Microsoft Not the Only Firm Blocking IM Service To US Enemies 173
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hurt the wrong people more (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
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No, the definition for exports is just fine, what is needed is a case by case review and exemption implementation system so services that pose no real threat and possibly benefit the US can be excluded.
Methods of communicating are a key part to embargoes and export restrictions. It goes into the entire not benefiting from a free (er) system to not enabling the foreign governments easier access to control and efficiency in that control. Missile guidence systems are little more then ways to communicate. They
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More to the point, who is the government to say who we can or cannot trade with?
Access to a system should be determined by the owner not the government, also in a free market I am free to sell to who ever I wish.
Re:hurt the wrong people more (Score:5, Insightful)
So I guess this practice will help shield us from that little inconvenience.
Re:hurt the wrong people more (Score:4, Interesting)
"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."
Reminds me of a common thought in the beginning of the 20th century. When aeroplanes were invented, there was the opinion that since everthing would be scoutable from the air, there would be no secrets since every troopmovement would be detected very easily. There would be no secrets and war would be impossible. That hope was crushed very quick I would imagine since war didn't stop and even became more dangerous to civilians(city bombing).
In a real war between equals, internet contact(and all other contact for that matter) between those countries would be immediatly cut off as far as it can be cut off. Sure, you can use proxies and the sort but only a select few would be able to subvert the "firewall". Every time a new way of evading the firewall becomes popular, goverments will try to block it and it will be enough to stop 90%+ of the people coming in contact with people on the other side.
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I would note that during both Iraq wars there were reports that US & Allies could not completely take down Irak's network grid. There was even some anecdotical evidence due to fiber optics being used.
"As far as it can be cut off"... Well the last on the list will probably be those with the weapons, which makes such moves rather unproductive. Civilians loose phone and network links while the military or terrorist keep browsing Google Maps.
One doesn't need to go so far as to Iraq... Pakistan, Swat. Taliba
Heard something similar about dynamite (Score:2)
Alfred Nobel: right on Mutually Assured Destruction, but 50 years early and wrong weapon?
Combined with legit civil-engineering use of such explosives, it makes sense
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That's why we need net neutrality.
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âoeThe enemy,â retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, âoeis anybody whoâ(TM)s going to get you killed, no matter which side heâ(TM)s on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And donâ(TM)t you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.â
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"The enemy," retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, "is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don't you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live."
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Yossarian was trying to justify assassinating his commanding officer, because the CO was trying to get him killed (by volunteering the group for more dangerous missions).
His point was that the officers were responsible for the fighting, so they were the enemy.
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I can't see why this nation is the enemy of the US? There is no war and no military threat, the Soviet Union vanished into thing air, and everything else is an internal matter of the nation. There are sanction someione forgot to lift because the conditions have not changed. Here it will only drive the nation towards open source. A 'national messenger' is the equivalent to nuclear defense, if your government does not invest in it, your nation is not digitally independent.
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A good photographer can make a crowd of 10 look like 100, or 100 people look like 1000s. Similarly, a good propagandist will distort the events of a picture to suit their needs. Facts be damned, reality is what the people believe.
Enemy Communications (Score:5, Insightful)
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Encryption, misdirection, and poisoning plots.
The information gathered in this way wouldn't be very useful for long. First, there are encryption techniques that would take longer then any war would to break making the information only beneficial to the intended recipients. Think about that, the message is about troop movements and a sneak attack next week and it takes 6 months to 10 years to crack it.
Second, if I know you have privilege to my communications, then I can stretch your forces and cost severe ec
Great idea! (Score:2)
That's a great idea. It's also why you'd be totally unsuited to working for government. :|
Stick to private enterprise, my friend. Survival of the fittest has its rewards.
Hey guys, look at the Ventrilo License Agreement (Score:2)
http://www.ventrilo.com/dlprod.php?id=1 [ventrilo.com]
Exact same restrictions!
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Europe is being repopulated by Muslims.
BS. the birthrate of 'muslims' is also declining rapidly; that birthrate is completely dependent on socio-economic factors.
