[HN Gopher] GitHub Text of government takedown notices as received
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       GitHub Text of government takedown notices as received
        
       Author : harporoeder
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2022-04-09 06:07 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | emilfihlman wrote:
       | That Spain one is just lazy and bad.
        
         | mistrial9 wrote:
         | there is a theory that a public projection of power includes
         | disregard for the rules that govern others. Like excess
         | displays of money, it proves to "anyone" that power prevails. A
         | government written request, is both a legal document to make a
         | request, but also a display for the "public" to read. This
         | analysis stems directly from traditions of Monarchy, or
         | military rule in modern times. It isnt going away and may be
         | increasing.
         | 
         | I echo the comments here that it appears that only some
         | international requests are being shown, not others. Secrecy is
         | a second mode of projection of power.
        
       | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
       | is this accurate? i dont find india in this repo and i am quite
       | sure india has done takedown requests in the past, buli bai app
       | is the most recent i can remember
       | https://currentaffairs.studyiq.com/topics/science-technology...
       | 
       | ". The IT ministry sent a request to the coding platform to
       | remove the derogatory page, after which the page has been"
       | 
       | if the ministry sent a request, shouldnt this be here?
        
         | CommanderData wrote:
         | I don't think the list is complete either, there's a few other
         | examples I can think of that should be there.
         | 
         | It's funny how China, Russia and Hong Kong stand out on the
         | repo. I guess we keep our allies secret/quiet.
        
           | rosndo wrote:
           | > I don't think the list is complete either, there's a few
           | other examples I can think of that should be there
           | 
           | Such as?
        
         | peppermint_tea wrote:
         | I say full list or no list. Other than that, it sends the wrong
         | message that "this country" is doing censorship and "this
         | country" is not. No mention how they would deal with a National
         | security letter (18 U.S.C. SS 2709)
         | 
         | transparency for some countries but not others is not
         | transparency.
         | 
         | I say they should take down this repo, or mention something
         | about how they would deal with an NSL.
        
         | hatenberg wrote:
         | The US isn't the only country that has NSLs
        
         | c0balt wrote:
         | I wouldn't be surprised if India or other countries have made
         | takedown requests in the past that may have had confidentiality
         | of some level attached to them.
         | 
         | For example, do not publish the request for foo since it might
         | endanger bar etc. This theory would at least explain the very
         | small list of included countries.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | I wouldn't be surprised if takedown requests from China and
           | Russia also have confidentiality attached to them. There are
           | some countries you are bound by national policy (as
           | administered through private media companies) to respect,
           | like the Saudis for example, and others that you're lauded
           | for not respecting, like China and Russia.
        
           | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
           | so whats the point of "transparency" if there is a shut-up
           | clause?
        
       | miohtama wrote:
       | Unsurprisingly, Russia folder seems to have most "content".
       | 
       | Has China fully blocked Github with their Great Firewall yet?
        
         | detuur wrote:
         | Most of the recent takedowns from Roskomnadzor seem to be aimed
         | at illegal gambling sites using github for hosting. Almost all
         | of the rest are for deleted gists, so there's no telling what
         | used to be there. I found one surviving gist and it was a list
         | of suicide methods, written in Russian[1]. The only other
         | takedown requests that were still intact were for references to
         | the Hydra marketplace (which I assume many of the gists also
         | referred to), and, amusingly, for a guide on how to dodge
         | Russian conscription[2].
         | 
         | [1]: The same text from what I assume is the original repo:
         | https://github.com/russian-suicide/ololo
         | 
         | [2]: https://wm2ch.github.io/wm2ch/
        
         | simse wrote:
         | Yes, Github is blocked in China
        
           | jan_Inkepa wrote:
           | I don't believe it is?
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#Blockage
           | 
           | Says the block was lifted in 2013?
        
             | daqhris wrote:
             | There is a long history of why it's blocked. Some repos
             | were hosting essential code to bypass the Great Firewall.
             | Others were spreading tools to advocates of Free Tibet and
             | Uyghurs. And, there are some software devs who were
             | promoting and supporting workers rights/strikes in the
             | context of 996 scandal.
             | 
             | GitHub wasn't freely accessible or access to its services
             | were disturbed during my college years ('12-'16). Any
             | information platform that evades the PRC control system
             | gets blocked once it achieves major attention and onboards
             | influential users.
        
               | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
               | Gotta protect the public from this sort of dangerous
               | activity:
               | 
               | https://github.com/xi-yu-yan-kai-fa/xi-winnie-rainbow-
               | fart
        
             | simse wrote:
             | That's my mistake, I should have included a source. But the
             | fact remains, it is blocked:
             | http://www.chinafirewalltest.com/?siteurl=github.com.
        
             | 0des wrote:
             | . .
        
             | teshigahara wrote:
             | Not sure how accurate this website is, but it seems to be
             | blocked currently.
             | 
             | http://www.chinafirewalltest.com/?siteurl=https%3A%2F%2Fgit
             | h...
        
       | octoberfranklin wrote:
       | Pretty hilarious that this repo has a code of conduct.
       | 
       | I am pretty sure the entities contributing takedown notices to
       | this repository do not comply with it, nor do they care.
        
