 1) The US and all the powerful nations around the world do this kind of crap all the time and have a long history of it 2) It appears as though the people living in Crimea generally prefer being Russian to being Ukrainian, at least there doesn't seem to be any major opposition to the change. 3) Crimea was only part of Ukraine from 1992 to 2014, before that it was it's own entity under the umbrella of Russian empire or the USSR for hundreds of years I'm not pro-Russia but I am pro-reality, and this sanctions game seems to be about highschool-level-bullshit between world leaders and nothing else. It certainly has made politicians on both sides much more popular with their bases as a result. Having "enemies" does that rallying well. If you want to sanction Russia, do it over corruption, election meddling, or human rights abuses (although maybe put a higher priority on your own country's faults along those lines first so you have a platform to stand on) I'm here feeling like Fangorn "I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my side"
  - shmerl 7y ago
    > people living in Crimea are Russian citizens and have been for 5 years Russia pressured people, but they could refuse accepting citizenship (though those doing so get a lot of practical troubles there, up to persecution). They can't really force citizenship on unwilling people, despite trying.
    - shitgoose 7y ago
      are there any examples of people in Crimea having been persecuted because they refused to accept Russian citizenship and kept Ukrainian passports? Crimea fell off the tree without single shot fired. that tells something. also, do not forget famous saying by Ukrainian nationalists - "Crimea will be Ukrainian territory or uninhabited": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXtBe-uZcPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXtBe-uZcPM where the danger for people of Crimea was really coming from?
guelo 7y ago
Should have used a distributed VCS. Oh wait.
rdl 7y ago
A (very bad) US bank of mine froze my account in a way which was exceptionally difficult to fix because I tried to use the mobile app to check my balance while physically in Ukraine (not anywhere near Crimea; they chose to fucking sanction the entire country because Ukraine got invaded, which was the opposite of the intent of the law).
- colechristensen 7y ago
  They would be doing that to prevent money laundering, trying to stop people going to sanctioned places and transferring money around for the locals at hefty profit. (in other words, not the opposite of the intent of the law)
  - maxheadroom 7y ago
    >They would be doing that to prevent money laundering, trying to stop people going to sanctioned places and transferring money around for the locals at a hefty profit. (in other words, not the opposite of the intent of the law) Did they forget we have modern inventions, like VPN and airplanes? Localising it to Ukraine (in this context) sounds like they're generally just after the low-hanging fruit (read: the poor who can't afford such things).
    - colechristensen 7y ago
      It's the result of a risk calculation with limited information. Hanging out near war zones and sanctioned countries significantly increases the chance that you're committing financial crimes, so when they have some information that you're doing that kind of thing you're much more likely to trip an alarm. VPNs don't help you with bank apps that report your GPS position. Sanctions aren't particularly excellent at stopping bad actors.
      - maxheadroom 7y ago
        >Hanging out near war zones and sanctioned countries significantly increases the chance that you're committing financial crimes... Citizens of Ukraine are just "hanging out" in Ukraine? We're still talking about Ukraine being sanctioned because of Crimea, aren't we? Or have you unintentionally broadened the scope of the discussion? Wouldn't it be more truthful to say that citizens of a country sanctioned and/or that have become war zones are at an increased chanced to do things (however uncolourful) to survive as a direct result of that very same reality?
git-pull 7y ago
GitHub page: https://help.github.com/cn/articles/github-and-trade-controls https://help.github.com/cn/articles/github-and-trade-control... Ukraine: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/pages/ukraine.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/... Iran (from a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699) https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/pages/iran.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
golergka 7y ago
I'm glad that US is pressing in this. Five years since Crimea happened, it's still cut off Russia in terms of business – all the major companies won't touch it with a ten-feet pole exactly because of sanctions. It's a sad state of affairs for people who still live there, but a good precedent for the world peace, showing that this annexation will not be normalized.
- tasubotadas 7y ago
  I don't really get why is this downvoted. If anything, the response to that was too weak. Again, to some soft-hearted people, this might look like a terrible story when alone dev in Crimea can't access his GitHub but I have 0 sentiments here. Ukraine's sovereignty was guaranteed by the UK, the US, and Russia when they gave up their nukes. So somebody had to at least pretend to do something. The US (compared to the UK) showed a much stronger response. Now Russia came and claimed a part of Ukraine as their own. If there is 0 response to that, you know how it makes all the small countries feel that have borders with Russia? Ask Estonians or Georgians. So when the next time they gonna occupy Tallinn or Riga, we all gonna be really happy that some dimwits are really concerned that our developers can't access GitHub. Great.
- jwieczorek 7y ago
  > for people who still live there You're making it sound as if people were suffering and running away from there. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but the net migration is positive and rising. Companies like Siemens are doing business there. For now, they have to pretend that they don't even know about it, but that is going to change too as the U.S. continue to lose their hegemony in Europe.
nournia 7y ago
