Microsoft Not the Only Firm Blocking IM Service To US Enemies

ericatcw writes "It was reported last week that Microsoft had cut access to its Windows Live Messenger instant messaging service to citizens of five countries with whom the US has trade embargoes. Now, it turns out that Google and, apparently, AOL have taken similar actions. According to a lawyer quoted by Computerworld, even free, downloaded apps are viewed as 'exports' by the US government — meaning totally in-the-cloud services such as e-mail may escape the rules. Either way, there appear to be a number of ways determined citizens of Syria, Iran, and Cuba can get around the ban."

hurt the wrong people more

[xzvf]

Ironically, banning these communication tools will more likely hinder dissidents in those countries far more than government. The dictatorial governments already have control over many traditional forms of communication and by introducing these new forums, the US would actually make it harder for them to control their population.

Re:OK With Me

[polar red]

It's hard to change your government when outside forces keep interfering. examples are : big corporations paying warlords (with weapons) in exchange for mining rights; foreign governments placing people in government and supplying them with money/weapons ...

Re:OK With Me

[polar red]

another example : a foreign much bigger country places your country in isolation, thereby giving the dictator a means to control the population by antagonising the big country. (CUBA)

Re:OK With Me

[oneirophrenos]

I understand that not everyplace has a representative democracy with regular, free elections like the US, but except for the worst dictatorships that rule by force, the government must remain popular with the people!

You are kidding yourself. An ordinary person has very little influence on who and what comprises the government, especially in countries where anti-government sentiment is met with force and violence. That Western companies seek to undermine the few remaining means of free communication that these people have is, frankly, irresponsible.

This does nothing.

[MindlessAutomata]

I'm sure someone is going to step in with some "brilliant" apology for the behavior of the government (now, this applies to the US government now, but could also apply to any other government), but in reality these embargoes do little more than hurt the everyday people in both countries, as most people are completely innocent of whatever games their silly leaders play and this only denies them trade, communication, and sometimes a place to escape a worse regime (although sometimes I wonder if that "worse regime" could be the USA itself...)

The reason for the Cuba embargo is simply for political reasons. You can tell who the more honest politicians are in Congress by whether they'd end the Cuban embargo. How many of them are there, anyway? Two? Sounds about right.

Re:OK With Me

[zwei2stein]

Ehhh ... no.

Citizens of those countries being able to comunicate with rest of the world and see&compare how people live elsewhere will cause change. That is reason why their cowerment attempt to censor internet. US of A does not need to help them with that.

Big Bad Common Foreign Enemy targeting them too on the other hand ... well, ignorant masses are easy prey to propaganda.

Re:hurt the wrong people more

[RiotingPacifist]

Unfortunately the blame doesn't lie with ms/aol/google (a sad day for /.) this time the problem is purely political ( a happy day for /.), the government needs to define "exports" better so that methods of communicating are allowed (even if you forbid encryption).

Re:"U.S. Enemies"?

[slarrg]

Not to mention it's a country that's easy to embargo since they have nothing we need. Rest assured, if they strike oil there we'll find every reason under the sun to be the best of allies.

Re:"U.S. Enemies"?

[AlHunt]

>Really curious - can any slashdotters enlighten me as to why the Cuba / USA situation continues?

Because it seemed like a good idea at the time and backing off now would mean Davey beat Goliath. American politicians aren't willing to admit they couldn't bully a tiny island nation 90 miles off the coast.

In a word - ego.

Re:hurt the wrong people more

[timeOday]

I always thought the Internet would make wars awfully awkward, since you could be in direct, person-to-person contact with the civilians on the other side. At least a few of them are bound to put up facebook pages chronicling their hardships, in English, for all to see. (And to be fair, foreign propagandists are sure to create sympathetic shills as well - though as long as the pictures of slaughtered children are real, I'm not sure the identity of the supposed grieving mother really matters).

So I guess this practice will help shield us from that little inconvenience.

Re:Residents, not citizens

[Ektanoor]

Or use relative tools from third countries. There is no access to google.com? Well, let's try yandex.ru.

These rulings give me a weird sense of the Chinese Big Wall of Internet in a mirror image

Enemy Communications

[alcmaeon]

Also ironically, wouldn't it be better for the U.S. to have all its enemies' secret communications running through servers in the U.S. so we could just eavesdrop anytime we wanted to with no hassle. Or the U.S. thinks the IM doesn't serve any strategic purpose, which makes one wonder why it needs to be embargoed.

Re:"U.S. Enemies"?

