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Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';

• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• nromiun 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • caro_kann 1y ago
    It's easy to be on the moral high ground when you don't have to risk anything.
    • nromiun 1y ago
      Ironic considering that we are talking about Western sanctions.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • johnisgood 1y ago
    Yes, please come forward.
  • preisschild 1y ago
    Different situation though, Ukraine did not attack Russia. Hamas did attack Israel from inside Palestine without any authorities in Palestine doing anything against it.
    • jazzyjackson 1y ago
      In addition, Hamas was democratically elected and the incursion into Israel saw popular support from the people of Gaza. They had the option of not going to war, as did Iran.
      • johnisgood 1y ago
        In addition, what do you think happens when you do and continue doing what Israel has been doing to Palestine for many, many decades? People are just going to be OK with that? History did not start when Hamas attacked Israel as you would like to believe so. Israel had the option of not breeding violence for decades, too. You should brush up a bit on history and look for cause and effect. :P
        • jazzyjackson 1y ago
          Shitty to assume someone hasn't brushed up on history because they came to a different conclusion than you
          • deleted 1y ago
            [deleted]
          • johnisgood 1y ago
            That is not what I claimed, and what is this different conclusion? What conclusion?
  • jazzyjackson 1y ago
    Oct 7 was an indiscriminate massacre of civilians btw
    • nromiun 1y ago
      Sure. Still does not justify what Israel is doing in Gaza.
• OccamsMirror 1y ago
  It must be really frustrating be on the receiving end of sanctions. The ugly truth about sanctions is that they punish the people more than the aristocracy. But they're still better than wars.
  • barrenko 1y ago
    The point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership. And if your're someone sliding into nasty leadership / government situation you have to realize there will be a consequence to that and that the perception of the ruling party can never be separated from the perception of the people.
    • typpilol 1y ago
      Cold hard truth. If Iranians don't support their government like is always said.. then....
    • ivan_gammel 1y ago
      It’s a stupid idea that does not work. People don’t do that because of sanctions.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • totetsu 1y ago
      So like .. ‘I%’ Then?
    • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership This works about a third of the time [1]. What does is incentivising domestic policy changes. We saw that with the nuclear deal. But then Trump blew it up because Obama did it. (On another level, sanctions degrade capability. If there is no room for peace, at least you can limit your adversary’s economy and thus martial production. If regime change randomly happens, you can use lifting sanctions to blow oxygen on the new government’s flame [2].) [1] https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/863435/mod_resource/content/0/Gary%20Clyde%20Hufbauer%2C%20Jeffrey%20J.%20Schott%2C%20Kimberly%20Ann%20Elliott%2C%20Barbara%20Oegg-Economic%20Sanctions%20Reconsidered%20%282008%29.pdf https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/863435/mod_resource/conte... Table 6.1, page 159 [2] https://the307.substack.com/p/how-sanctions-function-as-a-tool?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true https://the307.substack.com/p/how-sanctions-function-as-a-to...
• gethly 1y ago
  Any business that goes political/activist should be written off by any of their customers - for ever.
  • kennywinker 1y ago
    Funny because i would write off any company doing business with russia. Every action is “political” because we exist in a context.
    • gethly 1y ago
      That is perfectly fine. You are the customer and you can choose whom you will give your business to. My point is that companies should not be doing it because they instantly cut their potential customer base by half with every single act of activism they do. They should be focusing on business and nothing else. Politics, activism, whatever you want to call it, should be solely in the hands of the individual, not the corporations, whose sole purpose to exist is to do business with every possible customer they can in order to turn a profit. Additionally, companies might be political in ways I might not care. It might be simply a non-factor when deciding whether I give them business or not. But the sheer fact they are politically active, so to speak, and don' focus solely on providing the best services for the best prices with the highest quality, is the red flag that instantly makes me wary of doing business with them in the first place.
      • kennywinker 1y ago
        > they instantly cut their potential customer base by half with every single act of activism Not really? The implication is that every choice has a 50/50 split of support. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. > should be solely in the hands of the individual, not the corporations The businesses in the article are doing what they did because of legal sanctions on iran. Not because they are making political choices about who to do business with. But your description of what companies should be doing is describing unfettered psychopathic capitalism. Companies that will break every code of morality or decency as long as it’s technically legal. Chromium in the water? Go for it. Even legality is just a speed bumb. If you can get away with it? If you can bribe your way out of it? Why not do it! I don’t want to live in that world. Unfortunately that’s pretty much the world we live in already and it shows.
• bibelo 1y ago
  How ironic is it that by pretending to promote freedom, some people actually do more harm than anything else, by having what is to me a racist view of people in other countries (ie all Iranian are the same and have the same political view as the head). Do they not understand that, instead of helping these people connect to the outside world and improve their life and their country, they are actually increasing the poor conditions and helping the regimes they are fighting against?
  • dijit 1y ago
    Sanctions don’t apply to Iranians in the US, and not everyone in Iran is Iranian (or even Arab); so sanctions are not “racist”, they’re levied against political leadership. The idea is to get the population to put pressure on the leaders. Not sure if it has worked, but I am sure Russia is unhappy with the unrest that sanctions have caused.
    • ivan_gammel 1y ago
      > I am sure Russia is unhappy with the unrest that sanctions have caused. The political situation in Russia is more stable now than before the war. Putin is certainly happy.
      • kennywinker 1y ago
        If true, that is because Russian oil continues to flow
        • ivan_gammel 1y ago
          No, absolutely not. The significant part of the proceeds from that flow aren’t going into economy (specifics of selling oil to India). The political situation is stable for following reasons: 1. Primary beneficiaries of military spending are small industrial towns and working class. They earn a lot of money now and significant part of it is invested in property or spent on domestic products. The inequality has reduced since the start of war, not something you would expect from oligarchic capitalism. 2. It became much easier to eliminate political opposition. Thousands have left the country, some were killed, many jailed under new wartime legislation. 3. There’s general perception that Russia is winning and it’s already in the endgame (which is true - the West lost the war in the first year).
