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Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

439 points by marolafm 7y ago

komarrian 7y ago
This is outrageous "Tsunami Democratic" has not coordinated any terrorist attack nor has an attack taken place in Spain... They are abusing antiterrorist laws to quash peaceful protests and GitHub is complying.
- jarfil 7y ago
  "Peaceful" does not mean destroying the streets, setting cars on fire, throwing incendiary devices at the cops, or bullying those who don't agree with you.
  - JaumeGreen 7y ago
    There are multiple organizations, each preparing their own mobilizations. Tsunami has only launched (AFAIK) the airport blockade. There are the CDRs, PicnicxRepublica, Omnium, ANC,... And probably many more. In fact there are suspicions about tsunami not being "good enough" by some independentists. Don't attribute to one what comes from another.
  - gerardvivancos 7y ago
    The argument for self defence still holds. Just look at the police's actions these days. Is anyone here interested in the examples? Anyway, there's a huge leap from riots (and, please, look at riots in other countries...) to terrorism.
- deltron3030 7y ago
  Don't forget that Github is Microsoft.
- zentropia 7y ago
  At least they ordered to occupy the airport and that alone is a serious offense.
  - komarrian 7y ago
    Even if what you say is true, it is not terrorism...
- GonzaloQuero 7y ago
  I've been living out of Spain for the last three years, but these kinds of things make me think that we're going back to the "everything's ETA" years.
- fluffything 7y ago
  Arms dealers do not coordinate terrorist attacks either, that does not mean that they are not partially responsible for them. Either way, GitHub is only complying with Spanish law, and that laws existence is not GitHub's fault, but the fault of the spanish people.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  > abusing antiterrorist laws No “abuse” necessary: this has been the plan all along. It’s taken a little longer than expected, but things are finally falling into place now.
justinclift 7y ago
Not 100% sure of the repo name, as it's not displayed in the document. At a guess this is the one, and it still seems to be on GitHub: https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu... The GitHub pages hosted website still seems to be online too: https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io Perhaps GitHub is publishing the request, but isn't complying with the takedown?
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  The readme for the same repo (this GitHub owned repo) says the following: > [we] limit the geographic scope of the takedown when possible and include that as part of the notification
- philipwhiuk 7y ago
  They've taken down the app repo, but left the website repo I think.
  - ricardbejarano 7y ago
    Yes, but the website redirects to http://82.223.97.47/ http://82.223.97.47/, a "site was taken down by the judicial authority" site, if you are connecting to tsunamidemocratic.github.io from Spain.
- philipwhiuk 7y ago
  Anyone in Spain got any context on TD and the current political context?
  - enriquto 7y ago
    There's a massive ongoing police operation to suppress the catalan independence movement. The spanish paramilitary is trying to take down the source code of an app that people use to coordinate peaceful demonstrations. They say that this is to "fight terrorism" which is ridiculous, albeit there are already several people preemptively incarcerated, falsely accused of terrorism (still waiting for a trial).
bilekas 7y ago
This is actually really annoying, it kind of motivates me to help.
demarq 7y ago
A) A little late now, since as is stated in the letter people are already mirroring the repo B) can the app really be spreading that fast, if people are having to download it from github, and override their devices security settings to install it? Also the words "serious public disorder" send chills down my spine for some reason. It sounds like it's right out of some dystopian movie.
- jannes 7y ago
  > Also the words "serious public disorder" send chills down my spine for some reason. It's unclear who translated the letter. It may have been a github employee. In the original it says "graves desórdenes públicos" which could also be translated as "grave public disturbances". The word "desorden" definitely doesn't have a medical connotation as "disorder" has in English.
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    Doesn't "public disorder" in English have the same meaning as in Spanish here (i.e. not medical)? For example, https://batasnatin.com/law-library/criminal-law/crimes-and-penalties/1061-public-disorders.html https://batasnatin.com/law-library/criminal-law/crimes-and-p...
- mmtml 7y ago
  The app is spreading fast because it was in google play (if I recall correctly) before being taken down. Also there are many telegram groups that people use to learn about how to download and install it
  - joking 7y ago
    it's never have been officially on google play for obvious reasons, someone must be accountable to publish an app on google play, and if you give fake data you are going to have your app removed. It's also one of the serious security problems with this app, you can't have an official source, and forcing people to install through direct apk installation, it can be replaced by a rogue modified version very easily.
oarsinsync 7y ago
Looks like the app repo is at https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami It appears to still be online from UK, dunno about ES
- ricardbejarano 7y ago
  Repositories are hosted on GitHub, and unless GitHub explicitly blocked those with Spanish source IP addresses, there's no way a Spanish ISP can block us access to a repo unless they block GitHub altogether.
  - oarsinsync 7y ago
    Correct. Github was issued with a takedown notice in this instance. Checkout their readme[0] where it states: > When we receive a notice from an official government agency that identifies illegal content and specifies the source of the illegality, we ... limit the geographic scope of the takedown when possible and include that as part of the notification [0] https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/README.m...
- jannes 7y ago
  Still online with a Spanish IP as of now
- jarfil 7y ago
  That one seems to be a cloned repo, the blocked one is at https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu... It returns a "Repository unavailable in your location" message, which is kind of ironic since the website itself is still accessible from https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io
  - oarsinsync 7y ago
    https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami is the repo linked to by the website at https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu..., and there have been no further commits to the website in the last 12 days, while the takedown is from the last 24 hours. Based on your comment, it suggests that the takedown request is for the website, not the application repo, which is interesting in a way.
lrmunoz 7y ago
The title is misleading. Alternative correct title: "Spanish judge orders to take down Github repository"
- gerardvivancos 7y ago
  Which judge? Can you name the judge? It's the Guardia Civil (police) requesting the takedown.
  - portillo 7y ago
    It was ordered by the "Juzgado Central de Instrucción número 6" of the "Audiencia Nacional" which is presided by Manuel Maria Garcia-Castellon. The police cannot request taking-down a website without a judicial order.
    - gerardvivancos 7y ago
      Ok, so he's the same one who ordered detentions on 9 Catalan independence supporters under the accusations that they were preparing terrorist actions, even though there is no evidence on that? It seems like he sees terrorism everywhere when he looks at Catalans.
pmarin 7y ago
The title is intentionally misleading. It's not the government but the judicial authorities, in Spain we have distribution of power. From the take down notice: > In Spain, judicial authorities are responsible for the supervision and control of websites in order to prevent the dissemination of criminal content as it is specified in the article 35 of our Law 34/2002 and the article 13 of our Criminal Procedure Code.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  I am not sure if the terminology is used differently in Spain (pre-translation of course) but that would be parsed as government by the US standards even with separation of power given the citation of specific laws by said government. Granted here it is used as the omnibus term as opposed to its own division.
  - couchand 7y ago
    In parliamentary systems, the term "government" frequently refers to the current governing party or coalition.
- kolanos 7y ago
  How is a judicial authority not a part of the government?
  - ahbyb 7y ago
    Seems like an American point of view to see it like that. The government does not control what the judges rule, that's what it means.
    - RHSeeger 7y ago
      It's not so much an American "point of view" as it is their definition of the word. It appears that Spain defines the government as the executive branch, while the US (and several other English speaking countries) defines it as an umbrella covering the various branches (in the US; executive, judicial, legislative).
giancarlostoro 7y ago
Whats embarassing here is that Spain now joins the likes of China and Russia regardless of whom in the government sent the request, at least in the context of government takedowns. https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/ https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/ This is quite shameful.
- pmarin 7y ago
