Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran';
137 comments
·September 23, 2025adastra22
tgma
This is partially true, but not the entirety of the story.
There are blanket sanction waivers (General License) by OFAC to allow certain things. There's also the possibility to get an OFAC license (as GitHub did.)
The real issue is there is little to no advantage (realistically no money to be gained from Iran) or even awareness (sometimes the cloud infrastructure bans Iran by default and you don't have enough users to even know that's the case to care.) The legal counsels would generally be conservative and advise against it; there needs to be someone from the business side, e.g. a product manager that cares enough to try to push back on the legal. There often is not or it is hard to justify the tiniest risk, hence you block.
underdeserver
From Wikipedia:
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the United States Treasury Department. It administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions in support of U.S. national security and foreign policy objectives.
jeroenhd
This kind of assumes Microsoft has not already tried to get an exception, or that its legal team considers it likely that an exception will be granted.
Various tools hosted on Github can be considered dual-use (i.e. AES/TLS libraries). Furthermore, Microsoft was made to apply sanctions against Karim Khan of the ICC for his involvement in investigating the genocide of Palestinians; I doubt Microsoft would be granted an exception so they can serve Hamas' greatest supporter after that.
I don't know if Microsoft has applied for any exceptions, but even if they did, I doubt they'd be able to get them. That's on top of the probability of bad publicity ("Microsoft wants to cut deal with Iran") and the lack of incentive you mentioned.
tgma
I explicitly mentioned GitHub, a Microsoft subsidiary, did in fact get an OFAC license. I was suggesting them as an example of how it can be done, not the other way around.
number6
[flagged]
trhway
>If the Iranian people are so upset, they should overthrow the government.
I wonder how many civil actions, in full comfort and safety of your democratic country, you took part in, and what was the result of it.
tgma
Where did I say or imply I am against sanctions on the Islamic Republic and/or its affiliates? I was simply describing the dynamic of how things like that get decided inside American companies.
bigyabai
The Iranian government didn't delete his data.
jbm
I used to agree with this line of reasoning, but then I saw that the same process was used to block war crimes investigators from using Microsoft's software.
vasco
In all of these situations if you want to do the right thing you need plausible deniability. Network block IPs from Iran, don't block VPNs, done, users from sanctioned countries can use your software but you're also going by the rule.
adastra22
And that's generally what people do. Make a best effort, and then it is "don't ask, don't tell." Unless you have specific KYC rules in your industry.
notjosh
your comment is helpful context, especially as a foreigner. but would you be able to edit the "pounding in the ass" phrase out in future when referring to prison? thank you <3
adastra22
Your comment is understandable as a foreigner! Look up our federal prison system sometime. The description is apt.
You either kill someone, or become someone's bitch on the first day, then you'll be alright.
(It's an Office Space reference, btw, but our prisons are genuinely inhumane and not rehabilitative.)
theshrike79
American prisoners are, if you look at it objectively, slaves.
They are forced to work for for-profit companies for minimal pay, which is deducted by their living expenses and basic amenities.
derektank
Federal prisons are generally quite desirable when compared to state prisons or local jails, especially if you're convicted of a white collar financial crime. They don't call if Club Fed for nothing.
pbiggar
It's the phrasing. You're using a fun and casual term for something awful. You are correct about the amount of sexual assault in American prison of course.
yawpitch
Your reply to that comment is understandable as an American… in that you got your understanding of your own prison system from your own popular media.
Also in the assumption that a foreigner would or could get an Office Space reference, unless they live in a country America has already successfully culturally colonized.
The point is that the homophobic trope doesn’t add anything to the information given, while it does make it more likely to run afoul of homophobic censors in homophobic countries led by homophobes.
bibelo
Very relevant info I was not aware of
So should we (people outside US) sanction these companies, so that they put the same pressure on US government to stop forcing them from applying sanctions?
adastra22
If you want to, sure. Kind of a side point, but that's not really what sanctions are for. It's more of an economic blockade, which stymies the growth of the country. Even if there is no regime change, it makes the country less of a threat over time.
slg
>Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians.
The "your decision" in that response is really off-putting. I know the law is what it is with sanctions like this. However, it is a failing of basic human empathy to blame other common citizens of a country for the auctions of their government while we almost certainly do not endorse all the actions of our own government and would probably be a little upset if a foreigner assumed we did.
perching_aix
It is so incredibly common, yet it never passes even basic scrutiny. For one, even in typical modern democracies, the active administration is chosen by like a third of the voting population via a first-pass-the-post system or a close analog of it. It's easy to ignore this when things are going okay, but becomes very uncomfortable all of a sudden when that changes.