• yieldcrv 1y ago
  The OFAC sanctions list’s applicability should be limited to payment processors and direct payments in my opinion All those software services rely on the payment processor to do business with the economically sanctioned users so they shouldn’t have done anything
• INTPenis 1y ago
  Iran has been under sanctions for a long time. I remember working for unnamed US server manufacturer back in 09 and we had a list of countries by our desks to remember if anyone ever called in from there, or even mentioned working there during the call.
• ivan_gammel 1y ago
  The stupid thing about those indiscriminate sanctions is that it goes against the very values the West is pretending to defend. EU charter of Human Rights is explicit about condemning collective responsibility, universal declaration of human rights demands justice to be applied reasonably and individually, yet here we are: punishing people without trial. Do those sanctions even work? North Korea still builds nuclear weapons, Cuba still has a communist government, Iran is still a theocratic regime. You don’t start revolution by trade embargo. You start it by sending more jeans and heavy metal records.
  • LoganDark 1y ago
    I think the theory is that the powers that be will feel bad for their citizens or that the citizens will revolt. Neither of those happen in practice though.
  • Schnitz 1y ago
    Sanctions work, but not in the way that is the common public perception. The expectation isn’t that Russia or whoever falls apart a few weeks after we lock them out of Visa payment rails or whatever. The reality is that the sanctions stifle economic growth and that effect is compounding. Even if sanctions only reduce growth by 1 percentage point, after ~19 years your economy is already 20% smaller than it would be without sanctions and that is measurable. From a national security perspective, it makes Russia a lot less concerning if their industrial output is 20% less. Now imagine trying to start a software business in Iran, the stifling effect is way higher than a measly percentage point. Note that I’m not making a moral judgement, I’m simply sharing my understanding of sanctions.
    • akho 1y ago
      > Now imagine trying to start a software business in Iran, the stifling effect is way higher than a measly percentage point. Depriving Iranians of legal access to Western tools opens the market to locals. I suspect that the market is big enough to build a business. It'difficult to assess gdp impact in this particular area. It's not really dependent on blockable imports.
    • 1y ago
• tgma 1y ago
  The sad part about living in Iran from a technology perspective is you are often blocked from both sides. Often you have to circumvent the government's aggressive internal firewall and other times you will have to hide your IP from the service providers. On the bright side, your average Iranian grandma can immediately work as a network engineer given the amount of experience she has with VPN protocols.
  • DanielHB 1y ago
    Oh boy, I remember the days you had to be a proper engineer to understand and set up VPNs. Like adblocking making this stuff popular just makes it less effective for people in-the-know.
  • Hilift 1y ago
    Using a VPN doesn't prevent the Iranian authorities from detecting that you are using a VPN. It isn't a secure or safe alternative in Iran, particularly with the noisy way it is usually thrown together.
    • int_19h 1y ago
      Indeed, which is why things like V2LESS and Trojan exist (and people learn how to set them up and use them).
• jr-14 1y ago
  Imagine if your country was added to this block-list, and all your data is wiped. Is there nothing you can do at this point? It feels like I have to own all my data and not trust companies before it's decided I can no longer access my own data.
  • matips 1y ago
    Yes, you should own your data and do not trust companies. There are a lot o cases when SaS companies used their position to squeeze money from customers. If they are allow do do so, they also be used by their governments to push on other governments.
• aarroyoc 1y ago
  These sanctions are not really effective. I think Cuba is the country that has had them for the most amount of time and... Nothing changed. Instead they force them to develop in house tech which may be better for them in the long term
  • preisschild 1y ago
    > Nothing changed This is not true. The sanctions definitely hurt countries like Cuba or Russia. They have a far harder time growing their economy. Cuba is stuck in the last century and often has total blackouts that last for days. Russia needs to beg countries like Iran or North Korea now for imports.
    • reeredfdfdf 1y ago
      Yet the ruling elites and military still enjoy decent quality of life, it´s mostly the ordinary people who suffer. In case of Russia that´s okay since large parts of the population genuinely support the war, but I´m not so sure about Iran and Cuba, where most are not supportive of their governments anyway.
      • jazzyjackson 1y ago
        The point isn't necessarily to make leadership suffer, but rather to prevent suffering of everyone who might be threatened by a strong Cuba/Iran/North Korea
        • olelele 1y ago
          In case of Cuba I think the sanctions regime is in part motivated by vindictiveness and in part to make an example for other nations in the americas of what happens when you evade US hegemony..
    • nlitened 1y ago
      Russian economy is booming actually, thanks to continued purchasing of oil and gas by Europe and other parts of the world, and the sanctions that block capital outflow out of the country.
• adastra22 1y ago
  OP, some context from the other side might be helpful. Yes, there are fines for American companies if they do business with Iranians. That's how sanctions work as I'm sure you're aware. But the story doesn't stop there. If an American finds out they are transacting with a sanctioned individual, or citizens of a sanctioned country like Iran or North Korea, the stakes go up: $1M USD fine and up to 20 years in federal prison. Oh and that's a personal risk -- you, the manager or executive in charge, and anyone else who is in the know on the transaction is now facing 20 years in federal pounding-in-the-ass prison if they don't immediately cease all communication and break off contact. Hence why they ghost you and remove your data from prod. It sucks, but I would do the same thing in that situation. Nobody should be expected to take that risk. That's why you have these experiences :(
  • thekingshorses 1y ago
    Interesting. So if you want to delete FB account and all your data, all you have to do is VPN from Iran?
  • tgma 1y ago
    This is partially true, but not the entirety of the story. There are blanket sanction waivers (General License) by OFAC to allow certain things. There's also the possibility to get an OFAC license (as GitHub did.) The real issue is there is little to no advantage (realistically no money to be gained from Iran) or even awareness (sometimes the cloud infrastructure bans Iran by default and you don't have enough users to even know that's the case to care.) The legal counsels would generally be conservative and advise against it; there needs to be someone from the business side, e.g. a product manager that cares enough to try to push back on the legal. There often is not or it is hard to justify the tiniest risk, hence you block.