  It not the government but the judicial authorities, we have distribution of power. It's embarrassing that the title is intentionally misleading.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    I specifically said regardless of the branch (I wrote regardless of whom) of government it is embarassing. A free people should have the right to protest. If this is aiding terrorism that is a whole other boat.
    - kiliancs 7y ago
      I think in some languages the word for "government" is used to refer to the executive branch or its head more directly, whereas in English it's often used to refer to its multiple branches.
      - squiggleblaz 7y ago
        Actually, in English the word "government" is used to refer to the executive branch in places that have the Westminster tradition. For instance, whereas an American might say "the administration condemned those who eat cheese with a fork", an Australian would say "the government has condemned those who eat cheese with a fork". (I think Americans are more careful about distinguishing the state and federal administrations compared to an Australian, who is generally pretty lax about such technicalities in between elections.)
  - komarrian 7y ago
banjodeluxe 7y ago
For a bit of context I'll leave my two cents here trying to be as objective as possible, leaving politics out of it as much as I can. Following the judge's veredict of the Catalan politicians who coordinated the "proces", or series of political movements to attempt to secede Catalonia from Spain; demonstrations have arisen within Catalonia protesting said judgement - the politicians were essentially deemed as conspirators against the Spanish constitution and have been given varying prision sentences. Parts of those demonstrations have turned violent: clashes with police trying to stop blockages of streets and railroads, burning of cars and dumpsters, etc... The Catalonian government's stance on this is difficult: as a pro-independence government they're trying to promote actions against the veredict but in some situations it has gotten out of hand and turned violent - something a government can't really condone. Tsunami Democratic is an organisation that has been coordinating demonstrations and developed an app that allows people to know where demonstrations are happening, etc - whether these demonstrations turn violent or not is officially out of their control; the Spanish authorities (in this case, a judge in charge of investigating the circumstances around the more violent parts of the rioting) obviously believe that the app is aiding in coordinating violent attacks - whether that's terrorism or just violent rioting is something I don't know and I'm unsure we'll ever fully know. That's the context, at the end of the day it's a national government asking for a repo to be taken down in accordance to the laws of their country, you might disagree with it happening fundamentally but its nothing new, the Github repo for takedowns has plenty - although they seem to usually be coming from China/Russia.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > developed an app that allows people to know where demonstrations are happening Sounds like a bit of welcomed transparency to me. The Spanish police, concerned citizenry, etc. can use the app just as much as anyone else, to prevent things from getting out of hand. (*Edited for consistency with newly-provided info in this HN thread.)
  - jannes 7y ago
    I believe the app requires you to be invited via QR code by an existing member to gain access. Of course, the police would be able to infiltrate this with a bit of effort.
kragen 7y ago
Governments† burn libraries. Don't create central points of vulnerability to coercion. That multiplies the effectiveness of coercive force. Create decentralized systems. Git, not GitHub. Bitcoin, not Citibank. Email, not Gmail — although we still need to free email from DNS. Never forget how the Spanish Inquisition — the origin, in the West, of these sorts of degraded "laws" against "criminal content" — treated the Jewish people and the keepers of the quipu. Reaching back further, remember how Qin Shi Huang treated the Mohists, infinitely his superiors in every respect. People will say it's justified because the Catalan separatists are fascists, terrorists, pedophiles, or whatever. It's not justified. The rulers of al-Andalus were no angels either, but their abuses were nothing compared to the genocidal nightmares the Inquisition concealed with its censorship. Today we are building the systems we will live in tomorrow. Do you want a future of a thousand Inquisitions or a thousand Miltons and a thousand Humboldts? Do you want Jefferson's future or Stalin's? A new Dark Age or a new Enlightenment? Will a thousand schools of thought contend, or will the people of the world suffer a sanitized environment devoid of "degenerate art" and "bourgeois ideals"? Will they remember what really happened, teasing the truth out of biased accounts written from many points of view, or will they only be able to read history as written by the victors, the version whose "correct ideology" earns it the censor's imprimatur? It depends on how vulnerable our systems make human rights, and in particular the right to knowledge. As a hacker, you decide what tomorrow's books are made of. Will they be printed on celluloid, which goes up like gunpowder with a spark? Or will they be etched in bright sheets of stainless steel? Because governments burn libraries. But cypherpunks write code. † That's "states" to you Brits. [edited extensively]
- samuel 7y ago
  > The rulers of el-Andalus were no angels either, but their abuses were nothing compared to the censorship-protected horrors of the Inquisition. That's not true. The Almohads, unlike the almoravids, forced christian and jews to convert, under threat of death.
  - kragen 7y ago
    The Spanish Inquisition did all that and much worse. How much Moorish blood remains in the people of Spain today? How many conversos did the Inquisitors burn at the stake, generations after their ancestors converted, on the strength of rumormongering by jealous neighbors? The Christian and Jewish traditions — clerics, holy books, writing systems, and all — survived centuries of Muslim rule. What today survives of the records of the Inka? Where are the Maya codices today? And the Inka and the Maya fared much better than the Caribs and the Quilmes. Bartolomé de las Casas relates stories of cruelty beyond belief, inhuman monstrosities beyond imagining, atrocities whose publication he delayed for more than thirty years, finally publishing pseudonymously. How many such true accounts have been forgotten because they were denied the Inquisitor's imprimatur? But the Aztecs' human sacrifices to the sun god, used to justify the bringing of "civilization" to the "savages", remain notorious today.
Schiphol 7y ago
Some commentators are pointing out, not implausibly imho, that the Spanish government is pushing the terrorism accusation against the pro-secession movement as a way to tap into terrorism-related extradition agreements in Europe. Right now there are a few Catalonian political exiles in Belgium and other countries. By the way, Tsunami Democràtic explicitly rejects violent action: https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io/noviolencia.html https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io/noviolencia.html
- GonzaloQuero 7y ago
  Terrorism is also a quick way of instilling fear in Spain, as most people around 30 years old still remember the times when we had three active terrorist groups, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're using it just to spark those feelings in voters. After all, there's another election coming in two weeks.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  > Tsunami Democràtic explicitly rejects violent action This must be sarcasm. Yeah, they reject violent action at the same time that explicitly provide all the necessary logistic support for violent action, like telling people where is the police in real time, (the same policemen and policewomen that are ambushed later), they also slowly introduce and train naive youngsters in the exciting world of crime and urban war, baby steps, and send people to burn the streets, lose their eyes and (with a little luck) die for the cause and create the long desired martyrs that will come some day. Snakes with butterfly wings and speaking softly are still snakes.
  - tassl 7y ago
    > This must be sarcasm. Yeah, they reject violent action at the same time that explicitly provide all the necessary logistic support for violent action, like telling people where is the police in real time, (the same policemen and policewomen that are ambushed later) THAT might be sarcasm. There is no terrorism or violence implicit in informing people of police location in real time. > they also slowly introduce and train naive youngsters in the exciting world of crime and urban war That is false. > send people to burn the streets, lose their eyes. That is also false. The second part is quite disturbing, putting the blame where it should not be. > and (with a little luck) die for the cause and create the long desired martyrs that will come some day That's disgusting.
GrumpyNl 7y ago
We need hosts who will leave this up.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  Or just publish the signatures in the newspaper and let various sketchy hosts do their thing.
samuel 7y ago
It's the best it could happen to anyone who wishes to use the app. People installing binary blobs from anonymous github repos which are politically charged while granting location permissions... what could possibly go wrong?
rehasu 7y ago
Why would anybody have the "smart idea" to put anti-government source code on a centralized source code management website? This was probably on purpose to gain some media attention...
- sascha_sl 7y ago
  I love how normal crushing dissent is to you. This is the new normal :/
  - leppr 7y ago
    New normal compared to when? Since when have republics tolerated competition?