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"How would you feel if you had a legitimate case that was decided against you because you were the wrong race or gender or sexual orientation?"
I'd feel like that's what happens when you fill it with ultra Conservative anti-Constitutionalists like Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts. Kennedy actually takes reality and responsibility into consideration, and I can respect him for it despite his being very conservative, but with him as the "swing" vote God help us all.
Oh, sorry, that completely blew up your spot.
OK With Me (Score:2, Funny)
That's the point, isn't it? Hopefully citizens in those countries will wish that they weren't embargoed and put pressure on their government to change.
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!
Re:OK With Me (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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How many countries have an embargo on Cuba? (hint, one)
The US's embargo on Cuba has not strengthened Castro's grip on the population, all it's done is made Cubans poorer, which _should_ make the population dislike their leader for letting that happen..
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Lol.. Try closed casinos and whorehouses, confiscated American owned enterprises without compensation, and invited Russia into the country during the cold war to base nuclear missiles operations so that Russia could actually strike American targets within the continental US.
The last part alone seems to be enough. But I understand why you left is out, it weakens you view of America.
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Wow, you sure are a history revisionist. Here is a hint, when the US threw the spanish out, we have been friendly with CUBA ever since until Castro came along. There was no bribery needed dumbass.
And you point is what? I said that was cause to be pissed at Cuba and Castro, not that it didn't happen. Or are you one of those fuck t
Re:foreign governments ...supplying weapons (Score:2)
Trek TOS!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Private_Little_War [wikipedia.org]
Re:OK With Me (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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What do you think the north korean government tells people is the reason they can't have internet access?
They won't say "because we are an evil controlling corrupt government", they will say "because foreign governments are trying to isolate you"... The people in north korea have no other source of information, so what will they believe?
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DO you actually think the N. Korean citizens have computers sitting around waiting to get the internet?
The entire NK economy is socialized which means that almost everything is rationed from the government. Hell, NK just started allowing cell phone in the country and is now contemplating internet access [engadget.com] for those cell phones on a limited bases.
NK wouldn't be telling their people anything because the vast majority of them wouldn't have a computer or any internet capable device.
The west will blow (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:OK With Me (Score:5, Insightful)
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:OK With Me (Score:5, Interesting)
Mod parent up. Seriously, people in North Korea only go along with their dear leader because they think that they are in a good country. NK media pulls lots of tricks, like releasing footage of boxing day sales, then labels them "US consumers panic as famine hits". 1984 wouldn't work with IM.
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Seriously, people in North Korea only go along with their dear leader because they think that they are in a good country. NK media pulls lots of tricks, like releasing footage of boxing day sales, then labels them "US consumers panic as famine hits". 1984 wouldn't work with IM.
Incidentally, that's why we go along with our leaders as well... And we do have free access to information.
Re:OK With Me (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:OK With Me (Score:4, Interesting)
Only thanks to actions like this attempting to shut off methods of communication, the only information these people will get about the outside world will be what their government supplies them...
So as far as the people are concerned, it is not their heroic government that needs to change, it is the evil foreign governments who are picking on them.. And were it not for their heroic government fighting their corner, these people would be even more cut off from the world.
ICANN (Score:2)
That's the point, isn't it? Hopefully citizens in those countries will wish that they weren't embargoed and put pressure on their government to change.
Sounds good to me. I think I'll start petitioning the UK and Canadian governments to change control of ICANN. This is a US corporation and I think it would be very bad if that started to refuse domain names to Canada because the US government doesn't think our copyright laws are draconian enough. Probably not the type of pressure you were hoping for is it? However when foreign corporations start meddling in local politics this is the sort of result you will get.
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This is a US corporation and I think it would be very bad if that started to refuse domain names to Canada because the US government doesn't think our copyright laws are draconian enough
Aren't canadian domains handled by Canada? My country's domains are handled here.
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Cutting internet into pieces (Score:2, Interesting)
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Don't solely trust your communications to a corporation if you can help it.