Edit: and this is to say nothing about how it is people that are chosen, not their individual choices. This is why it irks me when people are interviewed about their knowhow with respect to their political stance. It's basically irrelevant. They need a good read on the person of their choice, not a good read on the choices. If it was about a choice instead of a person, it would be a referendum, not an election.
EugeneOZ
Some democracies are "democracies". The dictator will get 80% of votes no matter what.
theshrike79
In Iran's case the amount of government actions a citizen should endorse is zero.
Governments get their power from the citizens and if they enable their actions, they won't stop.
bigfudge
I think the government in Iran gets their power as other antidemocratic authoritarian regimes do— by using a small number of violent people to intimidate other normal citizens and punishing them severely for protesting or campaigning for change. Americans seem likely to experience something similar fairly soon, which might perhaps increase the general level of empathy for Iranian citizens in threads like this.
tobyhinloopen
Proudly written from a western country with a functional democracy. If it was that easy, there wouldn't be shitty countries everywhere.
randomNumber7
I live in a western democracy and still endorse very little my government does.
tgma
The sad part about living in Iran from a technology perspective is you are often blocked from both sides. Often you have to circumvent the government's aggressive internal firewall and other times you will have to hide your IP from the service providers.
On the bright side, your average Iranian grandma can immediately work as a network engineer given the amount of experience she has with VPN protocols.
reeredfdfdf
Most educated Iranians hate their government. The problem is that a revolution isn't easy when the government has all the guns, and the military & revolutionary guard remain loyal, and have no problem with shooting masses of innocent civilians to retain their power.
Sanctions that worsen things for ordinary people really isn't going to change much in countries like this. It would be much more productive to try turn the army against the regime, or organize political and armed resistance.
WhereIsTheTruth
> Most educated Iranians hate their government
Most educated US citizens also hate their government
> The problem is that a revolution isn't easy when the government has all the guns, and the military
Revolution? why?
The US government also has all the guns and the military, what's your point?
> Sanctions that worsen things for ordinary people really isn't going to change much in countries like this. It would be much more productive to try turn the army against the regime, or organize political and armed resistance.
Oh I see, foreign interference
Can you remind me for a second, in 2025, which country is known for having a pedophile for President, weekly school shootings, racially motivated murders, the killing of political opponents, deportation of people, arming and financing a genocide?
tgma
> Most educated Iranians hate their government
Where did you get that data from and what do you mean by "hate" in quantifiable terms? (just being "unhappy" with outcomes of certain policies does not mean they would necessarily want to uproot everything for the better)
demarq
I feel for you OP. Everyone on here clearly aware that they have no influence over their own government seem to instantly lack empathy for your situation because they saw the word Iran.
It’s all pretty moronic if I’m honest. I really hope things get better for you.
OccamsMirror
It must be really frustrating be on the receiving end of sanctions. The ugly truth about sanctions is that they punish the people more than the aristocracy. But they're still better than wars.
barrenko
The point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership.
And if your're someone sliding into nasty leadership / government situation you have to realize there will be a consequence to that and that the perception of the ruling party can never be separated from the perception of the people.
don_esteban
"The point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership."
No, that's for consumption by population of the sanctioning country. The people in the know know very well that that never works.
The point is for every other country in the world to see how much it hurts if you don't follow the wishes of USA. Classic mafia strategy.
The exception were the sanctions on Russia at the start of the Ukraine war. Those were unprecedented (including the freezing of the national bank assets and blocking of Swift) and it looks like the western powers really believed that those sanctions will cause economic collapse and regime change in Russia.
JumpCrisscross
> point is for every other country in the world to see how much it hurts if you don't follow the wishes of USA
This is the symbolic value of sanctions. It’s a part of coalition building. (Though if you constantly do it this becomes less effective.)
It’s a classic team-building strategy: costly signalling [1]. You see it in mafias, but like, also when a softball team buys matching jerseys.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costly_signaling_theory_in_e...
ivan_gammel
Swift wasn’t blocked. There were targeted sanctions against certain banks.
Al-Khwarizmi
> The point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership.
That's the theory, but has it ever worked?