    - sambull 7y ago
      When presented with a competing peoples, they generally look to destroy their food supplies first. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buffalo-killers/482349/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buf...
- sigotirandolas 7y ago
  They also have, or used to have, their own domains and servers, but those can be blocked at the (national) ISP level rather quickly. On the other hand by mixing their content in centralized websites, they need to send takedown requests to every single one of them, since they would block legitimate traffic otherwise[1]. It's basically a workaround for IP and TLS SNI blocking. Of course this is all to make it simple for non-techies to access their website / application. If they required using a VPN/Tor their adoption would probably plummet. [1] Actually they blocked an IPFS gateway before so it's more like "well-known centralized websites".
  - rehasu 7y ago
    If I host a web server, and the only access is the ssh port, how should anybody guess that I use it to host a git repo that you and I work on together? More is not needed. Might even work on public clouds since you shouldn't really raise any attention this way.
RustyBucket 7y ago
The app has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It is used to coordinate a thousand or so semi drunk teens who clash with police, burn trash containers, block airport and highways for fun. Those who wanted to express their dis-/agreement with gothernment position had several half a million people peaceful protests.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
DangerousPie 7y ago
It was a warrant issued by a Spanish court that Github legally had to comply with. You can be angry at the court for issuing such a warrant but you can't be angry at Github for complying. They are not above the law, even if they may disagree with it.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  You can certainly be angry at Github for complying. People break the law all the time in order to do what is moral. Look at Chelsea Manning who's in jail right now for just that.
  - DangerousPie 7y ago
    This may be very selfish of me but I'd prefer if Github didn't get shut down over some political argument that I'm not a party in. It would also involve Github taking sides in a very divise political issue that is far from black and white.
    - input_sh 7y ago
      What mechanism could a Spanish court use to shut down an American multi-billion dollar company? At worst, it could get GitHub blocked in Spain, or a local Microsoft office might get a stern look or two before Spain renews its Office 365 contract or whatever.
      - Karunamon 7y ago
        GitHub being shut down in Spain for ignoring a court order is more harmful than one repo being blocked by a court order, imo. There seems to be this belief in the atmosphere that companies of all sizes should blithely ignore content takedowns when the alternative is large fines or exclusion from a country. This is not a realistic demand and you will be disappointed every time if you maintain it.
      - diggan 7y ago
        Interesting but off-topic none-the-less: lots of the regional governments in Spain is using open source software for their offices, like LibreOffice. I know both Valencia and Catalan governments are vocal about using and developing open source software.
mindB 7y ago
Github will not be shutdown over any action they do or do not take in Spain. The worst that can happen to Github is that they are prevented from doing business in Spain. Given how strongly Spain has come down against freedom of expression on the Catalonia issue, Github is making it very clear by taking this action that freedom of expression is not one of their values. Let me repeat, Spain has come down hard enough against freedom of expression that I do not believe it is ethical for Github to continue operating in the country. I highly value freedom of expression, and it is especially important to me that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds to that value as well, and fights to preserve that freedom on their platform. This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- derp_dee_derp 7y ago
  > This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future. I see you've linked your Github in your profile. Why not put your money where your mouth is and delete your Github account now?
  - mindB 7y ago
    I'm weighing doing just that. The problem is that the primary language I use (Julia) has most packages heavily centralized on Github and even specifically designed their central package repository to be simpler to use if your package is hosted on Github. Migrating repositories I maintain to another service is a slam-dunk, but being unable to easily contribute to Julia packages hosted on Github would hamper not just my work but others who may have benefited from my contribution.
- reallydontask 7y ago
  > I highly value freedom of expression, and to me it is especially important to me that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds to that value as well. This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future. Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws? Most governments ( no doubt, yours too), want companies operating under their jurisdiction to obey their laws (Things get complicated on the web but the basic premise holds), to say nothing of the fact that freedom of speech is not absolute (not condoning or condemning the current action)
mihemihe 7y ago
Don't get the wrong message because they use the term Democratic and play being the victims. Majority of people in Catalonia do not support secession. Those are the real victims, the 50%-ish which are silent, and suffering every day not being able to declare in public their love for their country, Spain and Catalonia, their region. They used this app to organize violent riots, taking advantage of the pacifist demonstrations organized by the pro-secession political parties. The big problem in Catalonia is exactly that the ratio is around 50%-50%, but the status quo is that Catalonia is part of Spain, so the pro-secession will keep protesting, and the government shutting them down, and more important, defending the 50%+ of Spaniards which live in Catalonia and want to remain part of Spain. No one talk about these ones!
- mschuster91 7y ago
  It's similar to Brexit. No matter what the government does, 50% of people will be utterly pissed off. But the biggest problem is that, unlike the UK where Scotland was allowed to hold a proper referendum in 2014, the Spanish government is not only not allowing holding a real referendum that would settle the issue for the next few years, but also prosecuting those responsible for the 2017 referendum with extremely harsh sentences (13 years, that's on the upper range for murder in Germany, for comparison!) and repressing the pro-secession movement brutally. Fuck the Spanish government hard for this.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Arkhaine_kupo 7y ago
    Ok lets break this down. Its not similar to Brexit, United kingdom is a union of different countries, Spain is a single country. The UK allowed a referendum because it has to. Spain voted its constitution in 1978, that means most of the voters are still alive and it got ratified in every community including Barcelona. So there are people protesting now that the constitution does not imminently allow a referendum that voted in favour of that clause being there 40 years ago. They got prosecuted for crimes such as sedecion, which is like treason light, and misuse of public funds. I dont see how German murder charges are relevant here. Politicians misusing taxes should be heavily punished regardless of country, corruption is eroding the already fragile public sector and safety net we have. Also Spain is a democracy, if they want a referendum all the have to do is find the votes for it in national parliment. Join with the basque and galician sececionists. Find allies in far left groups who affect self determination by identitarian groups, and vote it. What you cannot claim is that 51% of Catalans = democracy and 66% of Spanish congress = not democracy. They are simply thresholds, and Spain is more stingent than most. But i would argue 66% avoids Brexit like votes so it is preferable in the age of internet manipulation where hitting vulnerable masses of people is accesible through Cambridge analytica type election manipulation.
akimball 7y ago
So where is there a fork of the repository?
droithomme 7y ago
I wonder if any people against the Catalan independence revolution were in favor of the Arab spring movement, which also used mobile apps to coordinate actions against government. And if so what the distinction is.
segmondy 7y ago
You know what I'll like to see, maybe I'll build it when I get the bandwidth. A system that let's you mass publish across many places at once. You can publish to github, bitbucket, gitlabs, netlify, neocities, heroku, reddit, HN, youtube, blogger, facebook etc, like 100 different places. Then any govt that wants to orders a take down, has to reach out to all those places, but the main thing of course is that most of these places shouldn't be in US, some should be in EU, Russia, China. The idea being that bureaucracy will get in the way of taking some down.
- jaggirs 7y ago
  Also applies to content uploads from creators. If instead of only uploading to youtube they automatically did so for a variety of platforms, youtube's monopolistic position would be reduced somewhat. Also reduces the likelihood of your content being stolen and profited from on another platform.
sidewndr46 7y ago
If this is real, I'm laughing at the fact that they list Microsoft as a separate entity. They must be completely clueless
aregue 7y ago