[TapeCutter]

"Why do politicians do anything? Political reasons"

I agree with the OP, the reason was the missle crisis but I'm 50 and I'm still too young to remember the missle crisis first hand, to an non-american it looks petty and childish. I mean why is the US speaking to Germany and Japan, WW2 was a much bigger shit fight and was only 15-20yrs before the bay of pigs? Seems to me the reasons to hold a formalised grudge against Cuba dissapeared long ago. The sanctions obviously didn't work since Castro remained in power until old age put him out of action, the only direct affect they had on him was to restrict his travel.

Re:"U.S. Enemies"?

[Xest]

Oh it's much worse than that. You might find this list, particularly the Cuba entry interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_response_to_Hurricane_Katrina [wikipedia.org]

Everyone knows the way the Bush administration dealt with Katrina is bad, but I don't think many realise quite how bad. Realistically in turning down Cuba's offer of help American lives were undoubtedly lost and for what? A refusal to reconcile with what is an entirely harmless nation to the US? A dispute that started over half a century ago?

Could you imagine the shit state Europe would be in if France, Britain, the Netherlands etc. still shunned Germany, Italy, Spain and so forth over World War II for that kind of period? It's really quite mindless with no benefits that aren't at very least far outweighed by resolving the issue. It's not as if Cuba has even chosen a path of confrontation by allowing say China or Iran to stick a naval base on it's land since which is more than can be said for the US which has military bases at pretty much all their opponent's doorsteps now.

I can understand the argument with Iran and Syria because they certainly do sponsor terrorism, they do maintain and agressive rhetoric and so there's some justification, but Cuba is really about as much of a threat to the US as Switzerland is.

Re:"U.S. Enemies"?

[Anonymous Coward]

We need their cigars.

Ok, now that the obvious joke's out of the way...

We need their sugar. If you want a conspiracy theory, the embargo goes on because of corn-growing conglomerates. Ever wonder why everything in the U.S. is sweetened with diabetes causing high-fructose corn syrup even though natural sugar tastes better and is (barely, in the case of refined sugar) not as bad for your health?

It's because corn is less expensive than sugar. "But why?" you ask. "Sugar takes fewer resources to grow!" But the government gives subsidies to corn farmers. And a great deal of the world's sugar comes from Cuba. There are sugar plantations in Louisiana, but they are hardly worth noticing next to the endless acres of corn in the midwest.

Do I actually think that's the reason? No, not really. I think it's just obstinance. But it is true that a side effect of the embargo dropping would be that we could have snack food and soda that both tastes better and is marginally healthier.

Re:OK With Me

[m.ducharme]

Don't you see the point? To use your own example, one of the methods by which the North Korean government maintains power over its people is to block access by those people to things like the web, e-mail, IM, etc. If you keep the people incommunicado, then you can more easily keep them under control.

If the US prohibits its corporations from providing things like IM, e-mail, etc to the people of repressive governments, it's basically helping those governments maintain control over their own people. If the goal of the US gov is to subvert repressive governments, denying the people of those nations access to communication with the rest of the world will not achieve that goal. If on the other hand the goal is to dehumanize the people of those countries, making it easier for all of us to accept wars with those countries, well, blocking communications would certainly help accomplish that.

Re:"U.S. Enemies"?

[phayes]

Lets not forget that for decades Cuba/Castro worked to undermine democracy internationally every chance they got while oppressing anyone at home who suggested the slightest criticism of the castrist "nirvana". A unsubstainable nirvana that was bought & paid for by subsidies from the kremlin. When the URSS collapsed, instead of accepting dissent and moving towards a system where the cubans could freely elect their leaders, Castro chose to crash the cuban economy. After all, that wayn whatever the pain to the population, Castro would still be comfortably in power... The problem between Cuba & the US not just one-sided, the cuban government actively hates and fears democracy.

IRC,twitter,jabber works

[pavithran]

There are many other protocols for people to communicate over the web.

Re:"U.S. Enemies"?

[phayes]

I'm sure that all the Angolans killed over 27 years of Cuban intervention in their once prosperous country are reassured by Cuba's justification that Cuba helped destroy their country to assist the people being oppressed by US supported dictators in the rest of the world. None of which changes my point: Castro's oppression of his own people is as responsible for the embargo as the USG is. Arrange free elections. Win them. No way could the US justify the continued embargo. Continue to oppress the any cuban who speaks out in favor of free speech and see the embargo continued until the day you die. We can all see how Castro & his apologists like you have chosen: Any sacrifice (preferrably by others) is justified if it serves "The Cause"...