    • number6 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • tgma 1y ago
• deadfece 1y ago
  If you access grepular outside of Iran, you get something even worse: their website.
• sorushn 1y ago
  > I am NOT asking for the removal of the sanctions targeted at the Islamic Republic of Iran. All sanctions are designed to hurt civilians, so that they may overthrow their government. Just a bullying tactic by the US with zero moral justifications, despite how it's framed by the media.
  • tmnvdb 1y ago
    Citation needed. As far is I know this is simply false. Different sanctions have different goals. Regime change is very rarely a goal. Often it is to reduce economic growth to keep/make the country weak, or to achieve some other goal. See for example sactions on India, which are definitely not meant to overthrow the indian government.
    • theshrike79 1y ago
      Sometimes it's both. "Your country is sanctioned because your government is being a global ass, wink-wink" Implying that a change in government will lift the sanctions.
  • benced 1y ago
    Seems like the moral justification would be to encourage overthrowing the government? The literature on sanction is mixed but zero is overstating it.
    • sorushn 1y ago
      Which is also not true, as we're seeing in Syria.
  • kennywinker 1y ago
    So, we should just do business as usual with countries committing war crimes or genocide? Aggressors in war, users of chemical weapons on their own people? I’m aware there are consequences to sanctions, and the way they are implemented is often half-assed or hypocritical (e.g. the way that russian oil still flows) but to drop all sanctions… Is that not like saying boycotts hurt employees who had nothing to do with the decisions so we should never boycott?
• kayer8987 1y ago
  [flagged]
• LAC-Tech 1y ago
  I talk to a few Iranians online. All very nice people. You'd think they had horns on their heads and cloven hooves the way certain people in the US talks about them. Even the regime itself.. look I wouldn't to live there. But comparing it to somewhere like North Korea is ridiculous. Even by Middle Eastern standards it's not at the bottom.
  • randomNumber7 1y ago
    Yes its great. If you move there you can give away your daughter to be the 3.rd woman of s.o. at the age of 9.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
• daniel_iversen 1y ago
  > By the way, did you know you could return 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons instead of 403 Forbidden when you're going to ban me next time? Had no idea, interesting!
  • harperlee 1y ago
    451 coming from here by the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
    • draw_down 1y ago
      [dead]
  • userabchn 1y ago
    The website of an American company returned a blank page to me. I thought that they must have made a mistake and that it would be fixed soon. Several days later it was still returning a blank page, so I sent them an email in case they didn't know. It turns out that they don't want to deal with the laws of other countries (EU's GDPR, etc.) and so simply return a blank page for anyone visiting from outside America. A "451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons" or some other type of explanation would have been less confusing than the blank page.
• jeroenhd 1y ago
  This crap is why everyone should fear the Apple-like centralisation for software distribution options that other companies like Google and Microsoft are inching towards. Now it's just Iran/Cuba/North Korea, but you're essentially letting the increasingly aggressive American government decide who can or cannot publish software. The Americans are not afraid of adding their political enemies from allied countries to the sanction list, as can be seen when they decided to go after the judge in the Israel genocide case. Who knows who will be next now that they're blatantly cracking down on free speech. The Apple app store/Google Play/Microsoft Store are great conveniences, but they must never be the only way to access software on your device. Apple's EU exception falls short for still requiring an Apple account to pay fees that no judge will accept when the first lawsuit hits. Sure, Epic Games has offered to pay those fees just to spite Apple, but Epic can only pay those fees to people they're allowed to pay.
  • jbstack 1y ago
    I completely agree, but what can actually be done about this? It feels like it's too late.
    • mschuster91 1y ago
      Well, the EU has about half a billion people, India and China about 1.5 billion people - all larger markets (by headcount) than the US domestic market, so nothing that any American company can just choose to ignore. Either of these three markets can set rules on what device manufacturers have to do in order to be allowed to access the market, and they all use that power - China is particularly infamous (with Apple having had to set up a dedicated iCloud instance to which the Chinese government may or may not have a backdoor), India more focuses on the share of production that happens in China, and the EU is seriously tightening the screws on American companies when it comes to arbitrarily denying store access.
• slg 1y ago
  >Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. The "your decision" in that response is really off-putting. I know the law is what it is with sanctions like this. However, it is a failing of basic human empathy to blame other common citizens of a country for the actions of their government while we almost certainly do not endorse all the actions of our own government and would probably be a little upset if a foreigner assumed we did.
  • theshrike79 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • tobyhinloopen 1y ago
      Proudly written from a western country with a functional democracy. If it was that easy, there wouldn't be shitty countries everywhere.
      • randomNumber7 1y ago
        I live in a western democracy and still endorse very little my government does.
        • cylemons 1y ago
          At least in a democracy, you can rest assured that your government is supported by big part of the population, should sanctions hit them too hard they will vote the other way and get out of sanctions quickly. But in dictatorship you are just stuck with whatever the supreme leader and their cronies think is a good idea
        • tlb 1y ago
          You probably endorse the vast majority of what it does, weighted by dollars spent. Old age security, healthcare, infrastructure, policing and defense are good things. The fraction of the federal budget actually spent on things you probably don’t like is quite small.
• elzbardico 1y ago
  Sanctions don't work. Period. The only thing they can do is to make dictators more popular and provide them with an excuse for their economic and political failures. When someone in Cuba is denied something because of Sanctions, they are not going to blame the Castro family, they are going to think, "Hey, Fidel was always right! those Americans are just a bunch of sadist psychopaths that are trying to destroy my country. In general, a good rule of thumb in life, is that whatever policy people like John McCain or Lindsey Graham defend, the right position is the exact opposite of theirs.
  • theshrike79 1y ago
    Ironically McCain was the last republican who actually worked with the other side. The current US regime is hard-line party people with zero ability to compromise. But what you're saying is that sanctions are more of a marketing issue when it comes to who is blamed?