That something that never works (not even in cases where it has been going on for multiple generations, as in the case of Cuba or Iran) keeps being tried makes it impossible to believe that the intention is making it "work" in the sense you mean. The sanctions are just to sink those countries for political interest. Which in some cases makes sense (e.g. Russia, as it's invading Ukraine and sinking its economy can be a deterrent in that respect), but in others is definitely evil.
JumpCrisscross
> has it ever worked?
Yes. About a third of the time [1].
[1] https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/863435/mod_resource/conte... Table 6.1 page 159
cornholio
>> The point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership.
>That's the theory, but has it ever worked?
"The point" is not to (directly) instigate regime change, but to influence the actions of the existing regime, as well as other foreign countries not under sanctions, by demonstrating to them how bad it can get. Make an example out of them and so on. The plight of the civilians is not a desired outcome of sanctions but a consequence of the choices their - legitimate or not - leaders made, which led to stopping foreign trade.
It definitely "works", in the sense that it's often the only tool available, along with positive reinforcements such as aid and support, and the threat of stopping them, which is just another flavor of the same. So it's hard to have a benchmark for something that "works" better, since countries are sovereign and by definition have disputes and don't blindly conform to any established rules or rulers.
CapricornNoble
>That's the theory, but has it ever worked?
It kinda worked in Syria. The combination of sanctions, plus squatting on sovereign Syrian territory and preventing the government from generating income eventually left Assad's military so hollowed out that that the Turkish-backed rebel faction led by former Al Qaeda members was able to essentially drive to Damascus with minimal resistance.
Devasta
If anything I'd say it has the opposite of the intended effect sometimes.
Like, during WW2 the UK was being bombed and ration books and supply shortages were the order of the day. They look back on their endurance of the conditions inflicted upon them as a source of national pride, have to imagine that is the case for many in the sanctioned countries too.
hks0
No country should generally decide something for people of another country, but let's say it's a exceptional case and it's a war tactic, as a response to an external threat.
Then half a decade shows that point is not relevant or, the overthrowing is not the point at all.
I too wished the wolrd was that simple. But there are dictatorships, who kill, slaughter, coerce, ... and also all the international affairs from which those people are kept an outsider with zero say by the said government. I don't think we can reduce it to "it's people's fault".
t1E9mE7JTRjf
I suspect a reason for sanctions is that it allows the government applying them to look like they're doing something to their voters. It's an effective way of scoring points without spending any resources. They know they're ineffective, but they also know the general public doesn't know that. For instance the EU very publicly applying sanctions against Russia while with less fanfare continuing to give them billions for gas.
ivan_gammel
It’s a stupid idea that does not work. People don’t do that because of sanctions.
sssilver
Is the concept here that a government, which may not be oppressive enough to spark a domestic uprising (and might even be broadly accepted by the majority of its own citizens due to common moral values or other merits), should be destabilized by external forces to provoke discontent and shift blame onto the government?
JumpCrisscross
> point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership
This works about a third of the time [1].
What does is incentivising domestic policy changes. We saw that with the nuclear deal. But then Trump blew it up because Obama did it.
(On another level, sanctions degrade capability. If there is no room for peace, at least you can limit your adversary’s economy and thus martial production. If regime change randomly happens, you can use lifting sanctions to blow oxygen on the new government’s flame [2].)
[1] https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/863435/mod_resource/conte... Table 6.1, page 159
[2] https://the307.substack.com/p/how-sanctions-function-as-a-to...
mirzap
Sanctions don't work. Syria didn't collapse because of sanctions, but because of a very long civil war and, more importantly, a sudden imbalance in external forces (Russia was preoccupied with Ukraine). I don't think there has ever been a case where a country, or its people, changed the regime because of sanctions. Never. North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Palestine, and much of Africa are examples. Wars and revolutions change regimes. I would even argue that sanctions help regimes stay in power. When an external force imposes a threat (sanctions) on people, those people don't see the outside as "saviours" but as an enemy. They often resent the country that imposed the sanctions more than their own government, and they have no desire to fight an external enemy on behalf of a domestic dictator.
Sanctions punish ordinary people, many of whom are already suffering under the regime. So they end up opposing both an internal and an external enemy. In the long run, sanctions probably destroy and cost far more lives than wars. It's a sadistic way to try to crush an enemy.
null
fsloth
”The point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership.”
Very easy to say. Quite hard to pull off. People in authoritarian countries have very little leverage and would like just to live fullfilling lives.
I’m not saying ”don’t do sanctions” but this mechanistic outcome is highly improbable.
”perception of the ruling party can never be separated from the perception of the people.”
