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Nice story, but GitHub is prohibited by the US OFAC sanctions regime from offering service to North Korea: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github
by Clewza313 5y ago
Nice story, but GitHub is prohibited by the US OFAC sanctions regime from offering service to North Korea:
https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-trade-controls https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-tra...
Intentional violations of these sanctions can be punished with prison time.
- k__ 5y agoHow would they put people from NK into prison?
- detaro 5y agoSanction violations are a crime for the people from the US involved.
- k__ 5y agoIs telling NK people to use GitHub already a crime?
- nichch 5y agoWouldn’t it be the duty of the platform in this situation?
- k__ 5y agoIn that scenario, at least there would be some US citizens to put into prison.
- sillysaurusx 5y agoI want everybody to stop, shake themselves, and realize how “absolutely insane” this situation is. True or not, we’re talking about prison time for helping people write open source code. This isn’t normal, but everyone’s talking about it like it’s normal. Anyway! Carry on. :)
- mhh__ 5y agoThat may well be true but consider going to the German's and teaching them about Radar in the lead up to the war - that's the logic at least.
- passerby1 5y agoWhen did the opensource begin to be considered a war tech?
- hulitu 5y agoThis is the job of state propaganda: to look abnormal things look normal.
- yur3i__ 5y ago>GitHub is prohibited by the US OFAC sanctions regime from offering service to North Korea Surely Github would have blocked the range of north korean IP addresses if it was illegal?
- tasogare 5y agoThis is one of the reasons I wish there was more bigger European companies. Then we wouldn't need to deal with the bullshit US sanctions and cancel culture.
- yur3i__ 5y agoI'm not sure I've heard sanctions on enemy states described as "cancel culture" before, nor am I sure it applies
- Datagenerator 5y agoThese 'enemies' are fellow humans too right?
- yur3i__ 5y agoI didn't say I agreed with them, just "cancel culture" is a bit of a trivialization
- tasogare 5y agoThose are not the same. I'm referring to two problematic things with US companies: in one hand sanctions, in the other political censorship based on "woke" biais. Some French politicians got/are being canceled by Twitter and Facebook for their political opinions. This is a big problem for democracy.
- cycrutchfield 5y agoIf your “political opinions” violate a platform’s terms of service, what do you expect should happen?
- estaseuropano 5y agoS/he is expexting exactly that to happen and thus is hoping for more European players so its not all US-values that are being pushed, i.e. glorification of violence and prudish shaming/banning of such normal things as breastfeeding.
- andi999 5y agoI would almost be more worried as a scientist to give a lecture in NK, I mean do you not need export control approval for that (although maybe he got the approval)
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoYou do. Virgil Griffith is facing criminal charges for doing just that.
- ev1 5y agoAren't there additional issues with that like if you pay for a flight or hotel or restaurant, you're effectively "supporting the regime" with your dollars, and therefore it's illegal under sanctions too?
- caymanjim 5y agoThis was the case in Cuba. You could visit if you sailed yourself there and didn't spend any money, but as soon as you engaged in any commerce, you were violating sanctions. I believe the rules have been relaxed.
- pattusk 5y agoI think these provisions came after the patch was pushed to Github back in 2016. I remember that when the Github rules related to US sanctions were first posted there was a lot of backlash here on HN from Iranian developers and it must have been 2017~2018. Doesn't mean it wasn't illegal before but at least Github didn't seem to be enforcing it. Also the class was likely at PUST (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyongyang_University_of_Science_and_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyongyang_University_of_Scienc...) which is operated with US funds and likely had clearance to teach that sort of material.
- richardwhiuk 5y agoIndeed - for any open-source project to accept contributions from North Korea risks opening up a minefield of problems.
- sneak 5y agoWhy's that?
- beebeepka 5y agoWell, because who wants to do business with a "regime". Think of the implications! Good countries have governments and that is totally different. Sorry, couldn't resist
- imhoguy 5y agoSo we should block nearly half of the World population for not being in democracy [0]? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regime https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regime
- beebeepka 5y agoI guess exclamation marks are no longer considered a good indicator of sarcasm
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- emodendroket 5y agoDepends on how friendly their relations are with the United States, is our operating principle at the moment
- richardwhiuk 5y agoBecause of trade restrictions and embargos.
- bouncycastle 5y agoThere's currently one open source software dev / researcher in the US who's facing prison time after talking about open source software at a conference in North Korea. His name is Virgil Griffith. The speech he gave was nothing more than information that was already public. He's also known for the WikiScanner. More details here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2020/01/11/internet-man-of-mystery-virgil-griffith-indicted-for-crypto-trip-to-north-korea/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2020/01/11/internet-... His personal home page http://virgil.gr/ http://virgil.gr/
- xxpor 5y agoI mean I don't think he should be thrown in jail for that, but you can't just go do that and not expect to get in trouble. Sanction violations are something the feds take extremely seriously. It's one of the few ways to actually get the corporate death penalty if you're a company.
- netr0ute 5y ago> Sanction violations are something the feds take extremely seriously. This is just FUD.
- frisco 5y ago?
- netr0ute 5y agoWhile it's true, the level you would have to be at to have to worry about sanctions puts you into "too big to fail" territory.
- frisco 5y agoThe point of the above posts though is that Virgil Griffith is probably going to prison because he wasn't paying attention to sanctions though? Or, the case of Meng Wanzhou who is a Chinese citizen who avoided connecting flights through the US and was arrested in Canada anyway for violating trade sanctions with Iran?
- ckja 5y agoThis is why open source projects should not be on GitHub and not in the US. The same applies to foundations, though some of them seem to have adopted similar tactics as the North Korean party anyway.
- xxpor 5y agoIf you deal in US dollars, you're subject to US sanctions laws. Hint: if you ever convert between currencies, unless you're EXTREMELY careful, you're actually going X -> USD -> Y. It took the EU multiple years to setup a facility so they could provide euros to Iran without falling afoul of US sanctions during the Trump admin.
- throwaway4good 5y agoChinese Gitee have mirrors of most (all?) of the open source projects on Github.