6 ms·

Free Tarsnap Backups for Ukrainians

180 points by ghewgill 5y ago

belltaco 5y ago
Has anyone or is anyone working on displaying a HTML header above sites(or kind of an 'accept cookies' type of HTML UI) for Russian geoblocks that says something like "Please consider telling your government to stop the war on Ukraine". I read earlier that Pornhub blocked Russian IPs completely and is showing a message but total blocking comes with its own downsides.
- throwaway111555 5y ago
  I hate to chime in about it, but PornHub is working fine in Russia ;)
- Operyl 5y ago
  There've been a couple of cases I've seen on HN where people have done this on personal sites or small projects, so far.
- dmitrygr 5y ago
  Protesting against the government in Russia is a jailable offense. People have families, kids, lives. To most citizens of Russia, this war is pointless and they do not want it. But actually protesting it lands them in jail, possibly their families too. Are you suggesting that they abandon all of that just cause a website tells them that? Or is it your point that collective punishment works (it doesn't)? Or maybe you think that if enough websites block them, people will think "well, maybe jail ain't so bad, so that i could access www.belltacospersonalsite.com" EDIT: throttled, so reply to below comment by nope96 about calling in sick: Call in sick -> no money -> your kids starve. Once again. It is easy to be sitting here and theorizing. Life is a lot more harsh in the former USSR.
  - reed1234 5y ago
    How can someone protest an authoritarian regime without putting themselves at risk?
    - dmitrygr 5y ago
      Perhaps they decided that their children's lives are more important than your views of their regime? Until THEIR children/families/lives are threatened, their call is reasonable. Would you sacrifice your life to save 10 people you've never heard of in a faraway place? If you claim yes (a lie), sign your donor card and eat a bottle of aspirin. If you are truthful and you answer no, you know how Russians currently feel. They do not support this war, but the only thing they can do has no payoff and a high cost to each of them
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        > Until THEIR children/families/lives are threatened, their call is reasonable. It may well come to that if this isn't dealt with inside Russia, that's the real trade-off. > They do not support this war, but the only thing they can do has no payoff and a high cost to each of them Not as high as the cost to Ukrainians. And that is what matters right now. To do nothing is to effectively support the war, it may sound crude but that's how it is right now and only Russia can change that without further bloodshed, any other way forward will be far worse in the longer term. To put it bluntly: Russia never really properly got rid of their past, and now more than ever is the moment to consider that, do you want to continue to be on the wrong side of history or do you clean house? Both of these have extremely high price tags attached, the time for easy choices has run out, and some of our possible futures are no future at all. Some words for contemplation: "The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing" The meaning is clear I think (even if the attribution is not), sometimes inaction is also an action.
  - nope96 5y ago
    There are other ways to protest. Calling in sick to work, in large groups, for one. There is a pandemic going on after all, it's not implausible.
  - cduzz 5y ago
    Seems like there's a move afoot to re-litigate the French revolution. Is the government for the people or are the people for the government? If the people exist to glorify the government, and the government exists to glorify a person, what is yours? L'etat se moi / I would rather burn down the world than lose
    - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
      To be precise, "L'état c'est moi" is an expression attributed to Louis XIV, about 100 years before the French Revolution. It means that the monarchy is above the parliament.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    Cynism, and cowardise is a diet of tyrants. Even 1% of Russian male population is a number bigger than Russia's combat troops number, and 10% will overwhelm the full force of the military. If Moscow will suffer a nuclear strike by NATO to decapitate the Russian government, and prevent a coordinated first strike, these people will have no kids to care about. This is what people's power can do: https://youtu.be/OCorwQTLZXE https://youtu.be/OCorwQTLZXE https://youtu.be/N7DrIUH64yI https://youtu.be/N7DrIUH64yI https://youtu.be/NhlMCPb4ZM8 https://youtu.be/NhlMCPb4ZM8 The advancing crowd on the video been shot at by 5 RPGs, hail of sniper, and machinegun fire just few minutes prior, and they still routed the government special forces with just sticks, and rocks.
    - marginalia_nu 5y ago
      If Moscow suffers a nuclear strike by NATO, none of us will have kids to care about.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Are you suggesting NATO would commit a nuclear first strike against Moscow? That's beyond insane. I can see Putin doing something like that but NATO not in a lifetime.
        marginalia_nu 5y ago
