Microsoft Blocks Messenger In Five Embargoed Countries 194
Spooky McSpookster writes "Microsoft has turned off its Windows Live Messenger service for five countries: Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan, and North Korea. Users in these countries trying to log in get the following error: '810003c1: We were unable to sign you in to the .NET Messenger Service.' Why now, since this flies in the face of the Obama administration's softening stance on Cuba? This isn't the first time the US trade embargo has had questionable outcomes. US-based Syrian political activist George Ajjan created a web site promoting democracy in Syria, only to find GoDaddy blocked anyone inside Syria from seeing it. The article argues, 'Messenger is a medium for communication, and the citizens of these countries should not be punished from such a basic tool because the US has problems with their governments' policies.' What does this say for the wisdom of non-US citizens relying on US companies for their business or communication?"
Anonymous Coward (Score:0, Informative)
Live Messenger sucks anyway. They should start using AIM or Gtalk.
The embargo in Iran is a joke (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know about the other four countries but last summer I was in Iran and USA brands were ubiquitous. For example all the restaurants had either Coca Cola or Pepsi which seem to be the locals' favorite drink. "Bottled in Iran with license from Coca Cola" read the cans, in plain English. And they were less than 50c!
I was clearly on the minority when drinking the local traditional soda, dugh, made with yogurt and mint.
Some locals take offense if asked about the embargo. It hurts their national feelings. "we've been under embargo for generations and we know how to get around it".
Friends who hadn't been to Iran for several years missed the old traditional Persian cola brands. Apparently Persicola and Zam Zam tasted much better than the USA brands. But locals didn't remember when the change had happened.
Similarly local olive and olive oil brands had been replaced with European counterparts. Last news I hear from Iran is that some clerics are getting around the import tariffs and illegally importing cheap Malaysian fruits which are driving local farmers to bankruptcy.
A few years ago the supreme leader abolished an article in the constitution which prevented the government from privatizing core state services. Now Ahmadinejad is eliminating the subsidies for bread, electricity, and gas.
Recently the Iranian government sounds more like the Bush neocon administration than a revolutionary socialist one.
I know that the embargo of Internet services are different to get around from the embargo of physical goods, but many people in Iran already use a VPN and browse with a foreign IP, to get pass the Iranian censorship.
Re:Microsoft does what is good for Microsoft (Score:1, Informative)
But, Apple seems cool, so they probably do care about me! After all, they're telling me how I can look hip. And Google says they aren't evil, so that means they aren't.
Re:Slashcode's lack of characterset support (Score:1, Informative)
For example, I find it hilarious when someone with a Danish accent does an impersonation of an American presidential cowboy.
As for the "dirka dirka" comment, it comes from a satirical animation that had a very strong political and philosophical message. Perhaps you have not seen it? [southparkstudios.com]
Re:Slashcode's lack of characterset support (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Slashcode's lack of characterset support (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Let's generalise... (Score:5, Informative)
agreed. I'm from Argentina and I know first hand what you're talking about. the state of communications here is a mess:
Fibertel (the 2nd-largest ISP) proxies their users, DNS-redirects them to local servers (using another DNS server doesn't work, you get a blank page).
The largest one, Telecom has a more decent network but still vulnerable to fiber cuts (there's a fiber ring, not a mesh. a few weeks ago we had a fiber outage and nothing, including cell phones, long distance or internet worked). Also last-mile is completely destroyed (it was replaced completely in the early 90s and it was pretty good until the last 5 years when they didn't fix it anymore)
There's nastier stuff: no local peering. G4 (Telecom, Telefonica, Fibertel and Impsat) don't peer with "independent" ISPs (Gigared, Telecentro...).
PRIMA wasn't visible from Chile because there's no peering between PRIMA and some Chilean ISPs, and Telecom (or any other G4) refuses to transit, it has to get routed through US and there are no transit agreements.
PRIMA is now part of Fibertel, formerly a competition with Flash, both companies are part of CableVision and Multicanal respectively, government let Cablevision buy Multicanal, allowing them to monopolize cable TV in most areas (large urban areas sometimes have alternatives, and there's always DirecTV, but still).
And the worst part is the "CORPORATE BUSINESS" model. Anything that's not for home users, is called CORPORATE BUSINESS (with big capital letters). It's always the same service as Residential, only more expensive, 50% to 100% more. They don't offer quicker support or anything. Telecom's mail servers are in almost every spam blacklist, and they're unavailable (you can't retrieve your mail) 9 out of 10 times in peak hours. Every day.
In rural areas where Mom and Pop Wireless ISPs grow at an amazing rate, Telecom sells 1Mbps for about USD 1500. That's right, a whopping megabit per second for 1.5k. In urban areas that price quickly drops to about USD 200, and residential connections are 3Mbps for less than USD 20. Fastest connection is 5mbps/256k for DSL and in some ares, 20m/256k (yes 256k up for 20 megabits).
Hosting/Housing have the same problem, only huge sites are located in here (like news sites, which are often part of a multimedia group like Clarin, which also owns an ISP), the rest is US-based because it costs 1/10 to 1/100 of what you get here. And usually, if you do rent a server, it really can't handle high traffic. There are very very few game servers here, but hundreds in the US. Dallas is one of the favorite locations for colo/housing for Latin America.
So why do some countries use US-based services? For reasons like those.
Re:Microsoft does what is good for Microsoft (Score:2, Informative)
LLC is for limiting the financial liability of the shareholders, not the legal liability of the employees, smartguy.