I wonder if this letter is truly from Guardia Civil or is it from someone else impersonating it. The content reads amateurish, such as the claim "Tsunami Democratic's main goal is coordinating these riots and terrorist actions by using any possible mean" without refearing to any specific actions or events. The assertion that Tsunami Democratic has been declared a terrorist organisation by National High Court is simply not true, and no official communicate would reference the media as a source. I wonder if this is the reason why the content is still available on Github (at least from Norway)
- gerardvivancos 7y ago
  Honestly, I would not rule out the Guardia Civil from writing amateurish content.
dasloop 7y ago
Spanish telecommunications operators also blocked access to the Tsunami Democràtic website a few days ago. In both cases due to an ongoing investigation, not based on any conviction.
- gerardvivancos 7y ago
  What's incredible is that a police order is enough to take down an app or website, without any court intervention. Not that Spanish courts are to be trusted on matters like this, but still...
  - throwaway8756 7y ago
    Well, this is pretty normal I'd say. It happens all the time with many different crime investigations... I wouldn't attack a country's justice system that gratuitously.
    - gerardvivancos 7y ago
      There’s a whole lot of attack surface on the Spanish justice system, to be honest
mikece 7y ago
Are there GitLab instances in neutral countries which are only accessible by Tor? I realize that won't be the most user friendly way of distributing info/apps but could be a start.
- frenchyatwork 7y ago
  How about just a GitLab instance in a neutral country that is accessible by Tor? The perfect doesn't haven't to be the enemy of the good.
brycehamrick 7y ago
Open source projects at large need to move to decentralized, censor-resistant Git hosting. Some interesting projects in this area to watch are Ellcrys and Gitchain.
throwaway8756 7y ago
There are two different issues here (looking at the comments) - Github blocking the repo: Not sure if many of you know it, but the App was involved "directly or indirectly" on organising demonstrations with the purpose of blocking certain infrastructures, like airports. So I'm not really surprised that it got blocked. - Catalonian independence movement: For those who are not up-to-date, this is a very complex topic. There are not good or bad people here. Spanish government is preventing that the country gets dismembered, specially by the rich regions who prefer not to support the poor ones (originally, they started the movement with the phrase "Spain steal from us"). Those politicians incarcerated broke the law in several occasions even after being warned, so the court decision is understandable (even if I don't agree with it). They are not the ones who need to solve a political problem, only apply the law. In regards to solving this conflict, no side is willing to step back, so I'm afraid that this issue won't be solved on my generation. Spanish citizens strongly believe that they all (including all regions) should be able to decide the future of their country. Separatist believe that only them (Catalans) should be able to decide, so here lies the problem. The situation is not comparable to Scotland as Catalonia was never a separate entity, it was part of the Kingdom of Aragon centuries ago. There was not prior agreement between countries, in contrast with Scotland and England.
xrd 7y ago
Is there any technical reason why an APK cannot be hosted on IPFS? I've read so many discussions where the big problem with IPFS is that content does not get distributed across the nodes fully and is unavailable. This event seems like a situation where the usage would support and guarantee availability. Is Dat another option?
JohnFen 7y ago
This makes me feel even better about my decision to abandon GitHub.
knolax 7y ago
But muh western values! If Russia had done the same exact thing this thread would be filled with jingoists calling for sanctions or war. Remember that the next time somebody tries to goad you into tribalism with ideology, the ideology to them is a means, not an end.
- maze-le 7y ago
  You are correct, but at this point in time, we have to ask: "What ideology?" -- Ideologically most systems are the same: Cleptocratic oligarchies. They might have local flavours here and there -- communist, authoritarian, market-liberal, social-democratic -- but basically they are the same.
devtul 7y ago
TBP responses come to mind instantly.
mirimir 7y ago
It's clear that Microsoft Spain must comply with Spanish government orders. That's just reality. It's also clear that using GitHub for Tsunami Democràtic was a poor choice. Because GitHub is obviously vulnerable to such takedowns. Self hosting on a more or less "bulletproof" server would have made far more sense. If I were doing it, I'd probably use a Tor onion server, with clearnet gateways via disposable VPS, using domain names that were difficult to revoke.
- FrojoS 7y ago
  > It's also clear that using GitHub for Tsunami Democràtic was a poor choice. It created publicity for the movement.
  - mirimir 7y ago
    Did it really? How? I mean, how many non geeks have ever heard of GitHub? However the project got publicity. it could have used a different backend.
AcerbicZero 7y ago
The drawbacks to multinational corporations are becoming somewhat untenable.
longliveTrump 7y ago
free Catalonia
davidito 7y ago
Native speaker of Castillian Spanish here. IMO the most critical sentence in this judicial order was mistranslated by GitHub, changing our understanding of the government's request and casting GitHub's response in a more negative light (if you believe information and communication tools should be free.) The original language in the last paragraph is "...para solicitar la retención del contenido y los datos relacionados con la investigación antes mencionada." The Github English translation of this is (caps are mine) "...in order to request both WITHHOLDING the content and data related to the aforementioned investigation." However, I believe a more accurate translation is "...in order to request PRESERVATION of the content and data related to the aforementioned investigation." If you look up the Spanish verb "retener", it can have, broadly, two applicable meanings in this case: "withhold" or "preserve". I don't believe the language in the order should have been interpreted as "withhold", because they are ordering to perform an action on the content AND the "data related to the [...] investigation." This would be IP addresses, access timestamps, GitHub account information, etc., I would presume. It doesn't make much sense to "withhold" that sort of data. It makes more sense to "preserve" it. To me, this appears to be a request to preserve data, not to remove data. A case can therefore be made that the GitHub decision to remove content went above and beyond what was expressed in the received written order.
- ETHisso2017 7y ago
  So retener is like retention?
  - CrazyStat 7y ago
    It's a verb, so retain, but yes.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      In English too, you can retain something to have it, but you can technically also retain to mean "withhold," in the sense that you are keeping it secure or intact and refusing to divulge it. It's not a very common usage in English though.
kd3 7y ago
We are fortunate enough to be given another example of the dangers of centralized cloud computing. It is extremely risky to use services like Github. We saw the same thing recently with Adobe blocking Venezuela.
rolltiide 7y ago
who cares where is the mirror?
aatharuv 7y ago
I'd never heard of Tsunami Democratic. Now I've heard of it thanks to the Spanish State.
notlukesky 7y ago
While currently Catalan separatism is a non-starter there are issues in the areas that they claim as theirs as the Valencians consider themselves separate to the Catalans. It is the nesting doll situation of splinter separatist groups. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaverism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaverism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencian_nationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencian_nationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Countries Ultimately reminds me of the Monty Python skit from the Life of Brian - The People's Front of Judea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4
gerardnll 7y ago
Everything now fits as ‘terrorism’ thanks to some changes in the law. Awful. And accusing Tsunami Democràtic of criminal organization is tremendous. The Spanish Government has lost its mind. (Ah! Elections coming up in less than two weeks)
- tassl 7y ago
  After all, they accused some puppeteers of glorifying terrorism for a play against police manipulating evidence in Spain [1]. [1] https://elpais.com/politica/2016/06/28/actualidad/1467119956_320215.amp.html https://elpais.com/politica/2016/06/28/actualidad/1467119956...
- vunie 7y ago
  > Everything now fits as ‘terrorism’ thanks to some changes in the law. That ship sailed when the US government classified an attack on a military ship in a conflict zone as terrorism. I mean WTF! These days I read terrorism as "things X government doesn't like". You'll be surprised of how much sense news makes.
kimsant 7y ago
Keyword "Terrorism" is a backdoor used by some to pervert law based democratic systems. GitHub should ask further information regarding this statement: '''Tsunami Democratic has been confirmed as a criminal organization driving people to commit terrorist attacks. Tsunami Democratic's main goal is coordinating these riots and terrorist actions by using any possible mean'''
berkes 7y ago
This seems like a good use case for the distributed web. There's a copy on IPFS already: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmUFcAKdPUnZwz5AZA6gANbqVfADXw61znPosMJ7qB8uRw/ https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmUFcAKdPUnZwz5AZA6gANbqVfADXw61znPosMJ...