"U.S. Enemies"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do you guys in the USA still seriously believe that Cuba is going to invade and conquer you / subvert your citizens and turn them into communists / invite Putin to set up ICBMs pointing at you?
Across the water here in the UK it seems a bit daft. Really interested in some measured responses about why the USA still has a trade embargo against Cuba and treats them so coldly. I'm not trying to wind you up, but really curious and I don't understand. If the reason is because you believe Cuba has a poor human rights record, well that doesn't stop the USA trading with other countries where serious human rights abuses are commonplace. Is it because Cuba is nominally communist? I am pretty sure the USA trades with other countries that have communist/dictatorial leaderships.
Really curious - can any slashdotters enlighten me as to why the Cuba / USA situation continues? I would have thought it's all long gone cold war history and both countries would benefit from getting over it. Or has the Cuban leadership said something that the USA doesn't find acceptable and won't back down until they apologise?
cheers for any insights!
Re:"U.S. Enemies"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do politicians do anything? Political reasons. Gotta look tough 'n macho, or something. Tough on crime. Tough on communism. So on so forth. Yeah we trade with worse countries but Joe Voter is too stupid to know that and he knows that Cuba it the "enemy" of the good ol' USA so only a pinko liberal would end the embarge!*
*the vast majority of liberals don't support removing the trade embargo either. Oh...and I'm not a liberal.
Re:"U.S. Enemies"? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not to mention it's a country that's easy to embargo since they have nothing we need.
No, but they're a sizeable market for food producers (Cuba imports a LOT of its food), who are one of the driving forces behind the movement to end the embargo.
Rest assured, if they strike oil there we'll find every reason under the sun to be the best of allies.
Guess what Venezuela is helping them prepare to drill for [usnews.com]. Guess what other US companies want the embargo to end.
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Re:"U.S. Enemies"? (Score:4, Insightful)
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for decades Cuba/Castro worked to undermine democracy internationally every chance they got
How many dictatorships did the US support, in latin america and elsewhere?
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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
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I used to consider myself as in the liberal camp but now find myself much further to the left. I value education, science, freedom, free speech and heavily criticize religion and would like to see it disappear, such values used to be very common with the left.
What seems to me to have happened now though is traditional leftist values
Re:"U.S. Enemies"? (Score:5, Insightful)
>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.
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The problem is purely economical. If one gets the chronology right, things went bad between US and Cuba when Fidel wanted to get a little bit of Cuba for cubans themselves. Back them 99,9% of Cuba was US, the "little garden" on the Caribbean.
Was it a burst of emotion or something else? The fact is that Fidel nationalized all Cuba! And the US made a pretty messy fuss out of that. Upon which Fidel answered with a fuss of world proportions. Remember the Missile Crisis?
Now the fact is that not only Fidel, or th
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The fact is that Fidel nationalized all Cuba! And the US made a pretty messy fuss out of that. Upon which Fidel answered with a fuss of world proportions. Remember the Missile Crisis?
You forgot a little detail in-between [wikipedia.org].
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I don't think it's that, or at least it's not the entire problem.
Florida is very often a key state and many Cubans live there, they're a pretty significant voting group. A lot of them seem to be so blind in their hatred of Castro that they don't see the embargo that they support is hurting their countrymen more than it hurts Castro.
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Do you guys in the USA still seriously believe that Cuba is going to invade and conquer you / subvert your citizens and turn them into communists / invite Putin to set up ICBMs pointing at you?
Most Americans, no, they don't believe any of that. There's a minority ruled by the near constant crap flood of fear, racism, xenophobia and negativity offered up by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, along with a handful of media outlets owned by Rupert Murdock and Fred Koch. They don't rea
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The world elects bad leaders because the political process attracts the greedy and power hungry...
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There were and probably still are several american interests in Myanmar/Burma. Not matter the presence, the regime there is still the same. And the response they made to the huge cyclone that slashed nearly all the country is, at least, barbaric.
Cuba, with its record, had recently to deal with a no less damaging hurricane. Their response was such that I read, a few months ago, that Texas officials were eager to go to Havana to get acquainted with their methods.