  • jazzyjackson 1y ago
    > sanctions don't work > Economic failures Hmmm
• reeredfdfdf 1y ago
  Most educated Iranians hate their government. The problem is that a revolution isn't easy when the government has all the guns, and the military & revolutionary guard remain loyal, and have no problem with shooting masses of innocent civilians to retain their power. Sanctions that worsen things for ordinary people really isn't going to change much in countries like this. It would be much more productive to try turn the army against the regime, or organize political and armed resistance.
  • tgma 1y ago
    > Most educated Iranians hate their government Where did you get that data from and what do you mean by "hate" in quantifiable terms? (just being "unhappy" with outcomes of certain policies does not mean they would necessarily want to uproot everything for the better)
    • reeredfdfdf 1y ago
      If you meet educated Iranians, and read news on what's happening in the country, it's pretty obvious. Whether it's "hate" or "deeply dislike" may vary by person.
      • tgma 1y ago
        You said "most" meaning more than 50%. I am curious if you have any data on that or it's just guesswork?
      • mvdtnz 1y ago
        If it's "obvious" it should be no problem for you to demonstrate it.
      • llmthrow0827 1y ago
        You are meeting Iranians who are outside of Iran (sample bias), and reading news in English. If you think that qualifies you to make sweeping assertions about Iranian views, I don't know what to say.
  • 1y ago
• t1E9mE7JTRjf 1y ago
  It's a sad story all round. I hope the world gets more decentralised, so that people get less caught up in the politics of others. I can't remember the exact quote, about world war 1 or 2, but it was along the lines of "war is when people who don't know each other fight, for people who do know each other". Hits hard.
  • jbstack 1y ago
    > I hope the world gets more decentralised It's not looking too likely. You have Google's planned app developer verification, the UK's Online Safety Act, the EU's plans to interfere with E2EE, EU privacy rules causing sites to be riddled with popups, money laundering rules making banking increasingly more tedious, power concentrated in the hands of a few nation-state sized tech companies, countries becoming more authoritarian even in the West. As an anecdotal example, I'm currently living/travelling between various EU countries, where a few years ago I would have expected a great deal of online freedom. Instead I now have to constantly change my VPN exit point to get around various restrictions depending on what site I'm using and what they have decided to block based on location. If we can't even get these things right in the so-called free democracies of the West, what hope is there for the world in general? I'd like to be optimistic about this, but it's hard to find reasons to be.
• demarq 1y ago
  I feel for you OP. Everyone on here clearly aware that they have no influence over their own government seem to instantly lack empathy for your situation because they saw the word Iran. It’s all pretty moronic if I’m honest. I really hope things get better for you.
• bez00m 1y ago
  As someone who also sees this kind of messages fairly often, I always wondered about companies/individuals who voluntarily (not being forced by law, that's another story) block their users by IPs coming from bad countries... The message always goes along the lines of "you're murderer and rapist, we hate you". I still need to find a person who managed to change their political stance after seeing something similar. I don't have a shortage of people who got convinced that enemies are all around. So, just an advice to all wannabe overseas-dictatorship-overthrowers - be nice, try to educate the people, don't make assumptions about person's wrongdoings and awareness based on their IP. A good service with a strong message that Russian/Iranian is seeing on a regular basis does a lot more good than a service that throws a perfect insult just once. At least if your goal is to actually change something rather than throwing insults.
  • bakugo 1y ago
    > I still need to find a person who managed to change their political stance after seeing something similar. The intent was never to change your political stance. It's just plain old hate. Armchair political activists are always looking for "morally correct" excuses to be racist and xenophobic, and "your government did a mean thing so you as a citizen are responsible" is one of their favorites.
  • jwr 1y ago
    > just an advice to all wannabe overseas-dictatorship-overthrowers - be nice, try to educate the people, don't make assumptions about person's wrongdoings and awareness based on their IP I can guarantee that your views would change very quickly if bombs started falling closer to where you sit and killing your friends and people you know.
    • e-khadem 1y ago
      Believe it or not, the 12 day war between Iran and Israel was exactly that, and the reaction of the Iranian people was not as uniform (in either way) as one might guess. You could walk on the streets and see some "Hit them Israel" and other similar writings on the walls (the Iranian people were not exactly pro Israel before the war). And yet people could not sleep due to constant bombardment, they had to follow the evacuation orders by the IDF etc.
• elAhmo 1y ago
  > Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. USA is lucky to be in position where others are too afraid to apply this reasoning to them, knowing they do literally the same with their closest ally.
  • squigz 1y ago
    It would be interesting to see someone try to use the Internet while blocking all American IPs
    • phendrenad2 1y ago
      You mean like the entire country of China?
      • ronsor 1y ago
        China has local bootlegs, err... alternatives. Most countries don't have that.
        • int_19h 1y ago
          Russia also has such alternatives. Turns out that they aren't all that hard to develop once the original is unavailable, since lock-in is the main barrier to entry. In this sense, sanctions can sometimes have the opposite effect - by removing the established players from the market, they create opportunities for locals to fill the niches, making the country more self-sufficient in the long run, and thus harder to influence.
• yekanchi 1y ago
  the people are not fundamentally far from their government. this is true for U.S where they elected Donald Trump or Israel that elected Netanyahu. for Iranians it's the same. and it's ground truth. the sanctions actually are designed to push the people of Iran to change their mind and overthrow their gov. it's easier than starting a full-blown war against Iranian that will cause damage or kill U.S soldiers' lives. the sanctions are deliberately implemented to target the people and force them to follow the will of the whom established them.
  • seivan 1y ago
    [dead]
  • int_19h 1y ago
    "the people" are not a singular entity in Iran anymore so than they are in US.
• inbalboa 1y ago
  [flagged]
• Bukhmanizer 1y ago
  When do sanctions apply to websites? I assume static web pages don’t need to filter IPs. Do all websites with a user need to filter on IP?
• megamix 1y ago
  Dude there are crimes everywhere. Here we're fighting chat control and other surveillance mechanisms being implemented. I don't think there's a "neutral ground" to be found - just allies and enemies.