        I don't think it particularly realistic, I was responding to this sentence: > If Moscow will suffer a nuclear strike by NATO to decapitate the Russian government, these people will have no kids to care about.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        I don't see that happening. If they would do that it would instantly annihilate any support for NATO the world over. First user of nuclear weapons today is going to go down in history - assuming there will be anybody left to write it - as worse than Hitler.
- matthewmorgan 5y ago
  Don't they all use VPNs anyway?
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Honestly cutting Russians off from the western internet isn't a great idea. That just makes it that much easier for the Kremlin to control the narrative. It does far more to help Putin than to harm him.
- trhway 5y ago
  looks like everybody is chiming in :) that OnlyFans creator runs 50% discount for Ukrainians https://t.me/istorijaoruzija/35675 https://t.me/istorijaoruzija/35675 >Pornhub blocked Russian IPs completely well, as the "replacement of imported goods and services with domestic equivalents" which Russia usually tries to do in response to sanctions, i guess Russia will have to dump the anti-gay laws and legalize same-sex marriage :) (the original joke is by Zelensky back in 2014 in response to Russian forces in Crimea - in Russian https://youtu.be/_zMEO6IiokU?t=185 https://youtu.be/_zMEO6IiokU?t=185 )
aluminum96 5y ago
As well intentioned as this seems, it strikes me as a bit tone deaf. Ukrainians are hiding in bomb shelters, not backing up bulk data. I struggle to understand in what manner this helps.
- thijsvandien 5y ago
  This is about them not losing their backups exactly because they have other things on their mind (than paying for storage).
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  You're struggling to understand because you misunderstand the situation and are probably relying on the HN title instead of reading the 3 short paragraphs in the link. 1) 45,000,000 people are not in bomb shelters. 2) Reading the very short post in the link, you can see that this is more about not deleting the data of Ukrainians that is already on tarsnap if they aren't able to provide payment because of the war. > The last thing I want to do is delete what may be someone's last copy of important data because they can't pay a bill while running for their lives.
jka 5y ago
This is charitable of cpervica and tarsnap; that said, for many people, it's probably easier and safer (and you'll receive greater legal protection, long-term) to proceed by uploading your (even pre-encrypted) documents to Google Drive or a similar cloud-based storage system. Don't get me wrong - I like encryption and pushing the envelope for what's possible in terms of keeping content private for the general public. But I get a weird sense that this is like some kind of phishing-for-valuable-(meta)data expedition.
- vermilingua 5y ago
  > But I get a weird sense that this is like some kind of phishing-for-valuable-(meta)data expedition. RTFA. This isn’t a sales pitch, he’s forgiving payments for those who have more important things to worry about than checking the expiry date on their CC.
  - jka 5y ago
    Thank you, I have read the content and it certainly does not read like a sales pitch.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- thijsvandien 5y ago
  It is clearly stated that this is a gesture to existing customers who would like to keep their backups but can't pay right now, or even think about that.
  - jka 5y ago
    I understand the nature of the gesture, thank you.
- jka 5y ago
  (self-replying to note that as of 2022-02-26 00:14 UTC, I'm not aware of tarsnap providing, for example, an onion address for source-obscured content upload)
pphysch 5y ago
Nice gesture but I don't think unilaterally implementing policies on the basis of someone's speculated nationality -- based on analysis of their private data -- is the role of private companies
jmclnx 5y ago
proves once again to me the tarsnap people a class act!
jpgvm 5y ago
Class act by Colin. Least we operators of SaaS can do in these awful times.
cperciva 5y ago
I feel bad about all the attention this is getting. It happened because I asked myself "what can I do to help Ukrainians", and frankly it's costing me peanuts -- Tarsnap doesn't have a huge number of Ukrainian users. (As far as I'm aware, at least, hence my emailing the tarsnap-announce list to encourage other Ukrainians to identify themselves to me.) I didn't mean for this to turn into a publicity stunt! But while I'm writing -- if you're looking for something you can do to help: Please contact your elected representatives and encourage them to allow visa-free travel to Ukrainian citizens. Ireland has already done this (https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/00aef-minister-mcentee-announces-immediate-lifting-of-visa-requirements-between-ukraine-and-ireland/ https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/00aef-minister-mcentee-a...) and I wrote to my MP yesterday to encourage Canada to follow suit. This war is going to displace millions of civilians and while Putin's threats of nuclear war may prevent NATO from defending Ukraine, at least we can step up to help the refugees.
- 56V9qtdGKWy4q8p 5y ago
  You did good. HN is just toxic and full of know-it-alls experts on war topics.