Thank you GitHub, thank you Microsoft and thank you U.S. for all the love you bestow upon people.
- rimliu 7y ago
  Not thanks to Russia for the occupation?
  - d33 7y ago
    How is that relevant? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
  - gdy 7y ago
    The US punishes with sanctions the population of occupied Crimea. Where is the logic in that?
    - sjapkee 7y ago
      It doesn't even occupied.
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      The only illogic is that is not having Russia to a similar degree while doing so. The point of the sanctions is to give an extra cost to their ambitions and limit the growth in power of the targetted entries.
      - gdy 7y ago
        Why Russia's ambitions are less legitimate than American ones?
        ohithereyou 7y ago
        The US is not morally or legally obligated to support or enable Russian ambitions and has the right, as a sovereign nation, to react to actions against their interest.
vectorEQ 7y ago
i love how people impede on freedom in the name of freedom.
NERDiT 7y ago
https://bitbucket.org https://bitbucket.org - pretty sweet alternative, works with Git just the same.
- avierax 7y ago
  Atlassian is an Australian company but they own companies in the US so they comply with US embargo to sanctioned countries as well. In fact this was the first company who blocked their services to Cuba.
ryanmercer 7y ago
I'm guessing the same then applies to SY, CU, IR, KP and SD which are also embargoed countries. Possibly also BL, BY, CF, CI, CD, IQ, LB, LY,, SO, SS, UA, VE, YE and ZW which have current sanctions.
amingilani 7y ago
Related: a little while ago, a Iranian developer's post[0] hit the front page. He commented 12 hours ago that GitHub has restricted his account as well.[1] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699 [1]: http://shahinsorkh.ir/2019/07/20/how-is-it-like-to-be-a-dev-in-iran#comment-4553788305 http://shahinsorkh.ir/2019/07/20/how-is-it-like-to-be-a-dev-...
ivanhoe 7y ago
This story reminds me of my own growing up in Serbia in 90s under UN sanctions. One of the side-effects of it was that we couldn't access Internet directly for a while, we were almost completely cut off (Belgrade University was half-illegally exchanging emails once a day over a private link to Greece thanks to some professors at University of Athens, but otherwise all connections to the world were cut off). And at that moment, first half of 90s, users of Internet were mostly young educated people grouped in and around academia, and they were 99.9% against Milosevic's government. So by bureaucracy applying blindly the rules, not thinking about side-effects of those action, they basically directly targeted and alienated those very people who were pro-west and progressive and their best bet for allies in the country - stopping them from communicating with the world and receiving free news and information, thus directly aiding Milosevic's propaganda.
- nsajko 7y ago
  More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Serbia#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Serbia#History Compare with, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Croatia#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Croatia#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_France#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_France#History
- nsajko 7y ago
  I am interested, in case you remember, what do you perceive were the main reasons for the antagonism towards Milošević (where it existed)? I mean, it could be many things, like authoritarianism, censorship, "nationalism", "communism", ethnic policies, ...?
  - ivanhoe 7y ago
    All of the above, plus the lost wars, thousands of people killed and displaced, broken dreams and promises, broken economy, huge rise of crime, mob bosses and crime-connected tycoons, one of the greatest hyper-inflations ever, nationalization and then organized pumping out of banks money and people's savings out of the country to the secret accounts on Cyprus that left millions without their life savings, the whole social and moral structure of society got turned upside-down in very short period of time... the list is quite long, Milosevic was a typical dictator who used force and propaganda to hide his own incompetence and crimes. Contrary to common picture painted of him in West, I don't think he was ever a real believer in communism, nor he was really a hard-core nationalist either, he used the both simply as a source of power when it was convenient for him, but then also made moves that were completely opposite when it was needed. He was really just an opportunist greedy of power. And unfortunately in 90s most of other political leaders in Yugoslavia were pretty much the same, and the old system was broken and unsustainable anymore...
A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
It sounds weird.I don't know the specifics of your case so it is difficult to comment, but it seems like an overreaction to the specific location ( for a good reason ). Did you reach out to github? Did they ask any addition questions? Ask for license? Blanket restriction seems excessive. https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/ukraine.txt https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/...
zoobab 7y ago
Time to fix the protocols of Cyberspace. HTTP and other centralized protocols are the weapon of choice of the powerful players: large corporations and states.
finnjohnsen2 7y ago
I would think VPN solve this problem?
cnst 7y ago
http://We.Are.Sanctioned.RU/ http://We.Are.Sanctioned.RU/?
ilaksh 7y ago
A truly decentralized GitHub replacement would not have this problem. One such is called mango.
dill2019 7y ago
Are you a North Korean of Iranian descent living in Crimea? Are you an American of Italian descent living in Crimea? Are you a Russian who went to new colony to live in? Are you an Ukrainian who hoped that Russians will help make you young again? At expense to people you prefer to ignore. Or are you Ukrainian who wanted but couldn't flee the occupation? All these are different circumstances. Only one represents the case where law has undesired side effect.
kbad10 7y ago
This actions basically demands a de-centralized blockchain-based repository storage system.