• matips 1y ago
  Work as design. Ali Khamenei is YOUR, not USA leader. His confrontation politic is done in behalf of YOU and he mange YOUR efforts and resources (ex. taxes). If you want to work with democratic country your country have to change Iran political system.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • tryauuum 1y ago
    while this is true, it's not nice to hear it from a person who would never rise up himself in the same situation
• NullCascade 1y ago
  It is actually illegal for EU companies and organizations to boycott Iran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_statute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_statute The EU has since the 1990s gone out of its way to support countries like Iran and Cuba against US/Israeli economic sanctions.
  • somezero 1y ago
    This is not just a funny joke, but also timely given the recent sanctions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_against_Iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_agains...
• eesmith 1y ago
  Do I understand right that if I use a cafe's free wifi, and the cafe's suspiciously cheap service provider routes the connection through Iran so it appears as if my connection is coming from that country, then GitLab and perhaps other companies will ban my account?
• heyheyhouhou 1y ago
  Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. I always find amusing how the west always blames the people of the rivals "iranians", the "chinese", etc but when something is wrong with their side they blame an entity to detach themselves "the american government", "this administration", "nazi germany", etc
  • varjag 1y ago
    Uh the whole concept of collective responsibility was first applied to Germans in the aftermath of WW2.
    • johncolanduoni 1y ago
      The occupying powers very much did not assign collective responsibility to Germans after WW2. Material reparations were massively reduced in scope compared to WW1 (and the norms of the previous century), and the Allies actually poured substantial resources into Germany’s reconstruction (far in excess of the reparations). Also, collective punishment is literally as old as written history. I’m not sure if there are writings that provide a coherent moral theory of why it’s acceptable that you could call “collective responsibility” from those times, but it was the norm for thousands of years of warfare.
      • holowoodman 1y ago
        > The occupying powers very much did not assign collective responsibility to Germans after WW2. Material reparations were massively reduced in scope compared to WW1 (and the norms of the previous century), and the Allies actually poured substantial resources into Germany’s reconstruction (far in excess of the reparations). Mostly because the USSR was the new enemy and Germany had to be an ally after WW2. While the war was still ongoing there was carpet-bombing of German civilians, and some of the plans for after the war originally included complete destruction of industrial capacities, forced displacement of the population of formerly industrialized areas and forced labour for the whole population (google Morgenthau plans).
• honzabe 1y ago
  This discussion leans against sanctions, and I feel a bit uneasy about this. There are some good arguments, but still... can I try to offer a different point of view? I grew up in a country occupied by Russians. I really feel for the Ukrainians. Currently, there seems to be a social contract between Putin and middle-class Russians from Moscow and St. Petersburg - they will let him bomb Ukrainian civilians, as long as he shields them from getting really hurt by that war. They can continue living pretty comfortably, as long as they go along with it. To me, this just feels wrong. Yes, it is hard to change anything in a dictatorship. I know that from personal experience. But I believe that ultimately, citizens have the responsibility for what their country is doing. And if what their country is doing is destroying another country, I am OK with making them feel a bit of heat. I don't know that much about Iran, but the part I know is that they indeed make drones that pound Ukrainians, including their schools and hospitals. Do I feel certain sympathy for Iranian commoners, who might not make those drones voluntarily? Sure. If I were in their place, I would probably not dare to resist, and I would make those drones. But I feel more sympathy with Ukrainians. And if anything could be done to make it harder for Iranians to make those drones, we should try it. Even if it's unlikely to succeed. Even if it makes the lives of innocent ordinary citizens harder. I hope that if I were an Iranian, I would at least understand that.
  • isaacremuant 1y ago
    Your whole post is war propaganda to justify how "the enemy" needs to be blocked and attacked. Analyze who have perpetrated most invasions ("military operations" if you like euphemisms) in the last 40 years and you'll be surprised who you'd need to "block" given your logic. Of course, you won't block yourself because it's convenient to be a jingoist when it doesn't affect you.
    • honzabe 1y ago
      > Analyze who have perpetrated most invasions ("military operations" if you like euphemisms) in the last 40 years and you'll be surprised who you'd need to "block" given your logic. I have. It was Russia. They are indeed blocked and I am not surprised. > Of course, you won't block yourself because it's convenient to be a jingoist when it doesn't affect you. No, I won't block myself because my little country has not invaded anyone. If you are assuming I am an American, I am not.
• admiralrohan 1y ago
  I always wondered why people care so much about data. Now I can understand why. Thanks for sharing.
• ____mr____ 1y ago
  Clear example that hosting (github, websites, etc) as well as social media being US based is a form of soft power that the US has which largely goes unchallenged. While I do agree with the sanctions against Iran for their aid to Russia in their aggression towards Ukraine, It's not like the US is completely innocent from funding or arming aggressors across the globe. How can the software world be mobilized to sanction the US for this? It can't and it won't because lots of the people in tech within the anglosphere have a vested interest in the US maintaining its power
• _trampeltier 1y ago
  If it's illegal to to do bussines with Iran. Can you buy a Windows licence in Iran?
• iamshs 1y ago
  Hit me in the feels. There used to be an amateur Russian beatmaker who I used to follow, it was so sad to see him drop off similarly. His paypal was cut off. I used to watch his IG lives a lot, loved the way he used to develop his beats. Very novel.
  • Ylpertnodi 1y ago
    > Hit me in the feels. Like burying a child feels, or your beatmaker got drafted?
• mvdtnz 1y ago
  Do sometime about the incredibly evil regime in your country before moaning about sanctions. They exist for a very very good reason.
• constantcrying 1y ago
  "I am not responsible for the actions of my government, but you, the people who ban me, are responsible for the actions of your government, who made it illegal to transact with me." Your country is sanctioned. You are asking people to put their own freedom at stake so that you can have a Notion account. Iran is supplying Russia with drones to attack Ukraine. The sanctions against Iran might be hurting people who do not deserve it, but they aren't some unreasonable act of aggression and you are complaining about your Notion account?