Um - the most polite way of stating this is that this view of how political systems work is highly delusional at best.
Ruling party depends on _elite_ _compliance_.
palmfacehn
From the article:
>I read hackernews on a daily basis and I visit lots of different websites regularly. I am almost always on my VPN as I am internally firewalled by the government and externally shooed because of the sanctions, so I am probably missing some of these heart-warming messages:
>>Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians.
> I actually do not blame the people who do this. I think there is a fundamental misconception that people think because "Islamic Republic" has the word "Republic" in it, it must be a government of people in charge.
Total war and total information war are the side effects of the Democracy meme. Everyone from a taxi driver to a professor is assumed to be a political actor. The rationale runs something like this, "because you have a vote, you are defacto responsible for the actions of your state and political classes. Vote harder next time."
Meanwhile the individuals involved never explicitly consented to be governed. Even if there were a meaningful democratic process, it doesn't follow that the individual could withdraw consent. Ironically one of the suggested avenues for withdrawing consent in a democracy is to refuse to vote.
adastra22
Countries with "Democratic" and "Republic" in their name rarely are.
tgma
Or rather if you start aiming for democracy (the actual definition, not the 200 co-opted bastardized definitions,) that's where you always end up, as people from Plato to American founding fathers clearly understood.
vasco
The majority (like over 100) of world countries have Republic in their name.
vasco
Only way to widthraw consent in a democracy is moving to pay your taxes somewhere else.
INTPenis
Iran has been under sanctions for a long time. I remember working for unnamed US server manufacturer back in 09 and we had a list of countries by our desks to remember if anyone ever called in from there, or even mentioned working there during the call.
t1E9mE7JTRjf
It's a sad story all round. I hope the world gets more decentralised, so that people get less caught up in the politics of others. I can't remember the exact quote, about world war 1 or 2, but it was along the lines of "war is when people who don't know each other fight, for people who do know each other". Hits hard.
daniel_iversen
> By the way, did you know you could return 451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons instead of 403 Forbidden when you're going to ban me next time?
Had no idea, interesting!
harperlee
451 coming from here by the way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
deadfece
If you access grepular outside of Iran, you get something even worse: their website.
aarroyoc
These sanctions are not really effective. I think Cuba is the country that has had them for the most amount of time and... Nothing changed. Instead they force them to develop in house tech which may be better for them in the long term
wojciii
Ukrainian sanctions work.
Ask a russian about the price of fuel.
The European sanctions are more of a joke.
I you want to Ukraine to win donate to them directly instead of waiting for the cowardly politicians to get their act together.
trhway
If the sanctions weren't effective Russia wouldn't be insisting on the lifting of the sanctions as a part of any Ukrainian deal.
The sanctions significantly slow down Russian development and are more and more making it into just a mineral mining satellite of China. With time the weakened Russia would just split, and the large eastern part will go to China. Some midparts, with Turkic speaking population may even fall into Turkey orbit. Without the oil and gas rich East, the European part of Russia will be just a destitute village on the far margins of civilized Europe as it had been for centuries in the past.
preisschild
> Nothing changed
This is not true. The sanctions definitely hurt countries like Cuba or Russia. They have a far harder time growing their economy. Cuba is stuck in the last century and often has total blackouts that last for days. Russia needs to beg countries like Iran or North Korea now for imports.
reeredfdfdf
Yet the ruling elites and military still enjoy decent quality of life, it´s mostly the ordinary people who suffer. In case of Russia that´s okay since large parts of the population genuinely support the war, but I´m not so sure about Iran and Cuba, where most are not supportive of their governments anyway.
jazzyjackson
The point isn't necessarily to make leadership suffer, but rather to prevent suffering of everyone who might be threatened by a strong Cuba/Iran/North Korea
null
OP, some context from the other side might be helpful.
Yes, there are fines for American companies if they do business with Iranians. That's how sanctions work as I'm sure you're aware. But the story doesn't stop there.
If an American finds out they are transacting with a sanctioned individual, or citizens of a sanctioned country like Iran or North Korea, the stakes go up: $1M USD fine and up to 20 years in federal prison. Oh and that's a personal risk -- you, the manager or executive in charge, and anyone else who is in the know on the transaction is now facing 20 years in federal pounding-in-the-ass prison if they don't immediately cease all communication and break off contact. Hence why they ghost you and remove your data from prod. It sucks, but I would do the same thing in that situation. Nobody should be expected to take that risk.
That's why you have these experiences :(