396 points by pizza 7y ago

[Heh, this is also one of those "Best way to get a correct answer on the internet..." kind of situations. Oh well, live and learn.] This is one of those threads that's going to be coopted as a way to flog arguments against either or both of the US or GitHub when the truth is almost certainly that it's just a mistake. I'm aware of no US sanctions against Crimea. There are sanctions against Russia over the Crimean annexation, but those are targetted to specific industries (which certainly don't include some dude's open source game downloader) and in any case are not actually being enforced by the current administration for reasons that no one here wants to discuss. They messed up. Or plausibly the author is actually not in Crimea or has some other undisclosed affiliation, I guess. But most likely they messed up and will fix it.

dvt 7y ago
Technology products are indeed part of the sanctions affecting the Crimean Peninsula, Iran, Syria, and North Korea (if I remember correctly).
mattigames 7y ago
>The Crimea peninsula is now cut off from number of products and services, as US law forbids companies from providing services and exporting goods to the disputed territory.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_that_applied_sanctions_during_the_Crimean_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_that_applied...
elliekelly 7y ago
The only mistake was that it took GitHub so long to block the account. The Crimea sanctions[1] aren't new but they do pretty clearly cover GitHub: > prohibition on the exportation or importation of goods, technology, or services to or from the Crimea region of Ukraine [1] [PDF] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/ukraine.pdf https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/...
dogecoinbase 7y ago
Here is the relevant executive order: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/ukraine_eo4.pdf https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/... And the most recent extension: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20190626.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enfo...

dvt 7y ago

I'm sure HN will try throwing some shade here, but just about everyone has sanctioned Crimea, including Canada[1], the EU[2], and Ukraine itself. MasterCard, Visa, Discover, PayPal, etc., etc. also don't work in Crimea. [1] https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/sanctions/ukraine.aspx?lang=eng https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re... [2] https://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/special-coverage/eu-sanctions-against-russia-over-ukraine-crisis_en https://europa.eu/newsroom/highlights/special-coverage/eu-sa...