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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?
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Agree. But one shall take into account that Syria, while helping organisations clearly linked to terrorism, does not make threats against the US. On the contrary it has a policy to avoid directly harassing the US. On the other side, there is that interesting country of Libya.... That did not only made threats... Right?
Where are they now?
BTW, no long ago I took a look at a large book made in the US about Libya's mineral resources. Really fantastic, a super-detailed report on the best of the best Libya has "t
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When Castro came to power, many, many rich Cuban families left their land, houses, farms and factories and moved to Florida. To this day, these Florida Cubans hold enormous political power. It's very difficult for a national politician to win Florida without appeasing the Cuban population there. And, because of the peculiar nature of the American electoral system, it's very difficult to win the presidency without winning, or at least a significant showing in Florida. So the Cubans in Florida wield enorm
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I don't think even 3% of the US population is Jewish. That would be 9 million people yet there are only 12 million Jews in the world and 5.3million of them are in Israel.
I'm not sure where their disproportionate hold on power stems from though, simply guilt over what happened in World War II perhaps?
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When Castro seized the assets of Cuba's property owners, they fled to the US. Obviously, these people don't care much for Castro and they happen to wield a considerable amount of influence, particularly in Florida, one of the most important swing states in the presidential elections.
On top of this, there are still some old cold war hawks who view Cuba as a lingering threat of communist influence in Latin America. There is a lot of nostalgic fear attached to Castro's name. This may soften if Raul turns out t
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Really curious - can any slashdotters enlighten me as to why the Cuba / USA situation continues? I would have thought it's all long gone cold war history and both countries would benefit from getting over it. Or has the Cuban leadership said something that the USA doesn't find acceptable and won't back down until they apologise?
Basically, yes. When Castro took over he nationalized the assets left behind by all the rich cubanos who fled to the USA. They weren't happy about that so they capitalized on the political situation and used their influence to get the US government to "punish" Castro in return. Those cubanos and their descendants living in Miami and other parts of the US are still pretty rich and still pretty pissed, so they make use of whatever they can to continue to pressure/lobby the US government to keep those polic
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Bah, lots of replies to your question, but most of them pin the blame in the wrong place.
Of course, the embargo started during the cold war. We could debate whether even *that* was a good idea, but dems da facts. The reason the ban stays in place is strictly for political reasons. But it's not to maintain a "macho" image, as other replies have stated. The reason is that the ban is very popular among cuban expatriots in Florida. Cubans are an important minority demographic in Florida. And Florida is a
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Yes, we do. They did get Hruschev's missiles once, and they (Che Guevara [savecivilization.org] in particular) did try to blow-up New York landmarks — FBI and New York Police Department managed to disrupt that operation by planting a young police cadet in the "Black Liberation Army".
As long as the same people and the same ideology a
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right...and the never US funded & armed people who attacked cuba killing ~5k people!
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Why the Cuban government fears USA is a different topic from why the American government is wary of Cuba.
I take it, you accept my point on the original topic, and wish to switch to this new one. Obliging.
Your attempt to equate Che Guevara's terrorism with America-supported military action/coup is ridiculous. Che intended to scare (terrorize) millions by killing (intentionally with multiple bombs) as many as he
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Because they want to be seen to be tough on ... And cuba has nothing they really need. They would like to do the same with china and russia, but the big business lobbyists who pay for their political campaigns wouldn't like that. Cuba are just a scapegoat because noone that matters (read: noone with money) cares about them.
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We're embargoing Cuba because organized crime wants their property back.
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Really curious - can any slashdotters enlighten me as to why the Cuba / USA situation continues?
The US population as a whole opposes the embargo now, but there's a very important exception: Cuban immigrants. Rabidly anticommunist Cubans in Florida are very strong politically, and anyone who follows US national elections (doesn't everyone?) knows how important Florida is.
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It is an acknowledged fact that Cemal Gürsel wanted to corrupt the Soviet way of life by letting John Fitzgerald Kenedy install nuclear rockets in Turkey
Luckily Khrushchev defused that threat successfully
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And Stalin was dead for 9 years (I have a feeling that most Americans think that Stalin ruled USSR from 1917 until 'mid eighties).