439 points by marolafm 7y ago

This is outrageous "Tsunami Democratic" has not coordinated any terrorist attack nor has an attack taken place in Spain... They are abusing antiterrorist laws to quash peaceful protests and GitHub is complying.

jarfil 7y ago
"Peaceful" does not mean destroying the streets, setting cars on fire, throwing incendiary devices at the cops, or bullying those who don't agree with you.
- JaumeGreen 7y ago
  There are multiple organizations, each preparing their own mobilizations. Tsunami has only launched (AFAIK) the airport blockade. There are the CDRs, PicnicxRepublica, Omnium, ANC,... And probably many more. In fact there are suspicions about tsunami not being "good enough" by some independentists. Don't attribute to one what comes from another.
- gerardvivancos 7y ago
  The argument for self defence still holds. Just look at the police's actions these days. Is anyone here interested in the examples? Anyway, there's a huge leap from riots (and, please, look at riots in other countries...) to terrorism.
deltron3030 7y ago
Don't forget that Github is Microsoft.
zentropia 7y ago
At least they ordered to occupy the airport and that alone is a serious offense.
- komarrian 7y ago
  Even if what you say is true, it is not terrorism...
GonzaloQuero 7y ago
I've been living out of Spain for the last three years, but these kinds of things make me think that we're going back to the "everything's ETA" years.
fluffything 7y ago
Arms dealers do not coordinate terrorist attacks either, that does not mean that they are not partially responsible for them. Either way, GitHub is only complying with Spanish law, and that laws existence is not GitHub's fault, but the fault of the spanish people.
commandlinefan 7y ago
> abusing antiterrorist laws No “abuse” necessary: this has been the plan all along. It’s taken a little longer than expected, but things are finally falling into place now.

justinclift 7y ago

Not 100% sure of the repo name, as it's not displayed in the document. At a guess this is the one, and it still seems to be on GitHub: https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu... The GitHub pages hosted website still seems to be online too: https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io Perhaps GitHub is publishing the request, but isn't complying with the takedown?

giancarlostoro 7y ago
The readme for the same repo (this GitHub owned repo) says the following: > [we] limit the geographic scope of the takedown when possible and include that as part of the notification
philipwhiuk 7y ago
They've taken down the app repo, but left the website repo I think.
- ricardbejarano 7y ago
  Yes, but the website redirects to http://82.223.97.47/ http://82.223.97.47/, a "site was taken down by the judicial authority" site, if you are connecting to tsunamidemocratic.github.io from Spain.
philipwhiuk 7y ago
Anyone in Spain got any context on TD and the current political context?
- enriquto 7y ago
  There's a massive ongoing police operation to suppress the catalan independence movement. The spanish paramilitary is trying to take down the source code of an app that people use to coordinate peaceful demonstrations. They say that this is to "fight terrorism" which is ridiculous, albeit there are already several people preemptively incarcerated, falsely accused of terrorism (still waiting for a trial).

bilekas 7y ago

This is actually really annoying, it kind of motivates me to help.

demarq 7y ago

A) A little late now, since as is stated in the letter people are already mirroring the repo B) can the app really be spreading that fast, if people are having to download it from github, and override their devices security settings to install it? Also the words "serious public disorder" send chills down my spine for some reason. It sounds like it's right out of some dystopian movie.

jannes 7y ago
> Also the words "serious public disorder" send chills down my spine for some reason. It's unclear who translated the letter. It may have been a github employee. In the original it says "graves desórdenes públicos" which could also be translated as "grave public disturbances". The word "desorden" definitely doesn't have a medical connotation as "disorder" has in English.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Doesn't "public disorder" in English have the same meaning as in Spanish here (i.e. not medical)? For example, https://batasnatin.com/law-library/criminal-law/crimes-and-penalties/1061-public-disorders.html https://batasnatin.com/law-library/criminal-law/crimes-and-p...
mmtml 7y ago
The app is spreading fast because it was in google play (if I recall correctly) before being taken down. Also there are many telegram groups that people use to learn about how to download and install it
- joking 7y ago
  it's never have been officially on google play for obvious reasons, someone must be accountable to publish an app on google play, and if you give fake data you are going to have your app removed. It's also one of the serious security problems with this app, you can't have an official source, and forcing people to install through direct apk installation, it can be replaced by a rogue modified version very easily.

oarsinsync 7y ago

Looks like the app repo is at https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami It appears to still be online from UK, dunno about ES

ricardbejarano 7y ago
Repositories are hosted on GitHub, and unless GitHub explicitly blocked those with Spanish source IP addresses, there's no way a Spanish ISP can block us access to a repo unless they block GitHub altogether.
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  Correct. Github was issued with a takedown notice in this instance. Checkout their readme[0] where it states: > When we receive a notice from an official government agency that identifies illegal content and specifies the source of the illegality, we ... limit the geographic scope of the takedown when possible and include that as part of the notification [0] https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/README.m...
jannes 7y ago
Still online with a Spanish IP as of now
jarfil 7y ago
That one seems to be a cloned repo, the blocked one is at https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu... It returns a "Repository unavailable in your location" message, which is kind of ironic since the website itself is still accessible from https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami https://github.com/s3rrallonga/tsunami is the repo linked to by the website at https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.github.io https://github.com/tsunamidemocratic/tsunamidemocratic.githu..., and there have been no further commits to the website in the last 12 days, while the takedown is from the last 24 hours. Based on your comment, it suggests that the takedown request is for the website, not the application repo, which is interesting in a way.

lrmunoz 7y ago

The title is misleading. Alternative correct title: "Spanish judge orders to take down Github repository"

gerardvivancos 7y ago
Which judge? Can you name the judge? It's the Guardia Civil (police) requesting the takedown.
- portillo 7y ago
  It was ordered by the "Juzgado Central de Instrucción número 6" of the "Audiencia Nacional" which is presided by Manuel Maria Garcia-Castellon. The police cannot request taking-down a website without a judicial order.
  - gerardvivancos 7y ago
    Ok, so he's the same one who ordered detentions on 9 Catalan independence supporters under the accusations that they were preparing terrorist actions, even though there is no evidence on that? It seems like he sees terrorism everywhere when he looks at Catalans.

pmarin 7y ago

The title is intentionally misleading. It's not the government but the judicial authorities, in Spain we have distribution of power. From the take down notice: > In Spain, judicial authorities are responsible for the supervision and control of websites in order to prevent the dissemination of criminal content as it is specified in the article 35 of our Law 34/2002 and the article 13 of our Criminal Procedure Code.

Nasrudith 7y ago
I am not sure if the terminology is used differently in Spain (pre-translation of course) but that would be parsed as government by the US standards even with separation of power given the citation of specific laws by said government. Granted here it is used as the omnibus term as opposed to its own division.
- couchand 7y ago
  In parliamentary systems, the term "government" frequently refers to the current governing party or coalition.
kolanos 7y ago
How is a judicial authority not a part of the government?
- ahbyb 7y ago
  Seems like an American point of view to see it like that. The government does not control what the judges rule, that's what it means.
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    It's not so much an American "point of view" as it is their definition of the word. It appears that Spain defines the government as the executive branch, while the US (and several other English speaking countries) defines it as an umbrella covering the various branches (in the US; executive, judicial, legislative).

giancarlostoro 7y ago

Whats embarassing here is that Spain now joins the likes of China and Russia regardless of whom in the government sent the request, at least in the context of government takedowns. https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/ https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/ This is quite shameful.