baroffoos 7y ago
Does that make it better?
- dvt 7y ago
  No, it just makes it a geopolitical reality that you have to somehow punish Russia when it mobilizes ground forces and forcibly annexes pieces of land. Don't forget that Russian-backed insurgents literally shot a passenger plane out of the sky[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
  - option 7y ago
    this punishes people who live in Crimea
  - baddox 7y ago
    Something tells me Russia is not particularly bothered by the inability of people in Crimea to use GitHub.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
      Of course. Nobody is particularly bothered by the loss of one company's services. It's the totality of the effect that you're looking for.
  - 7y ago

exabrial 7y ago

Yikes. Sanctions are a scorched earth policy. In my humble uninformed opinion the best thing would be to attempt to get out for many reasons :(

plazmatic 7y ago

Just wait until Russia invades Ukraine. That'll fix things I'm sure...

kragen 7y ago

During the Cold War, the primary thing that distinguished the US side from the USSR side was that, while speech by USSR people and people sympathetic to the USSR (like, say, CPUSA) was published in the US, publishing speech sympathetic to the US in the USSR would get you arrested. It seems like the US has become what the USSR was: companies who publish speech from people in Iran or Crimea are now violating the law by doing so. Moreover, in cases like this one, already-published material is being destroyed, in a way that wasn't practical in the USSR, due to technological limitations (though they did try — famously Beria was airbrushed out of official photographs). The US doesn't yet have massive prison camp systems full of political dissidents — but then, for the first couple of decades, neither did the USSR. This is a crucially important reason to move away from centralized and proprietary systems and onto decentralized, peer-to-peer, secure, free-software systems. Learn from history. (Edit: previously I gave Noam Chomsky as an example of someone sympathetic to the USSR, but that is at best debatable. The Communist Party USA, now in its 101st year, is a much clearer example, one that published continuously throughout the Cold War despite US prosecutions of its leadership.)

mattigames 7y ago
They would have blocked _all_ Russia if they hadn't learn from history.
elliekelly 7y ago
This has nothing to do with free speech - the sanctioned account was able to open an issue on GitHub complaining of the way their account had been handled. The account is the victim of a trade embargo, not a gag order.
- jMyles 7y ago
  Their Github Pages page was censored. They are unable to participate in the maintenance of an open source repository. This was done, according to Github, as a requirement to comply with the laws of its state. If that's not a free speech issue, there are no free speech issues.

realusername 7y ago

That's exactly the reason why we need to decentralise Github, that's way too much power for a corporation.

tnorthcutt 7y ago
What does “decentralize Github” mean?
- realusername 7y ago
  For me, that means having all the features of Github available in p2p.
  - techntoke 7y ago
    Pretty much like IPFS. You can already host your pages and DNS using an IPFS gateway.
- killjoywashere 7y ago
  people could commit to a box in another legal regime? Which is a viable option now but requires a smidge of additional overhead.
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  This is something that needs to happen. Megacorp/government controlled source code hub is simply not acceptable for cultural and ideological reasons. There should be no centralized control of a repository distribution, if you publish it and people use it, no government or corporation should be able to censor it.
fortran77 7y ago
git is already decentralized. You can use it easily without github. This restriction is from the U.S. Government, not a "corporation."
- realusername 7y ago

olivierduval 7y ago

Sadly, US companies are more and more unreliable, but not for technical reason, not for economical/business reasons, but for political reasons. Sadly, it looks, more and more, like "America First" will shift to "America Alone". Hopefully, it will require other countries/organisations to build alternatives and not rely on the US. These new players will grow stronger, on their own market, building their success on US defiance. And might be someday US competitors (hello Baidu, Tencent and co.)