• redbell 1y ago
  That was a difficult and frustrating reading! I never imagined that sanctions could hit individuals this hard, especially on the digital side. You get banned from outside and blocked from inside. You can read about The Internet situation inside Iran here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33025954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33025954 There was a lot of interesting stuff went into the article: 1. Microsoft: > Back when I was a student, I got access to the Microsoft Imagine, and as a result, I got access to the Microsoft Store as a developer. Then: > Microsoft deleted my app, my developer account, and all those comments on my app supporting me and suggesting ideas on how to improve the program.. but I assume it's because of the sanctions. Here, I got a novice question: Knowing this individual is from a sanctioned country, Why you are allowing him in the first place to put a lot of work to build an app but, after having some success, you destroyed him entirely?! Also, suggesting ideas on how to improve the program after deleting my account is one of the most hilarious things I have ever read. It is a strong indicator that these emails are just templates built automatically with no soul or human touch. Yes, you heard it right: you are just a row in a table!.. but you still manage to have a PRIMARY_KEY! 2. Notion: > Since It has been suspended permanently, there's still no option to get it back even by going outside those countries. Sorry for the Inconvenience. Take care. Same as above! Why letting me build a base of data then one day, you delete it permanently without prior notice or the ability to export it then you apologize for the Inconvenience and tell me to take care of myself! 3. Mike Cardwell: > I read hackernews on a daily basis Oh, this made me relief a little bit! I hope Hacker News is neither being banned in any country nor blocking traffic from any country. > Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. Blaming then punishing an ordinary citizen for arming a foreign country to kill civilians without clear evidence is so dumb. Also, this reminds me of this post entitled Namecheap: Russia Service Termination (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30504812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30504812): Unfortunately, due to the Russian regime's war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine, we will no longer be providing services to users registered in Russia. 4. GitHub: > However, later, GitHub announced that github is now available in Iran Good News! read here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25648585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25648585 5. TIL TIL about this 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons status code. I won't ever return this code for my websites, everybody, from everywhere, is welcome :) Finally, I have a dream.. the dream to live to the day where a true open internet sees the light where the entire world have unrestricted access to the same online resources.
• moralestapia 1y ago
  "Sorry for the inconvenience. Take care." Damn ... :/
• jwr 1y ago
  This is a complicated subject. I am a SaaS founder/owner and I run into these issues regularly. Everything below is not specifically about Iran (in fact, most of my thinking is inspired by events from recent years caused by another country), but still applies. First, there is the law, and many jurisdictions forbid me from providing any services to individuals and/or businesses in certain countries. See other comments here for details, but these are serious matters. Second, there is my moral beliefs. I go through life trying to draw a moral line and if something is beyond that line, I take action. Your line might be different. You might be a forever-whataboutist, avoiding taking any action and always saying "but what about X or Y?", trying to point out that I am inconsistent in my actions or beliefs. Well I don't subscribe to whataboutism and I believe it is the cause of much of today's world problems. So I refuse to provide service to some countries, because I cannot stand idly while genocide happens. If your country is involved in genocide, target killing of civilians, or actively helps another country to do so, I do not want to deal with you. Some will say that individuals are not responsible for actions of their countries. I disagree. For better or worse, the passport you hold brings with it certain benefits and obligations, and ties you to a country. That's how we agreed to run this world. If your country commits horrific crimes, it's time to take action: oppose the authorities, escape the country, apply for asylum, renounce your citizenship. Yes, I know all these are unpleasant and dangerous. So are the bombs your country is dropping onto my friends right now. Taking the "but individuals are not responsible" stance means that I have to watch as some people from countries that are killing my friends live well in safe places, standing on the sidelines and waiting things out, while keeping the option to return to their country once things blow over. Writing blog posts about the finer points of modern Apple design while people get raped and murdered by the army of their country. I don't feel that is right. There must be consequences if your country commits atrocities. Don't like the consequences? Don't let your country get to the point that it commits atrocities.
• PicassoCTs 1y ago
  [dead]
• nenenejej 1y ago
  > Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. Love how people in glass houses launch these stones.
• andrepd 1y ago
  > I came to the realization that Microsoft deleted my app, my developer account, and all those comments on my app supporting me and suggesting ideas on how to improve the program. I tried to contact the support and email whoever I could, but I was ghosted. I think this is the most insidious part. These companies (on which you often depend for very important things, whether you want or not) will just ban you and delete your stuff, or even shadowban you, without (1) so much as an explanation beyond the Orwellian "you have violated our terms and conditions", and without (2) any possibility of appeal or customer support whatsoever. This goes for google, discord, reddit, YouTube, github, notion, etc etc etc.
• dustedcodes 1y ago
  This works as designed. Sanctions like these are meant to piss off the people living in terrorist states so that you either rise up and rid yourself of all terrorist roots or you accept that the rest of the world doesn’t want to play ball with terrorists or terrorist enablers.
  • tryauuum 1y ago
    I don't know. If I would run "docker run hello-world" and got and error "403" because I'm from Iran, I would be more pissed at US for making my life harder. --- unrelated but jesus christ I'm so pissed at west as a russian. For years London was welcoming russian oligarhs with their stolen money. Putin was invited to Finland even after 2014 invasion of Crimea. But you fuckers decided to ipmlement sanctions only after the 2022. So if I sell my appartment in Russia and want to transfer money to Europe now I would need to prove this is not money I pillaged from Ukraine. Absolutely disgusting. Supposedly Finland continues to buy russian minerals still, but as a russian I cannot cross the border with Finland, even if I have a visa.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • dustedcodes 1y ago
      > unrelated but jesus christ I'm so pissed at west as a russian > So if I sell my appartment in Russia and want to transfer money to Europe now I would need to prove this is not money I pillaged from Ukraine. Just stay at home then, whats the problem? If you are so pissed with the West then why is it a problem that you cannot come here? Just stay in Russia then.
      • tryauuum 1y ago
        you chose to ignore the part of my post where I was pissed at the west for happily inviting russians with stolen money
    • Ylpertnodi 1y ago
      [flagged]
• GardenLetter27 1y ago
  It really sucks, the US should focus on liberating these people - in both Iran and Cuba the majority of people want to be free, and it would be easy to liberate them.