pmarin 7y ago
It not the government but the judicial authorities, we have distribution of power. It's embarrassing that the title is intentionally misleading.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  I specifically said regardless of the branch (I wrote regardless of whom) of government it is embarassing. A free people should have the right to protest. If this is aiding terrorism that is a whole other boat.
  - kiliancs 7y ago
    I think in some languages the word for "government" is used to refer to the executive branch or its head more directly, whereas in English it's often used to refer to its multiple branches.
    - squiggleblaz 7y ago
      Actually, in English the word "government" is used to refer to the executive branch in places that have the Westminster tradition. For instance, whereas an American might say "the administration condemned those who eat cheese with a fork", an Australian would say "the government has condemned those who eat cheese with a fork". (I think Americans are more careful about distinguishing the state and federal administrations compared to an Australian, who is generally pretty lax about such technicalities in between elections.)
- komarrian 7y ago

banjodeluxe 7y ago

For a bit of context I'll leave my two cents here trying to be as objective as possible, leaving politics out of it as much as I can. Following the judge's veredict of the Catalan politicians who coordinated the "proces", or series of political movements to attempt to secede Catalonia from Spain; demonstrations have arisen within Catalonia protesting said judgement - the politicians were essentially deemed as conspirators against the Spanish constitution and have been given varying prision sentences. Parts of those demonstrations have turned violent: clashes with police trying to stop blockages of streets and railroads, burning of cars and dumpsters, etc... The Catalonian government's stance on this is difficult: as a pro-independence government they're trying to promote actions against the veredict but in some situations it has gotten out of hand and turned violent - something a government can't really condone. Tsunami Democratic is an organisation that has been coordinating demonstrations and developed an app that allows people to know where demonstrations are happening, etc - whether these demonstrations turn violent or not is officially out of their control; the Spanish authorities (in this case, a judge in charge of investigating the circumstances around the more violent parts of the rioting) obviously believe that the app is aiding in coordinating violent attacks - whether that's terrorism or just violent rioting is something I don't know and I'm unsure we'll ever fully know. That's the context, at the end of the day it's a national government asking for a repo to be taken down in accordance to the laws of their country, you might disagree with it happening fundamentally but its nothing new, the Github repo for takedowns has plenty - although they seem to usually be coming from China/Russia.

zozbot234 7y ago
> developed an app that allows people to know where demonstrations are happening Sounds like a bit of welcomed transparency to me. The Spanish police, concerned citizenry, etc. can use the app just as much as anyone else, to prevent things from getting out of hand. (*Edited for consistency with newly-provided info in this HN thread.)
- jannes 7y ago
  I believe the app requires you to be invited via QR code by an existing member to gain access. Of course, the police would be able to infiltrate this with a bit of effort.

kragen 7y ago

Governments† burn libraries. Don't create central points of vulnerability to coercion. That multiplies the effectiveness of coercive force. Create decentralized systems. Git, not GitHub. Bitcoin, not Citibank. Email, not Gmail — although we still need to free email from DNS. Never forget how the Spanish Inquisition — the origin, in the West, of these sorts of degraded "laws" against "criminal content" — treated the Jewish people and the keepers of the quipu. Reaching back further, remember how Qin Shi Huang treated the Mohists, infinitely his superiors in every respect. People will say it's justified because the Catalan separatists are fascists, terrorists, pedophiles, or whatever. It's not justified. The rulers of al-Andalus were no angels either, but their abuses were nothing compared to the genocidal nightmares the Inquisition concealed with its censorship. Today we are building the systems we will live in tomorrow. Do you want a future of a thousand Inquisitions or a thousand Miltons and a thousand Humboldts? Do you want Jefferson's future or Stalin's? A new Dark Age or a new Enlightenment? Will a thousand schools of thought contend, or will the people of the world suffer a sanitized environment devoid of "degenerate art" and "bourgeois ideals"? Will they remember what really happened, teasing the truth out of biased accounts written from many points of view, or will they only be able to read history as written by the victors, the version whose "correct ideology" earns it the censor's imprimatur? It depends on how vulnerable our systems make human rights, and in particular the right to knowledge. As a hacker, you decide what tomorrow's books are made of. Will they be printed on celluloid, which goes up like gunpowder with a spark? Or will they be etched in bright sheets of stainless steel? Because governments burn libraries. But cypherpunks write code. † That's "states" to you Brits. [edited extensively]

samuel 7y ago
> The rulers of el-Andalus were no angels either, but their abuses were nothing compared to the censorship-protected horrors of the Inquisition. That's not true. The Almohads, unlike the almoravids, forced christian and jews to convert, under threat of death.
- kragen 7y ago
  The Spanish Inquisition did all that and much worse. How much Moorish blood remains in the people of Spain today? How many conversos did the Inquisitors burn at the stake, generations after their ancestors converted, on the strength of rumormongering by jealous neighbors? The Christian and Jewish traditions — clerics, holy books, writing systems, and all — survived centuries of Muslim rule. What today survives of the records of the Inka? Where are the Maya codices today? And the Inka and the Maya fared much better than the Caribs and the Quilmes. Bartolomé de las Casas relates stories of cruelty beyond belief, inhuman monstrosities beyond imagining, atrocities whose publication he delayed for more than thirty years, finally publishing pseudonymously. How many such true accounts have been forgotten because they were denied the Inquisitor's imprimatur? But the Aztecs' human sacrifices to the sun god, used to justify the bringing of "civilization" to the "savages", remain notorious today.

Schiphol 7y ago

Some commentators are pointing out, not implausibly imho, that the Spanish government is pushing the terrorism accusation against the pro-secession movement as a way to tap into terrorism-related extradition agreements in Europe. Right now there are a few Catalonian political exiles in Belgium and other countries. By the way, Tsunami Democràtic explicitly rejects violent action: https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io/noviolencia.html https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io/noviolencia.html

GonzaloQuero 7y ago
Terrorism is also a quick way of instilling fear in Spain, as most people around 30 years old still remember the times when we had three active terrorist groups, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're using it just to spark those feelings in voters. After all, there's another election coming in two weeks.
pvaldes 7y ago
> Tsunami Democràtic explicitly rejects violent action This must be sarcasm. Yeah, they reject violent action at the same time that explicitly provide all the necessary logistic support for violent action, like telling people where is the police in real time, (the same policemen and policewomen that are ambushed later), they also slowly introduce and train naive youngsters in the exciting world of crime and urban war, baby steps, and send people to burn the streets, lose their eyes and (with a little luck) die for the cause and create the long desired martyrs that will come some day. Snakes with butterfly wings and speaking softly are still snakes.
- tassl 7y ago
  > This must be sarcasm. Yeah, they reject violent action at the same time that explicitly provide all the necessary logistic support for violent action, like telling people where is the police in real time, (the same policemen and policewomen that are ambushed later) THAT might be sarcasm. There is no terrorism or violence implicit in informing people of police location in real time. > they also slowly introduce and train naive youngsters in the exciting world of crime and urban war That is false. > send people to burn the streets, lose their eyes. That is also false. The second part is quite disturbing, putting the blame where it should not be. > and (with a little luck) die for the cause and create the long desired martyrs that will come some day That's disgusting.

GrumpyNl 7y ago

We need hosts who will leave this up.