This does nothing. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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ron paul and...?
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Besides, all in all, considering the whole central America crisis, Cuba is doing quite well.
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Besides, all in all, considering the whole central America crisis, Cuba is doing quite well.
Shhh, don't say that so loud. Perspective regarding Cuba is verboten.
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> of whatever games their silly leaders play
True... I wonder how would we do without governments.
Silly rules (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway that will not impair Fidel Castro of browsing Google News through Chavez's personal proxy, right?
Or it will not stop Ahmenidjad of reading all those funny books on US rocket programs he already got from googling... Besides he already bookmarked all the stuff.
Anyway I think it will be more damaging the fact that information, on what people think of these countries, is being blocked to them...
Eeeee, stop... North Korea was taken out of terrorism support list a little before they started to mess around with missiles and nukes. Well, missiles and nukes, they already had isn't it? Yes, it could be possible that Kim just decided to google a little bit and found the reason for that litlte meany bug that was plaguing his rockets. But the man went really mad, he is blasting a rocket every day and scrapping every piece of paper he signed. He's cursing the whole world and threatening pure harakiri. Maybe because of such things as this?:
http://www.nkeconwatch.com/north-korea-uncovered-google-earth/
So long for secretive North Korea...
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they're welcome to use my proxy (Score:2)
Like me, they're probably sick of US dumbassery.
Residents, not citizens (Score:2)
The ban is designed to stop residents of said countries, not citizens. You can still have non-Iranians in Iran, for example, being effected by this and also still have citizens of the counties living elsewhere not being effected by the ban.
With solutions such as Jabber, there is nothing for residents in question to put place their own solution.
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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
In the cloud? (Score:2)
Google's IM service is "totally in the cloud"... Sure, they *offer* a downloadable client for it, but you don't have to use theirs, they even encourage you to use other clients to connect to it. People in these countries wanting to connect can just download another client, in fact they could even use XMPP compliant servers located anywhere else to talk to google users... I speak to tons of gtalk users every day, from my own server.
"Enemies"? self-fulfilling much? (Score:2)
Because a country is on your embargo list, or in some random "axis of evil" compendium, does not make it an "enemy" of the US.
This may come as a surprise to many /. readers and, apparently, the ignoramus who wrote the article title, but it is true nonetheless.
Grow up and stop being paranoid, America. External enemies are for children lying in bed afraid of the bogeyman. The real enemy is within us, as you are as a nation - one hopes! - in the process of (re-)discovering.
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IRC,twitter,jabber works (Score:2, Insightful)
Export controls again? (Score:2)
even free, downloaded apps are viewed as 'exports' by the US government
Yet another reason to move s/w development and server operations offshore.
No shit (Score:2)
"Either way, there appear to be a number of ways determined citizens of Syria, Iran, and Cuba can get around the ban."
If the US government would get its head out of its ass and stop drumming up new "enemies" to justify its military-industrial complex every time some country doesn't BOHICA for the US, we wouldn't care about any of this.
Cuba? Does ANYBODY care about Cuba any more?
Syria and Iran are not the enemies of the US - IF the US wasn't bound and determined to be THEIR enemy courtesy of the fucking raci
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You can't really blame Americans for the economic crisis, just because everybody made bad leveraged investments in their homes and now they don't want to buy all your factory-made gimmicks, reducing worldwide demand. I guess you should have grown food and relied on local demand for expansion instead.
Of course, maybe foreign direct investment wrecked your economy by building all of the gimmicky factories instead of farms like you needed. But you should have regulated your industry to make sure your people wo
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On the first day of availability of Firefox 3, Mozilla tracked the locations of all the downloads they could, and logged the results on this map [spreadfirefox.com]. As measures of Internet penetration in a country go, this isn't too bad. A country with a large number of Firefox users has a large number of Internet users - and further, those users are more than usually sophisticated about how they interact with the network, insofar as they hav