GitHub Starts Blocking Developers In Countries Facing US Trade Sanctions

'After a developer based in the Crimea region of Ukraine was blocked
from GitHub this week, the Microsoft-owned software development
platform said it has started restricting accounts in countries facing
U.S. trade sanctions. GitHub lists Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea,
and Syris as countries facing U.S. sanctions. ZDNet reports:

As the developer reports, his website https://tkashkin.tk, which is
hosted on GitHub, now returns a 404 error. He also can't create new
private GitHub repositories or access them. While his website could
easily be moved to another hosting provider, the block does pose a
challenge for his work on GameHub, which has an established audience
on GitHub.

GitHub does offer developers an appeal form to dispute restrictions
but [the developer] told ZDNet that, at this point, there's nothing to
gain by appealing the restriction. "It is just pointless. My account
is flagged as restricted and, in order to unflag it, I have to provide
a proof that I don't live in Crimea. I am in fact a Russian citizen
with Crimean registration, I am physically in Crimea, and I am living
in Crimea my entire life," he said.

"For individual users, who are not otherwise restricted by U.S.
economic sanctions, GitHub currently offers limited restricted
services to users in these countries and territories. This includes
limited access to GitHub public repository services for personal
communications only," it says.

GitHub notes on its page about U.S. trade controls that its paid-for
on-premise software -- aimed to enterprise users -- may be an option
for users in those circumstances. "Users are responsible for ensuring
that the content they develop and share on GitHub.com complies with
the U.S. export control laws, including the EAR (Export Administration
Regulations) and the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations
(ITAR)," GitHub says. "The cloud-hosted service offering available at
Github.com has not been designed to host data subject to the ITAR and
does not currently offer the ability to restrict repository access by
country. If you are looking to collaborate on ITAR- or other
export-controlled data, we recommend you consider GitHub Enterprise
Server, GitHub's on-premises offering."'

-- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/07/26/2157202

Cheers, Peter
-- 
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
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