drstewart 7y ago
That makes the assumption that these alternatives would give up access to the US market in order to serve sanctioned markets like Crimea, North Korea, or Iran.
- olivierduval 7y ago
  Like "open source" alternatives, you mean ? ;-) On my toy android app, I'm trying to avoid anything Google-licensed: replacing Maps by OSM for example. Just a small step... but a new mindset. Problem is: today the US sanctionned some well-known "bad" actors (under UN scrutiny) but will sanction EU too... just because of business or strategical interest (and without any UN consensus).
  - solidasparagus 7y ago
    You think the US is going to sanction the EU?
    - olivierduval 7y ago
      I'm affraid that the current US administration has a really wide interpretation of what "US national security" is, far wider than any other administration, including not only the political or geostrategical scope but the business scope too. And technology is a core part of business. Before this US administration, EU was considered a "friend" or "allied" of the US, meaning sharing common values, like human rights, universality, or that it's better to have win/win trade than win/loose trade. There was competition AND cooperation. But now, it seem that the US administration sees the EU only as a competitor and as a foe. This US administration is only restricted to bully the EU because the EU is strong enough to not let it be that way and may retaliate. So yeah, sadly, I think that US will try to sanction the EU in some or other way (and in fact already started). The more the US is centered on itself, the less it cares about the rest of the world and the more it think that it DOESN4T NEED allies and friends, and it can treat EU like a servant. And more sadly, I think that EU will have to stand for itself, to not depend nor a Russia or China... but not on US too.

option 7y ago

sanctions like these only alienate (otherwise mostly pro-democracy) people from US/West. Do impose sanctions on individuals who are associated with the rules of undemocratic regimes. But punishing whole populations (especially if they don’t have a democratic voice in the matter) is dumb and immoral.

fredthomsen 7y ago
This. The ruling class in the countries can still get the products and services they want. Can someone actually point to a case where broad sanctions like this has made a difference? Cuba has survived these sanctions for decades. When politians like Marco Rubio says the regime is about to break if we keep the pressure on, I just laugh.
- option 7y ago
  the UK is especially disgusting in this. For example, Chelsea is still owned by Abramovich (a close Putin’s ally) who has no trouble traveling, buying property and otherwise enjoying what West has to offer. Tons of “Untied Russia” party members own property in Miami and London with no issues whatsoever
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  It’s hard to prove causation, but South Africa only started making real progress towards ending apartheid after broad sanctions started getting passed.
  - amfsn 7y ago
    It's the time of China, I doubt this would work anymore.
wongarsu 7y ago
I agree. Back during the cold war we used to run radio stations broadcasting into enemy territory to create sympathy and show that we are humans too. Today we seem to be doing the opposite.
7y ago

dngray 7y ago

I'm from a US-friendly nation but I get terribly sad when I hear things like this. Contribution to the free software world should transcend where someone is from whether it be China, Russia, Iran or whatever new "enemy" our leaders decide. As much as I dislike Facebook for privacy related reasons, maybe it's time that more tech companies setup a Tor Hidden Service and not ask where people are from. Could this be used to protect them against having to implement sanctions against various countries if they don't actually know where their users are from? It would also make blocking those websites difficult by repressive regimes too. They could implement the ability to upload a private PGP key so email notifications can be encrypted end-to-end, Facebook also allows for this. The impending bifurcation of the Internet is something that I hate to think of, but it seems something a lot of governments are hell bent on, particularly with their insistence on "backdoors in encryption". One country's back door will be another country's vulnerability. Now I think I will go and and donate to Tor Project to make myself feel better.

