back to article US spreads Web2.0rhea to Iran, Sudan, Cuba

US citizens are now free to invite Iranian, Sudanese, and Cuban citizens into the Web2.0rhea revolution. The US Treasury Department's trade sanction management body, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), announced on Monday that it was amending regulations that had prevented US citizens from exporting internet-based …

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  1. Displacement Activity

    How do you know?

    I regularly get downloads from Iran (and 3 other countries on Clinton's bigger list). Even if I wanted to (which I don't), I would find it difficult to stop these downloads. End-users frequently use small blocks of IP addresses which, on the face of it, are allocated to the US. I have to manually eyeball the reverse DNS to see where it ends up, and even that only works if something points back to a domain with a correct country code.

  2. Semihere
    Unhappy

    Internet Freedom?

    "Whether or not Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube can save the world from neofascism, the new OFAC regs do illustrate the Obama administration's focus on internet freedom."

    Sooooo.... where does ACTA figure in all of this internet freedom?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    obviously

    if they're not on the intertubes they can't be deep-packet-inspected etcerera (here are the etcetera acronyms glossary FYI, SBCT=Stryker brigade combat team, CyNetOps=cyber network operations, ARFORCYBER=Army Forces United States Cyber Command, CNA=computer network attack, CNE=computer network exploitation, CyA=cyber attack, CyCM=cyber content management, DCyD=dynamic cyber defense, elint, sigint, comint, ew, ep, ea) make up your own!

  4. Ed Deckard
    Dead Vulture

    Uh

    "Recently, in a wide-ranging speech on matters webby, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: "Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century."

    Clinton's remarks were aimed most specifically at China, but she also rapped the knuckles of Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam."

    I assume she didn't mention these by name, and you just listed countries that restrict said free access to information.

    What about Lolstralia?

  5. ElReg!comments!Pierre
    Coffee/keyboard

    'US tries to convince world that they're still relevant'

    So the US was not selling communication software to some 'evil' countries, and now does, in the hope to get a few more dollars into its moribund economy. I bet no-one in the aforementioned countries will notice the difference. I mean it never stopped them from coming online in the first place. Clinton's comments are just insulting. Sure, them 3rd-world retards are incapable of developing software of their own, ain't they? As is the whole world but for the US, surely.

    In a nutshell, just the US opening new markets to itself before they get completely infected by good software instead.

    Keyboard ruined not from laughter but from an overdose of WTF.

  6. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    US tries to convince world that they're still relevant'

    The problem is OFAC - a big, and badly organised, list of people/countries/organisations you aren't allowed to do business with. The penalties are pretty much unlimited fines and 7years in pound-you-in-the-a** federal prison.

    The trouble is that 'do business with' is very badly defined.

    So if you are a US ISP and you route an email from Spain to Cuba you could be in violation,

    If you a US company that makes the cable that somebody in Spain uses to send an email to somebody in Cuba you could be in violation.

    That's why you have to agree to those silly clauses about not exporting to Iraq when you download an update from Dell.

    This is really an domestic thing to stop some redneck politician in nowheresville using it as a political tool to prosecute a company just to show how tough he is on commies/terrorists/redcoats etc

    1. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      Yeah that's my point

      This is my point entirely.. The ban ban was lifted only to allow US companies to make money. No added `freedom` here. One could reasonably argue the getting Merkin software in these `enemy` countries could even serve intelligence purposes. But that's probably me being paranoid -again.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    I think its a clever plot

    to get these countries to declare war on the U.S. Or perhaps to get more Americans conversing over the internet with dodgy foreigners, so the NSA can justify more eavesdropping on U.S. citizens.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I'd like to make the world a better place where we all love each other

    I've been playing chess - decent Amateur level against Iranians and Cubans for years on the Net.

    They're great players.

    Checkout playchess.com

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