Tell HN: Microsoft limits GitHub accounts of Russian citizens anywhere
I believe their system limits users based on past payment and IP address history.
Limitation seems to concern paid features only for the time being (I only realized this when I couldn't sponsor a project yesterday).
As long as you are limited, you cannot update your billing address.
The only way to lift the restrictions is the appeals form*, which requires submitting a non-Russian photo ID. Apparently, regardless of where you reside, a Russian user who paid Github from Russia or with a Russian billing address at least once must obtain another citizenship (probably not a problem for the wealthy ones?) to keep using their existing Github account fully.
* https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/other-site-policies/g...
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 43.0 ms ] threadLast year "GitHub is fully available in Iran" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25648585 In the blog post Github says "We want every developer to be able to collaborate on GitHub, and we are working with the US government to secure similar licenses for developers in Crimea and Syria as well."
IIRC, US government sanctions target specific businesses and individuals in Russia, not all residents of Russia. (They do, and for reasons I cannot fathom, target all residents of Crimea and Ukrainian territories under control of separatists.)
Since no one can truly vet every single user for involvement with sanctioned entities, in the end it is about specific businesses and their legal teams, how they interpret the sanctions.
Some businesses chose to preventively block anyone they suspected of physically being in Russia. They, however, accepted a proof of residence (which those who were lucky to escape and live in another country could generally produce). Microsoft, in what to me personally is the first, doesn't. If this becomes the mainstream interpretation of sanctions globally, I imagine many will have to give up and move back to Russia.
I assume if a Russian citizen were in the same boat, the residence permit affixed to their passport would suffice, but it's not an ID card.
AFAIK, no EU country will issue a proper ID card (valid throughout the EU) to non-citizens. In Spain at least you get a special foreigners' ID card that's more or less equal within Spain. In Germany the most you can hope for is your residence permit in card form, but I was not so lucky.
To think that a couple of months ago I was hoping businesses wouldn't target Russians based on passport as an extra mile in enacting sanctions. Now the only options increasingly are seeking asylum or transferring my existing customers and moving to Russia to seek work there.
One of the first things I had to do upon arrival in Sweden was go to Migrationsverket to get my "Uppehållstillståndskort": a residence card. It has your residence status on it. I also had to get a Skatteverket "Identitetskort". Both of these have been accepted as valid identification documents both within and outside of Sweden, I've had to provide scans of one or the other numerous times.
I'm not sure about this but I think the German residence card, if you have one, is "ID" enough for a lot of things inside Germany, but there are still cases when you have to use your passport. I know at least one person who drives around with her residence permit and her driving license, but doesn't carry her passport regularly.
But I don't think that being able to travel with the thing is a requirement for it to be acceptable as an "additional photo ID" for the kinds of validation we're talking about here. Even if I can't travel with my Skatteverket or residence permit cards, they have been regularly accepted as ID verification for services based outside of Sweden. They've been sufficient when it comes to showing that I do indeed have the relevant Swedish identification documents and reside here. I think once, possibly for E-trade, this was coupled with having to provide a bill sent to my Swedish address. But that shouldn't really be a big issue either for anyone actually residing in another country.
You can find specimens of residency permit cards (for non-EU citizens) here, which are typically sufficient ID to open a bank account:
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/prado/en/search-by-document-...
What's their excuse?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre
The US invaded and occupied a sovereign state based on outright lies less than 20 years ago, and I doubt even the strongest critics of that war were seriously considering a revolution.
Expecting some programmer in Russia to do it, and punishing them with sanctions for not doing it, is frankly insane, and since the leaders implementing these sanctions must know that, it's dishonest too.
The US treatment of both Assange and Manning no doubt serve as a potent warning to anyone considering a similar leak in the future. Russians have also had plenty of similar warnings.
From the start of this thread:
> If you share liberal values with the rest of us, you need to emigrate. If not, well, perhaps you can create a github clone for Russia.
Even after clearing the enormous hurdle of emigration, Russian citizens face discrimination in opening bank accounts, getting jobs, starting businesses and so on. Even GitHub will likely force them to prove somehow that they are no longer tied to Russia, which may be very difficult depending on where they emigrated to and how they got there.
The treatment of ordinary people who had nothing to do with the war this way is against all the values we claim to hold, and ultimately damages the credibility of the countries complicit in it.
Yes, I did do that. My bad.
> Even after clearing the enormous hurdle of emigration, Russian citizens face discrimination in opening bank accounts, getting jobs, starting businesses and so on.