moksly 7y ago
Would that really change anything? I think what we’re seeing is the inevitable result of the internet and tech companies becoming the most important aspect of modern civilisation. We’re not a bunch of hippie geeks fooling around with open tech anymore while the political level largely ignores us. With almost everyone in the world using the internet for hours a day, regulation was simply bound to come. Not knowing where your customers come from isn’t going to make the regulation go away, but it might make your entire company illegal. It’s not something I think is good by the way, but the regulation and legislation is likely going to get more and more restrictive as our governments catch up.
- dngray 7y ago
  > Would that really change anything? I think what we’re seeing is the inevitable result of the internet and tech companies becoming the most important aspect of modern civilisation. I think what we are seeing is the implementation of authoritarian governments, something that has been on the increase nearly everywhere, in the last 20 years. People have in the developed world had it, too good for too long. Complacency and populism is what led to this. We voted in "strong leaders" and this is what we're gonna get, strong policies that might not really be all that smart. What these policies forget is a lot of general citizens don't have much choice over the regime that leads them. They are just often people doing their thing. Free software is actually something which brings us together, as it's about what we do and have in common, rather than race, religion or politics. I think that's why it feels so awful.

chr15m 7y ago

It may be possible for you to route around this with Tor: https://github.com/chr15m/gitnonymous/ https://github.com/chr15m/gitnonymous/

avierax 7y ago
This is forbidden by github. The consequences of this is having your account suspended.

busterarm 7y ago

Most software is exportable to OFAC sanctioned companies under their rules. In fact, it's possible to apply for an exemption to transact business with sanctioned countries. GitHub would probably have a good case for such an exemption and their parent company is already exempted to sell things like Microsoft Office to there. https://complyadvantage.com/knowledgebase/sanctions-2/ofac-sanctions-what-are-the-consequences-of-breaking-them/ https://complyadvantage.com/knowledgebase/sanctions-2/ofac-s...

shmerl 7y ago

So it affects even those who aren't Russian citizens (let's say Ukranian citizens) who live in Crimea?

colechristensen 7y ago
According to Crimea and Russia and the basic facts on the ground, people living in Crimea are Russian citizens and have been for 5 years, Russia has poured billions into the region's infrastructure. While it was definitely engineered by Russia doing things to violate the sovereignty of Ukraine 1) The US and all the powerful nations around the world do this kind of crap all the time and have a long history of it 2) It appears as though the people living in Crimea generally prefer being Russian to being Ukrainian, at least there doesn't seem to be any major opposition to the change. 3) Crimea was only part of Ukraine from 1992 to 2014, before that it was it's own entity under the umbrella of Russian empire or the USSR for hundreds of years I'm not pro-Russia but I am pro-reality, and this sanctions game seems to be about highschool-level-bullshit between world leaders and nothing else. It certainly has made politicians on both sides much more popular with their bases as a result. Having "enemies" does that rallying well. If you want to sanction Russia, do it over corruption, election meddling, or human rights abuses (although maybe put a higher priority on your own country's faults along those lines first so you have a platform to stand on) I'm here feeling like Fangorn "I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my side"
- shmerl 7y ago
  > people living in Crimea are Russian citizens and have been for 5 years Russia pressured people, but they could refuse accepting citizenship (though those doing so get a lot of practical troubles there, up to persecution). They can't really force citizenship on unwilling people, despite trying.
  - shitgoose 7y ago
    are there any examples of people in Crimea having been persecuted because they refused to accept Russian citizenship and kept Ukrainian passports? Crimea fell off the tree without single shot fired. that tells something. also, do not forget famous saying by Ukrainian nationalists - "Crimea will be Ukrainian territory or uninhabited": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXtBe-uZcPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXtBe-uZcPM where the danger for people of Crimea was really coming from?

guelo 7y ago

Should have used a distributed VCS. Oh wait.

rdl 7y ago

A (very bad) US bank of mine froze my account in a way which was exceptionally difficult to fix because I tried to use the mobile app to check my balance while physically in Ukraine (not anywhere near Crimea; they chose to fucking sanction the entire country because Ukraine got invaded, which was the opposite of the intent of the law).

