@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

No, no semi-competent technical person could ever use geo blocking for that reason.

So what is the website in question here? I want to know who is being a racist.

This is my ethnicity:

But I consider my race to be White -- not German, English, or Scottish.

I assume it's because I've grown up in the U.S. and have learned to base my race off of that.

But yes, I do realize that other parts of the world identify more so off of nationality and ethnicity than by race.

I think that it's important to clarify that what you identify as and race are not the same things.

I can identify by nationality, ethnicity, or race. They are not same things.

You may identify by your ethnicity (Scottish for example), but your race may be White. (as an example, I don't know you)

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

That refers to your ancestry or ethnicity, which is more about cultural and geographical origins than race.

Those are my races. What race would you say that I am if not those? If you say American, I don't agree, but that would defeat the point about Canada.

I don't know you personally, but I'd assume that I would say you are one of the 7-ish major races. None of which are Swiss, Dutch, or Scottish.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

LIcensing is different and doesn't include geoblocking in any example we know of so does not apply until we come up with an example. Hulu blocks access, not licensing so is clear cut racism.

That's not how it is at all.

Hulu doesn't own every show or movie they have available. They license them from the content owners which give them the right to stream that content but often come with restrictions, including where the content can be shown.

So they implement geo-blocking, I'm assuming as a way to check a box to show the content owners they are actively doing "something" to prevent breaching their contracts, agreements, etc.

I'm sure there are other ways to do it, like confirming real credit cards and addresses, but that can also be faked easily or just use someone else's to sign up, etc. Official country IDs (passport, drivers license, etc), but that'd be expensive to support.

Do you honestly think Hulu is racist to the entire world except the U.S. (even though every race exists in the US)? Or do you think it's more likely they are limited to where they can stream their content due to other reasons such as legal / licensing / regulatory / agreements / competitors / etc.?

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

Yes, generally speaking, Canadians are the "same race" as Americans, in that you consider that race as predominantly White/Caucasian. Now, I don't know the percentages these days, but if you want to get a little more accurate, "Canadians" consist of every "race", just as "Americans" consist of every race. There are wite/caucasian, asian, black, etc. races in both Canada and the US. So to say one country is a single race is a flaw in itself.

You have to ignore everything about trends and generalities in order to say this. DO you see why someone reading this sees that you must logically be agreeing but emotionally resisting to make this kind of statement knowing that we already said why this would MEAN it was racist? Obviously to try to say that any amount of mixing means there can't be racism.

You can go lynch of group of black teenagers. As long as their one white friend gets lynched while with them, you can't be racist. How handy. Obviously no one is going to claim that being willing to hurt one person because they associate with a group you like or don't like stops something from being racist. But that's the mechanism you are using to say the US and Canada aren't obviously predominantly one thing (and one thing each, different from each other.)

No this is about products and services being restricted geographically due to licensing, legal, tax, etc reasons, and that it's never, if not rarely, due to racism.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

That specifically correlates poor immigrants with low income schools to perpetuate the divide.

Oh yeah, I'm just confirming how it's done in the US.

I think it's the stupidest way to go about school funding in the entire world. You don't get that kind of problems elsewhere. I've lived in other countries too, and there are so many aspects the US just does completely stupidly wrong.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

If you say American, I don't agree

Why woudl I say American when I specifically said this:

@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

To me, American is in no way a race.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

To say that Canadians are the "same race" as Americans, while in many ways you are right, isn't a universal, or even close to universal, racial belief and as long as huge swaths of people see them as two races, an act of one race against the other on the basis of nothing other than their assumed race remains... racist.

Firstly, not everyone in a given country is the same race. So now that that is out of the way...

Yes, generally speaking, Canadians are the "same race" as Americans, in that you consider that race as predominantly White/Caucasian. Now, I don't know the percentages these days, but if you want to get a little more accurate, "Canadians" consist of every "race", just as "Americans" consist of every race. There are wite/caucasian, asian, black, etc. races in both Canada and the US. So to say one country is a single race is a flaw in itself.

