Hosting Services May Be Breaking Syrian Sanctions

judgecorp writes "Many Syrian government sites and services are hosted outside the country, in the U.S., Canada and Germany. A recent report suggests the hosting services may be breaking international sanctions against the Syrian regime, and assisting it in committing 'crimes against humanity.'"

North Korea too, and it's not new

[CmdrPony]

North Korea has hosted their govermental websites (for outsiders, anyway) in Spain. For example korea-drp.com [korea-dpr.com] is hosted on IP 91.142.218.24 in Malaga, Spain. It's been there for years. (I know because I've planned visiting there, and looked it up a few times)

And seriously, hosting services assisting in "crimes against humanity"? They are informational sites about countries. It makes sense for them to outsource their hosting. Hell, even United States uses Akamai. If you want to do censorship against countries or things you don't agree with, sure, go ahead and silence their websites. But country having a website has nothing to do with "crimes against humanity".

Crimes against humanity

[rickett81]

There is no way that I can say that hosting a website is akin to crimes against humanity.

Lets use this example?

Lets suppose that 3 people go in and rob a bank. During this heist, they shoot someone who later dies. After the robbery/murder, they jump in an F150 and drive away. Does this mean that Ford is assisting armed robbery and capital murder? No!
This is ludicrous.

What?

[scheme]

Are you seriously comparing whole North Korea to concentration camp in Hitler's Germany? Frankly, it's not like that. While it's true that Kim Jong is the sole leader of the country, it's not really that bad for the people there. They have it much like rest of the world, and people seem really happy. Sure, some of it comes from the fact that they don't know better, but to compare it to concentration camp is ludicrous.

It sounds like you'd be fine with visiting Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge or Soviet gulags as well. Between 1990-1997 Korea lost between 5-12% of the population to starvation with the military getting preferential treatment in regards to food rations and everyone else being effectively left to fend for themselves. North Korea is still suffering from famine and according to reports people are getting about 700 calories a day of food. Also, north koreans are apparently about five inches shorter on average than equivalent south koreans.

Either you're woefully misinformed about the situation in North Korea or you're intentionally blinding yourself to it or you simply don't care. If the problem is the former, I'd suggest reading up on things before saying that things are fine and dandy. If it's the latter, well, you should spend time trying to find some compassion and humanity within yourself instead of traveling so much.

Re:North Korea too, and it's not new

[Shatrat]

The alternative to sanctions would be Saudia Arabia where you have terrible crimes against humanity and the perpetrators live like gods.
Just because it's not a panacea doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

Re:North Korea too, and it's not new

[Compaqt]

It might not be popular but: If you want the Internet to be a bastion for free speech, you have to have free speech for all (however repellent), not just for those with whom you agree.

I just did a check, and some Iranian government websites (as given on Wikipedia) work, as they should, including those with a .com TLD.

So why the special attention to Syria? Iran also put down an uprising a few years ago.

If you don't agree with something, argue against it on your own website; don't shut down somebody else's.

Re:What?

[CmdrPony]

And what does their food amount per day or length have to do with me visiting there? If anything, I help the general population by visiting there. Sure, that 2000-3000 euros it costs me to do so doesn't matter much, but the people get to see more people from foreign countries. Maybe it indirectly helps in something, I don't know. What have you done, exactly? And again, as I've previously noticed how people (especially those from US) tell how other nationals are suffering so and so much, and when I've visited there it's been nothing like that, I don't really take everything I read on the internet not so seriously. Usually the people are happy, and would be unhappy if things were different. Other people, especially US ones, for some reason like to think they "know better" and try to impose their views on others.