  • dvdkon 1y ago
    How? The US has a pretty bad record of "liberating" middle-eastern countries by military force.
• michalpleban 1y ago
  Living in Europe, I don't give a damn about US sanctions. However, I block traffic from Iran on all my servers for the simple reason that almost all attacks on my website (and if you run a semi-popular website, you get attacked on a daily basis) come from Iran, Russia or China. I am very sorry that this kind of action affects you personally, as I am sure you have nothing to do with these attacks. However, filtering out Iranian, Russian and Chinese traffic in its entirety is the only way to protect my server from the majority of DoS and hacking attempts.
  • mfiro 1y ago
    One of my coworkers, a network specialist, compares IP restrictions to a garden fence. They’re enough to stop casual passersby, but anyone determined will find a way over or around it.
    • kelnos 1y ago
      The reality, though, is that the majority of attack attempts are by casual passersby. No, this method isn't going to stop a determined attacker that is specifically targeting you, but that doesn't mean blocking the lower-effort stuff has no value.
• dayvster 1y ago
  the comments on the gist are rough. Must we saturate every aspect of our lives with Politics? Yes it's annoying that people disabled your access because of your location, but at the end of the day it is what it is. US companies get hefty fines if they do business with Iran.
• bubblethink 1y ago
  A friend of mine, originally from Iran but now a Canadian citizen, was stopped at the border during a recent visit by CBP. They interrogated him, scanned his phone, found some EE paper, insinuated that he makes bombs and is a terrorist, and sent him back to Canada. The US' treatment of Iranians is quite appalling.
• m101 1y ago
  To the comments that talk about Iranian politics: Iran under a monarchy will do well, perhaps even limited democracy. The monarchies of the Arab world seem to be doing well, and not by chance. Democracy alone is not good for any country in the long run imo.
  • amai 1y ago
    Jeah, democracies are for loosers. What did democrats ever do for us, apart from aqueducts?
• zerof1l 1y ago
  I personally know a woman from Iran. She has a PhD in Data Science. She works and lives in the EU. Her mindset is that of an educated European person. She does not support the current Iranian government, and neither do most of the people in Iran, according to her. But publicly expressing disagreement in Iran could have you disappear. That's why people are afraid to protest and speak out. Regarding sanctions, it's not that hard to find and buy products from Iran. At least in the EU. What happens is neighboring countries import raw material from Iran, then put a label "Made in Pakistan", for example, and sell it. But those who know, can easily find and buy things like Iranian rice and spices.
• ktosobcy 1y ago
  So... it would be the best for you (and the rest of the world) to actually decouple from the USA and it's BigTech (and thus from their "pliceman of the world" mentality…)
• chuliomartinez 1y ago
  It is time that democracies stop doing business with autocratic regimes. Not just some of them, because if everything is manufactured in china, which keeps doing business with iran and russia, it seems pointless. At this point it should be obvious to everyone, that western money is (transitively) keeping all the worst regimes alive. People stopped buying south African stuff, as an apartheid boycott, can we get some china boycott going?
• sarthakdash 1y ago
  Funny how there are no such sanctions and ban for the Isreal and its people, whose army is actively committing a genocide in Gaza.
• NooneAtAll3 1y ago
  simple reason to not trust foreign companies, especially american ones
• Kuyawa 1y ago
  UPDATE users SET inactive = true WHERE country = 'Iran' That way you don't lose their data just in case sanctions are lifted
• maxlin 1y ago
  > due to your decision to arm Russia with drones This is an absolutely mental take assigning blame on every civilian of a country. Sadly in probably his worst take, Linus Torvalds also said something in these lines while banning all Russian developers. While the action could be justified, this attitude is never reasonable, and I say that as a Finn with the same opinion about Putin's war of aggression as Linus has. When a service drops a customer for _any_ reason, even if it was the customers own fault, it should become the absolute norm and a the minimum thing that the service would trigger the same thing they'd do when if the user triggered a manual data export off the service. Even for something relatively simple, like for example I didn't log in to my Spotify account for x amount of years and they disabled my account. The only way I could get my collected albums back was through support, and if I had been unlucky, they'd just deleted all my data. This is NOT something that should be the user's responsibility. There is no norm for automating data exports off services, hell even Google makes you go through menus every time. Maybe time for EU to be useful again?
• runjake 1y ago
  The worst thing we could do is punish the Iranian people and remove their access to tools that help their freedom and dignity. Their government, quite literally, does not represent them, their views, nor their interests. If you want to fix “the Iran problem”, help their people as much as possible.
• matteogauthier 1y ago
  Thanks for sharing OP. The “just leave Iran” replies reflect a lack of openness to other cultures. Leaving your country isn’t just logistics, it’s being rooted where you were born. And there’s nothing wrong with that, who are we to judge someone for where they come from?
• grishka 1y ago
  If anyone is curious what happens if you open that website from a Russian IP: > Russian IPs are blocked here, due to your unjust and unprovoked War against Ukraine. You are responsible for the rape, kidnap and massacre of innocent civilians. Which is to me an absolutely bonkers statement, clearly made by someone who has never even tried to research anything about my country. Someone who was clearly born into a democratic society and has lived their whole life in it. And has probably never traveled to countries with oppressive regimes and never made any friends there. It's nothing but performative bullshit.
• jollyllama 1y ago
  eyesguard is awesome! OP rocks.
• random3 1y ago
  The reality is simply a mirror of the same arguments on OPs side. Just like it's not the people it's the government and their policies, there, it's not the people, but the government and the policies here. I remember having compliance trainings that explicitly spelled out sanctioned countries. They are being enforced by compliance and legal departments in every company. There's nothing personal on either side here.
• aenopix 1y ago
  [flagged]
• EmiDub 1y ago
  Can someone give me an explanation for why Mike Cardwell, who lives in the UK, blocks Iranian IPs for “your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians.” but does not block US or UK IPs for their decision to arm Israel? The answer would seem to me to be racism – he values Ukrainian lives more than Palestinians and considers non-white citizens in non-democratic countries responsible for their country’s actions, but white citizens of democracies innocent.