I’m sure this is not terribly different from the checks that the western world would (and, I say, very well should!) do on every citizen immigrating from a hostile country. It’s not a perfect situation, but nothing in this whole situation is exactly perfect.
Did you read about the Russian spy that was caught trying to infiltrate the International Criminal Court? He had been working on a cover story since 2010. That’s the level of the threat that we need to be prepared to thwart.
Of course, this diligence should be handled by the authorities and once a person passes all those checks, they should be considered just like anyone else.
Could you give some examples of kleptocratic dictatorships that have fallen due to a revolution bottom-up, as opposed to external force or a change of power at the top, for inspiration?
One example I can come up with myself is Ukraine, but in that case US explicitly supported the change and its representative was present on the ground during critical time*. If US were willing to do the same for Russia, I'm sure this could make a difference.
* https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-victoria-nuland-wades-into-u...
I'm curious if you have any list of revolutions that have succeeded and failed. I can't really think of any in recent times. I don't think revolutions in Africa or the Middle East to be a good comparison and those are the only ones I can think of.
1. The culture is different. It may work, but I feel like Europeans are a bit more passive. As long as things aren't too bad they will let the status quo remain.
2. The Middle East / Africa had a lot of weapons that Europe doesn't. In some areas they had CIA training as well (albeit a few decades ago in some area).
3. Several of the Arab Spring required the West to get involved to aid in the overthrow. It is possible the CIA or others had to help in the others. There is no guarantee the West would be willing to get involved to oust Putin especially since he has nukes. Seeing how the West is mostly providing monetary aid and surveillance in Ukraine and not direct military support we could possibly see the same in Russia.
4. I think the Russian surveillance state is better than the Arab Spring countries. Might not make a huge impact, but it could stop things before it got started.
I am curious, since I don't keep up with the Middle East a huge amount, how many of the countries are in a better state now then they were 10 years ago? Didn't ISIS take over part of Syria? Having a successful revolution doesn't mean anything if a worse government gets in power.
Perhaps I'm just being cynical. I just don't think it is quite comparable.
Indeed, I'm sure Western support would be forthcoming if a movement gained traction — but the effective surveillance state and history of severe suppression make that exceedingly unlikely. The risk is enormous and the likelihood of success tiny.
What Github does is no doubt for business and regulatory reasons, but also moral: after decades of downright malicious behavior on the international stage (not to mention the preceding 70 years of pure evil), Russia finally sunk so low in the world's esteem that doing business with or within Russia has now become "not done"; it's seen as enabling evil to continue. Even businesses that are not affected by the sanctions now hesitate to do business there (shipping, for example).
It's unjust for ordinary Russians to get caught under these sanctions, and is perilously close to collective punishment, but Russia simply, finally went too far.
What is non-negotiable on the other hand is that whoever you are and wherever you are, the rule of law must be respected. You may correctly point out that not even the west is perfect in this regard, but then go be better than the west. Be the place we should want to emigrate to, not the other way around.
You might say that a truly liberal nation would have managed to stop him nevertheless. Could be, but things like this often hang by very thin threads. E.g. as we know, the American democracy was very nearly destroyed in the previous presidential elections. It could have very easily gone south.
Which is obviously bullshit. Of course a revolution is possible. ”They’ll just kill everyone”. Right. Their previous revolution saw 7-12 million casualties. I’m certain that Putin would fall with a far easier struggle —- his story is far less powerful than what Lenin et al brought forth.
The only significant thing he has is strength, mostly in the form of nukes and mobstery. Against a real internal uprising, that is nothing. You cannot fight your own people with nukes, and nobody respects a crime boss when their luck starts running out.
It took weeks to get my partner that was simply visiting family out of Russia. They had the full support of my resources and my employers HR team assisting in relocation of families with members in Russia - and it was still an expensive, time-consuming, and stressful process.
Westerners also need to lobby their government to grant temporary asylum to western-aligned smart Russians.
It's funny how many US and EU-based apologists of the invasion (blaming NATO for the war, etc.) I encounter and have to enter flamewars with to condemn kleptocracy and defend democracy. Their position is not shared by me or any of my Russian friends, but there we are.
As to your point regarding creating a Github clone in Russia, I'm fairly sure it's in line with Putin's agenda.
But my question was rhetorical: you can't convince anyone by flaming them. Personally I believe in calmly stating facts, with thorough analysis and logic, and lots of empathy for the other person's point of view.