colechristensen 7y ago
They would be doing that to prevent money laundering, trying to stop people going to sanctioned places and transferring money around for the locals at hefty profit. (in other words, not the opposite of the intent of the law)
- maxheadroom 7y ago
  >They would be doing that to prevent money laundering, trying to stop people going to sanctioned places and transferring money around for the locals at a hefty profit. (in other words, not the opposite of the intent of the law) Did they forget we have modern inventions, like VPN and airplanes? Localising it to Ukraine (in this context) sounds like they're generally just after the low-hanging fruit (read: the poor who can't afford such things).
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    It's the result of a risk calculation with limited information. Hanging out near war zones and sanctioned countries significantly increases the chance that you're committing financial crimes, so when they have some information that you're doing that kind of thing you're much more likely to trip an alarm. VPNs don't help you with bank apps that report your GPS position. Sanctions aren't particularly excellent at stopping bad actors.
    - maxheadroom 7y ago
      >Hanging out near war zones and sanctioned countries significantly increases the chance that you're committing financial crimes... Citizens of Ukraine are just "hanging out" in Ukraine? We're still talking about Ukraine being sanctioned because of Crimea, aren't we? Or have you unintentionally broadened the scope of the discussion? Wouldn't it be more truthful to say that citizens of a country sanctioned and/or that have become war zones are at an increased chanced to do things (however uncolourful) to survive as a direct result of that very same reality?

git-pull 7y ago

GitHub page: https://help.github.com/cn/articles/github-and-trade-controls https://help.github.com/cn/articles/github-and-trade-control... Ukraine: https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/pages/ukraine.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/... Iran (from a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699) https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/pages/iran.aspx https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

golergka 7y ago

I'm glad that US is pressing in this. Five years since Crimea happened, it's still cut off Russia in terms of business – all the major companies won't touch it with a ten-feet pole exactly because of sanctions. It's a sad state of affairs for people who still live there, but a good precedent for the world peace, showing that this annexation will not be normalized.

tasubotadas 7y ago
I don't really get why is this downvoted. If anything, the response to that was too weak. Again, to some soft-hearted people, this might look like a terrible story when alone dev in Crimea can't access his GitHub but I have 0 sentiments here. Ukraine's sovereignty was guaranteed by the UK, the US, and Russia when they gave up their nukes. So somebody had to at least pretend to do something. The US (compared to the UK) showed a much stronger response. Now Russia came and claimed a part of Ukraine as their own. If there is 0 response to that, you know how it makes all the small countries feel that have borders with Russia? Ask Estonians or Georgians. So when the next time they gonna occupy Tallinn or Riga, we all gonna be really happy that some dimwits are really concerned that our developers can't access GitHub. Great.
jwieczorek 7y ago
> for people who still live there You're making it sound as if people were suffering and running away from there. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but the net migration is positive and rising. Companies like Siemens are doing business there. For now, they have to pretend that they don't even know about it, but that is going to change too as the U.S. continue to lose their hegemony in Europe.

nournia 7y ago

Thank you GitHub, thank you Microsoft and thank you U.S. for all the love you bestow upon people.

rimliu 7y ago
Not thanks to Russia for the occupation?
- d33 7y ago
  How is that relevant? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- gdy 7y ago
  The US punishes with sanctions the population of occupied Crimea. Where is the logic in that?
  - sjapkee 7y ago
    It doesn't even occupied.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    The only illogic is that is not having Russia to a similar degree while doing so. The point of the sanctions is to give an extra cost to their ambitions and limit the growth in power of the targetted entries.
    - gdy 7y ago
      Why Russia's ambitions are less legitimate than American ones?
      - ohithereyou 7y ago
        The US is not morally or legally obligated to support or enable Russian ambitions and has the right, as a sovereign nation, to react to actions against their interest.

vectorEQ 7y ago

i love how people impede on freedom in the name of freedom.