  • behnamoh 1y ago
    Yes I do get the feeling that some of these sentiments ultimately goes back to covert racism.
  • andreyvit 1y ago
    I’m not sure if you’re actually asking or not, but in case you want to hear an answer, it’s because Israel is considered to be defending itself after a horrible attack, not that dissimilar to Ukraine really in some people’s view (me included). This goes back to a worldview where residents of a country share a portion of the blame for their country’s actions. This view is not universal, but has a certain mindshare (again, myself included), and if you imagine it fair for residents of a place to share the fate caused by the cumulative actions of that place, it’s not a big stretch to see how Israel’s actions can be considered natural and just by some, and so can the sanctions against residents of Iran and Russia.
    • sporkxrocket 1y ago
      The vast majority of the world including the ICC and the UN does not consider Israel to be defending itself. By your own logic, Israelis are culpable for the genocide and land theft committed by their government.
      • andreyvit 1y ago
        I believe “vast manority” may be a stretch; do you happen to know if there’s a way to quantify that? In my bubble, almost everyone that I personally know and who generally has reasonable beliefs, is on the Israel’s side of this conflict.
• arunc 1y ago
  Very sad to see this. Most educated Iranians I've met hate Islam and their government that supports its extreme ideologies. I hope the people in this world develop the sense of morality without associating it with any religion or culture, for that's the true purpose of being compassionate humans.
  • beej71 1y ago
    Indeed, all of the Muslims I've met hate extremist, violent ideologies.
    • arunc 1y ago
      The last time I came across the name Beej, there used to be a book/article called Beej's guide for network socket programming. If that's you, thanks for everything!
      • beej71 1y ago
        You're welcome. :)
• beej71 1y ago
  I appreciate this very human submission to HN. There are a lot of good people in this world living under a government they don't agree with.
• amai 1y ago
  Why only Iran? Also add Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Afghanistan. https://the-decoder.com/anthropic-bans-companies-majority-controlled-by-china-russia-iran-and-north-korea-from-claude/ https://the-decoder.com/anthropic-bans-companies-majority-co...
• uncleJoe 1y ago
  What astonishes me is the ease of judgement - who is good and who is not. Everyone is absolutely sure that country A is a doing a RIGHT (tm) thing, while the country B is absolute evil. You have no idea about real reasons, real facts and real feelings except those you've seen on tv or heard from your own bubble. You are so smart, honest and independent that it smells. "Of course YOU have to ... and ... and ... I know better than you guys. Why you are so stupid and don't end this?" It is so easy to rule other countries and tell them what they have to do, totally ignoring real problems that lead to situation. It is so easy to be right, to judge and to discuss things you have no fucking clue. And every person that is saying something contradictory to your opinion is a stupid guy that is brainwashed. They are all brainwashed! Their brain is destroyed by propaganda! Poor, stupid people! We need to bring some democracy to them. Probably. If they do not have some nukes or it would be too expensive. Anyway, thank you for reading.
• elevation 1y ago
  > Even after leaving Iran, you still face many similar problems. [...] like having a bank account or simply opening a personal account on different services—you’ll encounter problems. When you grant access/resources to expats of a hostile country, you have to limit them as if they were agents of the foreign country. Even if they like your country, you make them vulnerable to threats of torture/imprisonment of their loved ones back home.
• dzhiurgis 1y ago
  There's some grade³ irony when people with daily school shootings tell others to sort out their regime.
• AfterHIA 1y ago
  That's kind of why FROM users WHERE location = 'Orem, Utah" AND "Charlie Kirk" (...)
• rikima_ 1y ago
  I guess that's why Anthropic's CEO is universally hated in some places.
• HocusLocus 1y ago
  Now do Cuba. The American Mafia was running Cuba by 1959 because, casinos and American tourism. Fidel Castro's revolution was genuine and did reflect the desire of most Cubans when it kicked the US Mafia out. The mafia expressed interest in ousting Castro and getting their casinos back. Bay of Pigs was a failed CIA+private mission whose motive was america:demorcacy:'communism' to which I add :mob. Las Vegas was their backup cope. Then in 1962 suddenly another motive was added :USSR-missiles. The US blockade of Russian warships probably loaded with ballistic missiles on their way to construction sites in Cuba, was the closest brink of war yet. My Dad (ARMY) was on alert and packed to go. With that resolved and no USSR missiles in Cuba the working motive for opposition fell back on (because Castro, Communism) and its economy was hobbled for years until neutral worldwide investors besides the USSR established ties. To this day Cuba is still on the edge with the lines shifting back and forth. As has Iran since the Shah dynasty ended and American hostages were taken. So Cuba and Iran have lines stretching back into the distance. Probably you and I are young and it all seems so ancient. But Iran is a wealthy country now and (like us and the CIA) and it is now 'on our watch' to make sure money is not being funneled into the wrong places. This nuclear thing annoys me but I'm a 'radical'. Aside from sweetheart deals and that 'other' country the US gave The Bomb by supplying their initial fissile material... since the USSR split anyone with MONEY has been able to acquire 1,2,3,+ bombs if they want them. "So and so is two weeks from having a Bomb" is generic Boomer slop to stoke fear and justify anything. And by all means if you have uranium, centrifuge uranium. And build out nuclear power. Don't reply with an answer and place yourself in the crosshairs. But think on or find out for yourself, what number between 3% and 99% was Iran aiming for? If the number is on the higher side don't think in terms of [stupid] nuclear war, think in terms of money being wasted and having to deal with the most sordid people in the world to sell it. A bad direction. Things like this are both funny and sad, and hint at a world that might have turned out differently, better ( https://web.archive.org/web/20150518180531/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shah_of_Iran_building_two_nuclear_plants.jpg https://web.archive.org/web/20150518180531/http://en.wikiped... ). Time to revisit roads we had not taken.