180 points by ghewgill 5y ago

Has anyone or is anyone working on displaying a HTML header above sites(or kind of an 'accept cookies' type of HTML UI) for Russian geoblocks that says something like "Please consider telling your government to stop the war on Ukraine". I read earlier that Pornhub blocked Russian IPs completely and is showing a message but total blocking comes with its own downsides.

throwaway111555 5y ago
I hate to chime in about it, but PornHub is working fine in Russia ;)
Operyl 5y ago
There've been a couple of cases I've seen on HN where people have done this on personal sites or small projects, so far.
dmitrygr 5y ago
Protesting against the government in Russia is a jailable offense. People have families, kids, lives. To most citizens of Russia, this war is pointless and they do not want it. But actually protesting it lands them in jail, possibly their families too. Are you suggesting that they abandon all of that just cause a website tells them that? Or is it your point that collective punishment works (it doesn't)? Or maybe you think that if enough websites block them, people will think "well, maybe jail ain't so bad, so that i could access www.belltacospersonalsite.com" EDIT: throttled, so reply to below comment by nope96 about calling in sick: Call in sick -> no money -> your kids starve. Once again. It is easy to be sitting here and theorizing. Life is a lot more harsh in the former USSR.
- reed1234 5y ago
  How can someone protest an authoritarian regime without putting themselves at risk?
  - dmitrygr 5y ago
    Perhaps they decided that their children's lives are more important than your views of their regime? Until THEIR children/families/lives are threatened, their call is reasonable. Would you sacrifice your life to save 10 people you've never heard of in a faraway place? If you claim yes (a lie), sign your donor card and eat a bottle of aspirin. If you are truthful and you answer no, you know how Russians currently feel. They do not support this war, but the only thing they can do has no payoff and a high cost to each of them
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      > Until THEIR children/families/lives are threatened, their call is reasonable. It may well come to that if this isn't dealt with inside Russia, that's the real trade-off. > They do not support this war, but the only thing they can do has no payoff and a high cost to each of them Not as high as the cost to Ukrainians. And that is what matters right now. To do nothing is to effectively support the war, it may sound crude but that's how it is right now and only Russia can change that without further bloodshed, any other way forward will be far worse in the longer term. To put it bluntly: Russia never really properly got rid of their past, and now more than ever is the moment to consider that, do you want to continue to be on the wrong side of history or do you clean house? Both of these have extremely high price tags attached, the time for easy choices has run out, and some of our possible futures are no future at all. Some words for contemplation: "The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing" The meaning is clear I think (even if the attribution is not), sometimes inaction is also an action.
- nope96 5y ago
  There are other ways to protest. Calling in sick to work, in large groups, for one. There is a pandemic going on after all, it's not implausible.
- cduzz 5y ago
  Seems like there's a move afoot to re-litigate the French revolution. Is the government for the people or are the people for the government? If the people exist to glorify the government, and the government exists to glorify a person, what is yours? L'etat se moi / I would rather burn down the world than lose
  - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
    To be precise, "L'état c'est moi" is an expression attributed to Louis XIV, about 100 years before the French Revolution. It means that the monarchy is above the parliament.
- baybal2 5y ago
  Cynism, and cowardise is a diet of tyrants. Even 1% of Russian male population is a number bigger than Russia's combat troops number, and 10% will overwhelm the full force of the military. If Moscow will suffer a nuclear strike by NATO to decapitate the Russian government, and prevent a coordinated first strike, these people will have no kids to care about. This is what people's power can do: https://youtu.be/OCorwQTLZXE https://youtu.be/OCorwQTLZXE https://youtu.be/N7DrIUH64yI https://youtu.be/N7DrIUH64yI https://youtu.be/NhlMCPb4ZM8 https://youtu.be/NhlMCPb4ZM8 The advancing crowd on the video been shot at by 5 RPGs, hail of sniper, and machinegun fire just few minutes prior, and they still routed the government special forces with just sticks, and rocks.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    If Moscow suffers a nuclear strike by NATO, none of us will have kids to care about.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Are you suggesting NATO would commit a nuclear first strike against Moscow? That's beyond insane. I can see Putin doing something like that but NATO not in a lifetime.
      - marginalia_nu 5y ago
        I don't think it particularly realistic, I was responding to this sentence: > If Moscow will suffer a nuclear strike by NATO to decapitate the Russian government, these people will have no kids to care about.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        I don't see that happening. If they would do that it would instantly annihilate any support for NATO the world over. First user of nuclear weapons today is going to go down in history - assuming there will be anybody left to write it - as worse than Hitler.
matthewmorgan 5y ago
Don't they all use VPNs anyway?
marginalia_nu 5y ago
Honestly cutting Russians off from the western internet isn't a great idea. That just makes it that much easier for the Kremlin to control the narrative. It does far more to help Putin than to harm him.
trhway 5y ago
looks like everybody is chiming in :) that OnlyFans creator runs 50% discount for Ukrainians https://t.me/istorijaoruzija/35675 https://t.me/istorijaoruzija/35675 >Pornhub blocked Russian IPs completely well, as the "replacement of imported goods and services with domestic equivalents" which Russia usually tries to do in response to sanctions, i guess Russia will have to dump the anti-gay laws and legalize same-sex marriage :) (the original joke is by Zelensky back in 2014 in response to Russian forces in Crimea - in Russian https://youtu.be/_zMEO6IiokU?t=185 https://youtu.be/_zMEO6IiokU?t=185 )