Scoundreller 7y ago
Or just publish the signatures in the newspaper and let various sketchy hosts do their thing.

samuel 7y ago

It's the best it could happen to anyone who wishes to use the app. People installing binary blobs from anonymous github repos which are politically charged while granting location permissions... what could possibly go wrong?

rehasu 7y ago

Why would anybody have the "smart idea" to put anti-government source code on a centralized source code management website? This was probably on purpose to gain some media attention...

sascha_sl 7y ago
I love how normal crushing dissent is to you. This is the new normal :/
- leppr 7y ago
  New normal compared to when? Since when have republics tolerated competition?
  - sambull 7y ago
    When presented with a competing peoples, they generally look to destroy their food supplies first. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buffalo-killers/482349/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/05/the-buf...
sigotirandolas 7y ago
They also have, or used to have, their own domains and servers, but those can be blocked at the (national) ISP level rather quickly. On the other hand by mixing their content in centralized websites, they need to send takedown requests to every single one of them, since they would block legitimate traffic otherwise[1]. It's basically a workaround for IP and TLS SNI blocking. Of course this is all to make it simple for non-techies to access their website / application. If they required using a VPN/Tor their adoption would probably plummet. [1] Actually they blocked an IPFS gateway before so it's more like "well-known centralized websites".
- rehasu 7y ago
  If I host a web server, and the only access is the ssh port, how should anybody guess that I use it to host a git repo that you and I work on together? More is not needed. Might even work on public clouds since you shouldn't really raise any attention this way.

RustyBucket 7y ago

The app has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It is used to coordinate a thousand or so semi drunk teens who clash with police, burn trash containers, block airport and highways for fun. Those who wanted to express their dis-/agreement with gothernment position had several half a million people peaceful protests.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

DangerousPie 7y ago

It was a warrant issued by a Spanish court that Github legally had to comply with. You can be angry at the court for issuing such a warrant but you can't be angry at Github for complying. They are not above the law, even if they may disagree with it.

Miner49er 7y ago
You can certainly be angry at Github for complying. People break the law all the time in order to do what is moral. Look at Chelsea Manning who's in jail right now for just that.
- DangerousPie 7y ago
  This may be very selfish of me but I'd prefer if Github didn't get shut down over some political argument that I'm not a party in. It would also involve Github taking sides in a very divise political issue that is far from black and white.
  - input_sh 7y ago
    What mechanism could a Spanish court use to shut down an American multi-billion dollar company? At worst, it could get GitHub blocked in Spain, or a local Microsoft office might get a stern look or two before Spain renews its Office 365 contract or whatever.
    - Karunamon 7y ago
      GitHub being shut down in Spain for ignoring a court order is more harmful than one repo being blocked by a court order, imo. There seems to be this belief in the atmosphere that companies of all sizes should blithely ignore content takedowns when the alternative is large fines or exclusion from a country. This is not a realistic demand and you will be disappointed every time if you maintain it.
    - diggan 7y ago
      Interesting but off-topic none-the-less: lots of the regional governments in Spain is using open source software for their offices, like LibreOffice. I know both Valencia and Catalan governments are vocal about using and developing open source software.

mindB 7y ago

Github will not be shutdown over any action they do or do not take in Spain. The worst that can happen to Github is that they are prevented from doing business in Spain. Given how strongly Spain has come down against freedom of expression on the Catalonia issue, Github is making it very clear by taking this action that freedom of expression is not one of their values. Let me repeat, Spain has come down hard enough against freedom of expression that I do not believe it is ethical for Github to continue operating in the country. I highly value freedom of expression, and it is especially important to me that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds to that value as well, and fights to preserve that freedom on their platform. This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
derp_dee_derp 7y ago
> This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future. I see you've linked your Github in your profile. Why not put your money where your mouth is and delete your Github account now?
- mindB 7y ago
  I'm weighing doing just that. The problem is that the primary language I use (Julia) has most packages heavily centralized on Github and even specifically designed their central package repository to be simpler to use if your package is hosted on Github. Migrating repositories I maintain to another service is a slam-dunk, but being unable to easily contribute to Julia packages hosted on Github would hamper not just my work but others who may have benefited from my contribution.
reallydontask 7y ago
> I highly value freedom of expression, and to me it is especially important to me that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds to that value as well. This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future. Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws? Most governments ( no doubt, yours too), want companies operating under their jurisdiction to obey their laws (Things get complicated on the web but the basic premise holds), to say nothing of the fact that freedom of speech is not absolute (not condoning or condemning the current action)

mihemihe 7y ago

Don't get the wrong message because they use the term Democratic and play being the victims. Majority of people in Catalonia do not support secession. Those are the real victims, the 50%-ish which are silent, and suffering every day not being able to declare in public their love for their country, Spain and Catalonia, their region. They used this app to organize violent riots, taking advantage of the pacifist demonstrations organized by the pro-secession political parties. The big problem in Catalonia is exactly that the ratio is around 50%-50%, but the status quo is that Catalonia is part of Spain, so the pro-secession will keep protesting, and the government shutting them down, and more important, defending the 50%+ of Spaniards which live in Catalonia and want to remain part of Spain. No one talk about these ones!

mschuster91 7y ago
It's similar to Brexit. No matter what the government does, 50% of people will be utterly pissed off. But the biggest problem is that, unlike the UK where Scotland was allowed to hold a proper referendum in 2014, the Spanish government is not only not allowing holding a real referendum that would settle the issue for the next few years, but also prosecuting those responsible for the 2017 referendum with extremely harsh sentences (13 years, that's on the upper range for murder in Germany, for comparison!) and repressing the pro-secession movement brutally. Fuck the Spanish government hard for this.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Arkhaine_kupo 7y ago
  Ok lets break this down. Its not similar to Brexit, United kingdom is a union of different countries, Spain is a single country. The UK allowed a referendum because it has to. Spain voted its constitution in 1978, that means most of the voters are still alive and it got ratified in every community including Barcelona. So there are people protesting now that the constitution does not imminently allow a referendum that voted in favour of that clause being there 40 years ago. They got prosecuted for crimes such as sedecion, which is like treason light, and misuse of public funds. I dont see how German murder charges are relevant here. Politicians misusing taxes should be heavily punished regardless of country, corruption is eroding the already fragile public sector and safety net we have. Also Spain is a democracy, if they want a referendum all the have to do is find the votes for it in national parliment. Join with the basque and galician sececionists. Find allies in far left groups who affect self determination by identitarian groups, and vote it. What you cannot claim is that 51% of Catalans = democracy and 66% of Spanish congress = not democracy. They are simply thresholds, and Spain is more stingent than most. But i would argue 66% avoids Brexit like votes so it is preferable in the age of internet manipulation where hitting vulnerable masses of people is accesible through Cambridge analytica type election manipulation.

akimball 7y ago

So where is there a fork of the repository?

droithomme 7y ago

I wonder if any people against the Catalan independence revolution were in favor of the Arab spring movement, which also used mobile apps to coordinate actions against government. And if so what the distinction is.

segmondy 7y ago

You know what I'll like to see, maybe I'll build it when I get the bandwidth. A system that let's you mass publish across many places at once. You can publish to github, bitbucket, gitlabs, netlify, neocities, heroku, reddit, HN, youtube, blogger, facebook etc, like 100 different places. Then any govt that wants to orders a take down, has to reach out to all those places, but the main thing of course is that most of these places shouldn't be in US, some should be in EU, Russia, China. The idea being that bureaucracy will get in the way of taking some down.

jaggirs 7y ago
Also applies to content uploads from creators. If instead of only uploading to youtube they automatically did so for a variety of platforms, youtube's monopolistic position would be reduced somewhat. Also reduces the likelihood of your content being stolen and profited from on another platform.

sidewndr46 7y ago

If this is real, I'm laughing at the fact that they list Microsoft as a separate entity. They must be completely clueless

aregue 7y ago

I wonder if this letter is truly from Guardia Civil or is it from someone else impersonating it. The content reads amateurish, such as the claim "Tsunami Democratic's main goal is coordinating these riots and terrorist actions by using any possible mean" without refearing to any specific actions or events. The assertion that Tsunami Democratic has been declared a terrorist organisation by National High Court is simply not true, and no official communicate would reference the media as a source. I wonder if this is the reason why the content is still available on Github (at least from Norway)

gerardvivancos 7y ago
Honestly, I would not rule out the Guardia Civil from writing amateurish content.