         | abraham wrote:
         | The entities are not contributing to the repo. They are filing
         | takedowns with GitHub and GitHub is making the takedowns
         | available via the repo.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | morelish wrote:
       | I forked a repo on GitHub. A few weeks later a DMCA take-down
       | notice was issued against the repo (and all forks). Someone
       | claimed the repo had stolen their copyrighted stuff.
       | 
       | Unfortunately, I couldn't verify whether the claim was correct
       | because I wasn't provided with a copy of the original copyrighted
       | material. So it wasn't possible for me to tell if the DMCA was
       | genuine or not. I suspect the DMCA claim was valid but it was
       | impossible for me to tell.
       | 
       | GitHubs process around the DMCA did not fill me with joy.
        
         | Beltalowda wrote:
         | It does publish the DMCA notices at
         | https://github.com/github/dmca, which is a lot more transparent
         | than most companies.
         | 
         | At the end of the day GitHub has to comply with the law,
         | whether they like it or not. And looking through that list of
         | DMCA notices many of them seem fairly valid on the face of it.
        
           | riedel wrote:
           | Fun to read through those. A strange one is a DMCA issued by
           | an open source project/company: https://github.com/github/dmc
           | a/blob/master/2022/04/2022-04-0... . Does anyone know
           | anything about this strange war between the maintainer and
           | some other guy.
        
             | hyperdimension wrote:
             | Not only that, apparently this KeyAuth software has none
             | other than Steve Jobs giving a glowing testimonial. I'm not
             | sure what to make of this.
             | 
             | https://keyauth.win
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | rosndo wrote:
         | > I couldn't verify whether the claim was correct because I
         | wasn't provided with a copy of the original copyrighted
         | material
         | 
         | > GitHubs process around the DMCA did not fill me with joy.
         | 
         | It sounds like Githubs DMCA process works exactly as legally
         | mandated, and you have completely unreasonable expectations
         | 
         | Github is in no position to demand a copy of the original
         | material from the complainant. That's just not how it works.
        
           | morelish wrote:
           | Yeah I didn't really expect they would get an original copy
           | of the material. However, what worried me was how does the
           | process prevent malicious DMCA notices? Could I just start
           | filing DMCA notices against repos I don't like?
        
             | morelish wrote:
             | There's a wider issue around any cloud SAAS offering. You
             | really need to keep local copies of stuff if you want to be
             | sure you can reproduce your build. As there's a chance,
             | even a good-natured cloud provider will be forced to take
             | something that you rely upon down.
        
             | rosndo wrote:
             | > Could I just start filing DMCA notices against repos I
             | don't like?
             | 
             | Yeah, and unless they file counter notices Github has to
             | take down those repos.
             | 
             | > However, what worried me was how does the process prevent
             | malicious DMCA notices?
             | 
             | Well, it can't. It's just illegal to do that.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | nulbyte wrote:
           | > It sounds like Githubs DMCA process works exactly as
           | legally mandated...
           | 
           | I would hesitate to say 'mandated' here. It is available, but
           | not mandated. You canegally ignore DMCA takedown notices. You
           | lose your safe harbor in the process, but in and of itself,
           | it is not illegal.
        
       | kkfx wrote:
       | That's a good reminder for developers in particular to AVOID
       | being tied to any platform and being spread in multiple countries
       | to remain free if one contry decide something against another
       | hitting also innocents in the middle (think for instance about
       | sizing of private citizens assets in case of war, some might have
       | a role, others not at all but all are hit and that's not a new
       | thing).
       | 
       | Nothing wrong in using a free code hosting just to host code,
       | many things are disasters waiting to happening depending on their
       | infra for development.
       | 
       | For citizens it's the same: we have countless of example of
       | "suspended accounts" not ONLY for government requests, using BUT
       | not depending on any specific third party is good, depending is a
       | threat. Or the classic: using but not depending is free market,
       | depending is monopoly etc.
        
         | ganzuul wrote:
         | The infra is git.
        
           | kkfx wrote:
           | Yes, and no. Many depend on PR to develop, many use GH CI and
           | other services. So yes, if you have the repo you are not
           | tied, but no, if you use other GitHub services, have no ML to
           | communicate, have no personal project website etc you are in
           | a very dangerous position.
        
       | orlp wrote:
       | What if a government requests Github to take down this repository
       | itself?
        
         | 8organicbits wrote:
         | > Although we may not always agree with those laws, we may need
         | to block content if we receive a complete request from a
         | government official so that our users in that jurisdiction may
         | continue to have access to GitHub to collaborate and build
         | software.
         | 
         | Faced with a request like you mention, they'd either take the
         | repository down or risk users in that jurisdiction losing
         | access (i.e. the Government chooses to block GitHub). GitHub
         | may feel that such a request prevents them from acting
         | transparently, so they may choose to keep it up. Or they may
         | comply out of fear that GitHub would be blocked (or further
         | legal actions). Basically a bunch of higher-ups have some long
         | meetings with lawyers and pick what they feel is best.
         | 
         | (I'm not a lawyer)
        
       | supergirl wrote:
       | why those particular countries? those can't possibly be the only
       | ones.
        
         | ddaalluu2 wrote:
         | Yeah something stinks there
        
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       (page generated 2022-04-09 23:02 UTC)