While Hulu is blocking Canada, it's certainly not racial in any way. It's simply geographic, no race at all.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

However, if you are telling me that race can never include "American" then you are getting into a quagmire.

Personally, I think American is a dumb term the way it's used. This whole side of the world is "American". North, central, and south.

To me, American is in no way a race.

I understand "American" to mean a nationality, not a race.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

I identify as Swiss/Dutch/Scottish and always have.

That refers to your ancestry or ethnicity, which is more about cultural and geographical origins than race.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

In east Texas where my nieces went to high school, their schools were predominantly Vietnamese. And magically, those districts got different, and fewer, resources than neighboring districts with a much higher ratio of white students.

Aren't school taxes (funding) based on the assessed value of the homes and property in a given school district? Did neighboring districts contain more higher value or overall higher value in property/homes?

I have no idea the areas you are referring to. You'd have to look them up to see how much each school district collects from property/home taxes. Then see how much of that the schools in that district each get accordingly.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

That it isn't about racism or geo blocking and the example has nothing whatsoever to do with the discussion?

It 100% has to do with the discussion.

Hulu is blocked in Canada just as it is in Nicaragua. Not because of racial reasons. Hulu is blocked in Canada, specifically, due to licensing rights and agreements. That is not racially motivated at all. It's legal.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

Nice try, that's not licensing or regulation. That's flat our racism in every sense.

The same is true in Canada. How are they racist against Canadians and not US citizens? Are US citizens and Canadians not of the same race?

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

Living outside the USA has shown me how many supposed 'IT Security Policies' are in my opinion, racist.

I got this today:

403 ERROR
The request could not be satisfied.
The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner.
If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.
Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)
Request ID: zomv8JAx_0HrRCvqqrBVKdUVY0WYlrp6F0BhpVut-NLG060J2fKC-w==

1. I happen to be in Nicaragua right now, and I think it would be hard to argue that there are a lot of Nicaraguan hackers (In other words we aren't talking originating from China or Russia here).
2. Do IT staff really think that the hackers they should worry about aren't familiar with VPN's or other ways of spoofing their IP or location?

This happens from time to time and today it I guess annoyed me more than it normally does.

Thoughts?

Not sure what race has to do with geographic restrictions. I'd say it more-so has to do with laws, regulatory, and other such things:

• legal and regulatory compliance
• export controls
• licensing
• infrastructure / performance concerns
• economic considerations
• fraud/security concerns
• content sensitivities
• strategic business decisions
• taxation and financial regulations
• local partnerships or agreements
• network abuse (sure there's one single aspect of your hacking point)
• language and support concerns
• etc.

Well, when you block by large racial regions, and all of those other things don't apply, it's pretty strongly definitely about race.

None of those other things can be used in conjunction with geo-ip blocking. I'd say the opposite... I don't understand how you can mention those other things given that it doesn't work for that. Other than race and/or nationality (which are deeply tied) there's no other effective reason for geo blocking.

@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

What's your evidence to support the site blocking is racially motivated, and not, lets say, regulatory or otherwise motivated?

Because no regulation anywhere, ever is supported by geo blocking. That never qualifies for any regulation.

It's not racially motivated, really, ever.

Example: Hulu... that's not really available anywhere outside the US. Why? Certainly not racially motivated... but licensing I'm guessing? (regulatory)

Netflix has different content available in different countries. Why? Certainly not racially motivated. Definitely about licensing agreements. (regulatory)
Likely aren't available at all in some countries. Why? Certainly not racially motivated. It's all about licensing/legal/regulatory reasons. Race has nothing at all to do with it.

@EddieJennings said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

I haven't used Amazon CloudFront, but have you confirmed that configuration is correct? Do you have any way to verify if there was any kind of burst of traffic that may have triggered some kind of policy that would cause traffic to be dropped?