dasloop 7y ago

Spanish telecommunications operators also blocked access to the Tsunami Democràtic website a few days ago. In both cases due to an ongoing investigation, not based on any conviction.

gerardvivancos 7y ago
What's incredible is that a police order is enough to take down an app or website, without any court intervention. Not that Spanish courts are to be trusted on matters like this, but still...
- throwaway8756 7y ago
  Well, this is pretty normal I'd say. It happens all the time with many different crime investigations... I wouldn't attack a country's justice system that gratuitously.
  - gerardvivancos 7y ago
    There’s a whole lot of attack surface on the Spanish justice system, to be honest

mikece 7y ago

Are there GitLab instances in neutral countries which are only accessible by Tor? I realize that won't be the most user friendly way of distributing info/apps but could be a start.

frenchyatwork 7y ago
How about just a GitLab instance in a neutral country that is accessible by Tor? The perfect doesn't haven't to be the enemy of the good.

brycehamrick 7y ago

Open source projects at large need to move to decentralized, censor-resistant Git hosting. Some interesting projects in this area to watch are Ellcrys and Gitchain.

throwaway8756 7y ago

There are two different issues here (looking at the comments) - Github blocking the repo: Not sure if many of you know it, but the App was involved "directly or indirectly" on organising demonstrations with the purpose of blocking certain infrastructures, like airports. So I'm not really surprised that it got blocked. - Catalonian independence movement: For those who are not up-to-date, this is a very complex topic. There are not good or bad people here. Spanish government is preventing that the country gets dismembered, specially by the rich regions who prefer not to support the poor ones (originally, they started the movement with the phrase "Spain steal from us"). Those politicians incarcerated broke the law in several occasions even after being warned, so the court decision is understandable (even if I don't agree with it). They are not the ones who need to solve a political problem, only apply the law. In regards to solving this conflict, no side is willing to step back, so I'm afraid that this issue won't be solved on my generation. Spanish citizens strongly believe that they all (including all regions) should be able to decide the future of their country. Separatist believe that only them (Catalans) should be able to decide, so here lies the problem. The situation is not comparable to Scotland as Catalonia was never a separate entity, it was part of the Kingdom of Aragon centuries ago. There was not prior agreement between countries, in contrast with Scotland and England.

xrd 7y ago

Is there any technical reason why an APK cannot be hosted on IPFS? I've read so many discussions where the big problem with IPFS is that content does not get distributed across the nodes fully and is unavailable. This event seems like a situation where the usage would support and guarantee availability. Is Dat another option?

JohnFen 7y ago

This makes me feel even better about my decision to abandon GitHub.

knolax 7y ago

But muh western values! If Russia had done the same exact thing this thread would be filled with jingoists calling for sanctions or war. Remember that the next time somebody tries to goad you into tribalism with ideology, the ideology to them is a means, not an end.

maze-le 7y ago
You are correct, but at this point in time, we have to ask: "What ideology?" -- Ideologically most systems are the same: Cleptocratic oligarchies. They might have local flavours here and there -- communist, authoritarian, market-liberal, social-democratic -- but basically they are the same.

devtul 7y ago

TBP responses come to mind instantly.

mirimir 7y ago

It's clear that Microsoft Spain must comply with Spanish government orders. That's just reality. It's also clear that using GitHub for Tsunami Democràtic was a poor choice. Because GitHub is obviously vulnerable to such takedowns. Self hosting on a more or less "bulletproof" server would have made far more sense. If I were doing it, I'd probably use a Tor onion server, with clearnet gateways via disposable VPS, using domain names that were difficult to revoke.

FrojoS 7y ago
> It's also clear that using GitHub for Tsunami Democràtic was a poor choice. It created publicity for the movement.
- mirimir 7y ago
  Did it really? How? I mean, how many non geeks have ever heard of GitHub? However the project got publicity. it could have used a different backend.

AcerbicZero 7y ago

The drawbacks to multinational corporations are becoming somewhat untenable.

longliveTrump 7y ago

free Catalonia

davidito 7y ago

Native speaker of Castillian Spanish here. IMO the most critical sentence in this judicial order was mistranslated by GitHub, changing our understanding of the government's request and casting GitHub's response in a more negative light (if you believe information and communication tools should be free.) The original language in the last paragraph is "...para solicitar la retención del contenido y los datos relacionados con la investigación antes mencionada." The Github English translation of this is (caps are mine) "...in order to request both WITHHOLDING the content and data related to the aforementioned investigation." However, I believe a more accurate translation is "...in order to request PRESERVATION of the content and data related to the aforementioned investigation." If you look up the Spanish verb "retener", it can have, broadly, two applicable meanings in this case: "withhold" or "preserve". I don't believe the language in the order should have been interpreted as "withhold", because they are ordering to perform an action on the content AND the "data related to the [...] investigation." This would be IP addresses, access timestamps, GitHub account information, etc., I would presume. It doesn't make much sense to "withhold" that sort of data. It makes more sense to "preserve" it. To me, this appears to be a request to preserve data, not to remove data. A case can therefore be made that the GitHub decision to remove content went above and beyond what was expressed in the received written order.

ETHisso2017 7y ago
So retener is like retention?
- CrazyStat 7y ago
  It's a verb, so retain, but yes.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    In English too, you can retain something to have it, but you can technically also retain to mean "withhold," in the sense that you are keeping it secure or intact and refusing to divulge it. It's not a very common usage in English though.

kd3 7y ago

We are fortunate enough to be given another example of the dangers of centralized cloud computing. It is extremely risky to use services like Github. We saw the same thing recently with Adobe blocking Venezuela.

rolltiide 7y ago

who cares where is the mirror?

aatharuv 7y ago

I'd never heard of Tsunami Democratic. Now I've heard of it thanks to the Spanish State.

notlukesky 7y ago

While currently Catalan separatism is a non-starter there are issues in the areas that they claim as theirs as the Valencians consider themselves separate to the Catalans. It is the nesting doll situation of splinter separatist groups. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaverism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaverism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencian_nationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valencian_nationalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_Countries Ultimately reminds me of the Monty Python skit from the Life of Brian - The People's Front of Judea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WboggjN_G-4

gerardnll 7y ago

Everything now fits as ‘terrorism’ thanks to some changes in the law. Awful. And accusing Tsunami Democràtic of criminal organization is tremendous. The Spanish Government has lost its mind. (Ah! Elections coming up in less than two weeks)

tassl 7y ago
After all, they accused some puppeteers of glorifying terrorism for a play against police manipulating evidence in Spain [1]. [1] https://elpais.com/politica/2016/06/28/actualidad/1467119956_320215.amp.html https://elpais.com/politica/2016/06/28/actualidad/1467119956...
vunie 7y ago
> Everything now fits as ‘terrorism’ thanks to some changes in the law. That ship sailed when the US government classified an attack on a military ship in a conflict zone as terrorism. I mean WTF! These days I read terrorism as "things X government doesn't like". You'll be surprised of how much sense news makes.

kimsant 7y ago

Keyword "Terrorism" is a backdoor used by some to pervert law based democratic systems. GitHub should ask further information regarding this statement: '''Tsunami Democratic has been confirmed as a criminal organization driving people to commit terrorist attacks. Tsunami Democratic's main goal is coordinating these riots and terrorist actions by using any possible mean'''

berkes 7y ago

This seems like a good use case for the distributed web. There's a copy on IPFS already: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmUFcAKdPUnZwz5AZA6gANbqVfADXw61znPosMJ7qB8uRw/ https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmUFcAKdPUnZwz5AZA6gANbqVfADXw61znPosMJ...