NERDiT 7y ago

https://bitbucket.org https://bitbucket.org - pretty sweet alternative, works with Git just the same.

avierax 7y ago
Atlassian is an Australian company but they own companies in the US so they comply with US embargo to sanctioned countries as well. In fact this was the first company who blocked their services to Cuba.

ryanmercer 7y ago

I'm guessing the same then applies to SY, CU, IR, KP and SD which are also embargoed countries. Possibly also BL, BY, CF, CI, CD, IQ, LB, LY,, SO, SS, UA, VE, YE and ZW which have current sanctions.

amingilani 7y ago

Related: a little while ago, a Iranian developer's post[0] hit the front page. He commented 12 hours ago that GitHub has restricted his account as well.[1] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20493699 [1]: http://shahinsorkh.ir/2019/07/20/how-is-it-like-to-be-a-dev-in-iran#comment-4553788305 http://shahinsorkh.ir/2019/07/20/how-is-it-like-to-be-a-dev-...

ivanhoe 7y ago

This story reminds me of my own growing up in Serbia in 90s under UN sanctions. One of the side-effects of it was that we couldn't access Internet directly for a while, we were almost completely cut off (Belgrade University was half-illegally exchanging emails once a day over a private link to Greece thanks to some professors at University of Athens, but otherwise all connections to the world were cut off). And at that moment, first half of 90s, users of Internet were mostly young educated people grouped in and around academia, and they were 99.9% against Milosevic's government. So by bureaucracy applying blindly the rules, not thinking about side-effects of those action, they basically directly targeted and alienated those very people who were pro-west and progressive and their best bet for allies in the country - stopping them from communicating with the world and receiving free news and information, thus directly aiding Milosevic's propaganda.

nsajko 7y ago
More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Serbia#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Serbia#History Compare with, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Croatia#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Croatia#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_France#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_France#History
nsajko 7y ago
I am interested, in case you remember, what do you perceive were the main reasons for the antagonism towards Milošević (where it existed)? I mean, it could be many things, like authoritarianism, censorship, "nationalism", "communism", ethnic policies, ...?
- ivanhoe 7y ago
  All of the above, plus the lost wars, thousands of people killed and displaced, broken dreams and promises, broken economy, huge rise of crime, mob bosses and crime-connected tycoons, one of the greatest hyper-inflations ever, nationalization and then organized pumping out of banks money and people's savings out of the country to the secret accounts on Cyprus that left millions without their life savings, the whole social and moral structure of society got turned upside-down in very short period of time... the list is quite long, Milosevic was a typical dictator who used force and propaganda to hide his own incompetence and crimes. Contrary to common picture painted of him in West, I don't think he was ever a real believer in communism, nor he was really a hard-core nationalist either, he used the both simply as a source of power when it was convenient for him, but then also made moves that were completely opposite when it was needed. He was really just an opportunist greedy of power. And unfortunately in 90s most of other political leaders in Yugoslavia were pretty much the same, and the old system was broken and unsustainable anymore...

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago

It sounds weird.I don't know the specifics of your case so it is difficult to comment, but it seems like an overreaction to the specific location ( for a good reason ). Did you reach out to github? Did they ask any addition questions? Ask for license? Blanket restriction seems excessive. https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/ukraine.txt https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/...

zoobab 7y ago

Time to fix the protocols of Cyberspace. HTTP and other centralized protocols are the weapon of choice of the powerful players: large corporations and states.

finnjohnsen2 7y ago

I would think VPN solve this problem?

cnst 7y ago

http://We.Are.Sanctioned.RU/ http://We.Are.Sanctioned.RU/?

ilaksh 7y ago

A truly decentralized GitHub replacement would not have this problem. One such is called mango.

dill2019 7y ago

Are you a North Korean of Iranian descent living in Crimea? Are you an American of Italian descent living in Crimea? Are you a Russian who went to new colony to live in? Are you an Ukrainian who hoped that Russians will help make you young again? At expense to people you prefer to ignore. Or are you Ukrainian who wanted but couldn't flee the occupation? All these are different circumstances. Only one represents the case where law has undesired side effect.

kbad10 7y ago

This actions basically demands a de-centralized blockchain-based repository storage system.