aluminum96 5y ago

As well intentioned as this seems, it strikes me as a bit tone deaf. Ukrainians are hiding in bomb shelters, not backing up bulk data. I struggle to understand in what manner this helps.

thijsvandien 5y ago
This is about them not losing their backups exactly because they have other things on their mind (than paying for storage).
oh_sigh 5y ago
You're struggling to understand because you misunderstand the situation and are probably relying on the HN title instead of reading the 3 short paragraphs in the link. 1) 45,000,000 people are not in bomb shelters. 2) Reading the very short post in the link, you can see that this is more about not deleting the data of Ukrainians that is already on tarsnap if they aren't able to provide payment because of the war. > The last thing I want to do is delete what may be someone's last copy of important data because they can't pay a bill while running for their lives.

jka 5y ago

This is charitable of cpervica and tarsnap; that said, for many people, it's probably easier and safer (and you'll receive greater legal protection, long-term) to proceed by uploading your (even pre-encrypted) documents to Google Drive or a similar cloud-based storage system. Don't get me wrong - I like encryption and pushing the envelope for what's possible in terms of keeping content private for the general public. But I get a weird sense that this is like some kind of phishing-for-valuable-(meta)data expedition.

vermilingua 5y ago
> But I get a weird sense that this is like some kind of phishing-for-valuable-(meta)data expedition. RTFA. This isn’t a sales pitch, he’s forgiving payments for those who have more important things to worry about than checking the expiry date on their CC.
- jka 5y ago
  Thank you, I have read the content and it certainly does not read like a sales pitch.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thijsvandien 5y ago
It is clearly stated that this is a gesture to existing customers who would like to keep their backups but can't pay right now, or even think about that.
- jka 5y ago
  I understand the nature of the gesture, thank you.
jka 5y ago
(self-replying to note that as of 2022-02-26 00:14 UTC, I'm not aware of tarsnap providing, for example, an onion address for source-obscured content upload)

pphysch 5y ago

Nice gesture but I don't think unilaterally implementing policies on the basis of someone's speculated nationality -- based on analysis of their private data -- is the role of private companies

jmclnx 5y ago

proves once again to me the tarsnap people a class act!

jpgvm 5y ago

Class act by Colin. Least we operators of SaaS can do in these awful times.

cperciva 5y ago

I feel bad about all the attention this is getting. It happened because I asked myself "what can I do to help Ukrainians", and frankly it's costing me peanuts -- Tarsnap doesn't have a huge number of Ukrainian users. (As far as I'm aware, at least, hence my emailing the tarsnap-announce list to encourage other Ukrainians to identify themselves to me.) I didn't mean for this to turn into a publicity stunt! But while I'm writing -- if you're looking for something you can do to help: Please contact your elected representatives and encourage them to allow visa-free travel to Ukrainian citizens. Ireland has already done this (https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/00aef-minister-mcentee-announces-immediate-lifting-of-visa-requirements-between-ukraine-and-ireland/ https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/00aef-minister-mcentee-a...) and I wrote to my MP yesterday to encourage Canada to follow suit. This war is going to displace millions of civilians and while Putin's threats of nuclear war may prevent NATO from defending Ukraine, at least we can step up to help the refugees.

56V9qtdGKWy4q8p 5y ago
You did good. HN is just toxic and full of know-it-alls experts on war topics.