Amazon CloudFront isn't blocked in Nicaragua, or any country for that matter. It's a service a website is using to service traffic. The Amazon CloudFront customer is using CloudFront to block access to their site geographically.

We don't know which website CCWTech is trying to go to. He never mentioned that. So this continues to be meaningless discussion because nobody can really go anywhere with it, except to point out that 99.9999999999% of the time, geographic blocks are not racially motivated.

Which "race" is being blocked by restricting access to Nicaragua? Mestizo? Mixed indigenous and European (primarily Spanish) ancestry? Is spain blocked as well? Is France? Is costa rica? Is the entire central america blocked? Is Mexico? South America? Kinda short-sighted to think it's racially motivated when there are so many other, more likely, reasons for geographic blocks.

@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@Obsolesce

No, I read it, but there was nothing to really support it. I mean all of those are things, but I guess they are posted as facts and I am trying to figure out how they would really apply... Remember we are just talking about blocking access to a website.

What's your evidence to support the site blocking is racially motivated, and not, lets say, regulatory or otherwise motivated?

I don't know which site you are referring to, so I can't really dive in. If it was a KKK website blocking your country's access, then sure. But that's likely not the site you're trying to go to.

@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

Living outside the USA has shown me how many supposed 'IT Security Policies' are in my opinion, racist.

I got this today:

403 ERROR
The request could not be satisfied.
The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner.
If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.
Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)
Request ID: zomv8JAx_0HrRCvqqrBVKdUVY0WYlrp6F0BhpVut-NLG060J2fKC-w==

1. I happen to be in Nicaragua right now, and I think it would be hard to argue that there are a lot of Nicaraguan hackers (In other words we aren't talking originating from China or Russia here).
2. Do IT staff really think that the hackers they should worry about aren't familiar with VPN's or other ways of spoofing their IP or location?

This happens from time to time and today it I guess annoyed me more than it normally does.

Thoughts?

Not sure what race has to do with geographic restrictions. I'd say it more-so has to do with laws, regulatory, and other such things:

How does it not?

Race refers to the categorization of human beings into groups based on physical attributes such as skin color, hair texture, and facial features. Geographic restrictions, on the other hand, pertain to limits or boundaries set on certain areas or locations.

The primary reasons for geographic restrictions are usually grounded in legal, regulatory, and administrative decisions. These decisions might stem from concerns related to national security, resource management, public safety, or diplomatic reasons. Race doesn't inherently dictate these legal and regulatory restrictions. While it's true that some restrictions historically may have been influenced by racial prejudices, conflating race with the primary purpose of most contemporary geographic restrictions can be misleading.

While it's true that you CAN have different raced people in every country, @scottalanmiller example of a vendor blocking Spanish-speaking countries... Well, sure, anyone can live there. Scott and I for example live in a Spanish-speaking country, so no, it's not 100% by race, but there are certainly a lot of Chinese people in China for example...

I guess it's discriminatory and has no real value.

Did you somehow miss the list I posted of so many more likely reasons a country is blocked?

@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

Living outside the USA has shown me how many supposed 'IT Security Policies' are in my opinion, racist.

I got this today:

403 ERROR
The request could not be satisfied.
The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner.
If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.
Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)
Request ID: zomv8JAx_0HrRCvqqrBVKdUVY0WYlrp6F0BhpVut-NLG060J2fKC-w==

1. I happen to be in Nicaragua right now, and I think it would be hard to argue that there are a lot of Nicaraguan hackers (In other words we aren't talking originating from China or Russia here).
2. Do IT staff really think that the hackers they should worry about aren't familiar with VPN's or other ways of spoofing their IP or location?

This happens from time to time and today it I guess annoyed me more than it normally does.

Thoughts?

Not sure what race has to do with geographic restrictions. I'd say it more-so has to do with laws, regulatory, and other such things:

How does it not?

Race refers to the categorization of human beings into groups based on physical attributes such as skin color, hair texture, and facial features. Geographic restrictions, on the other hand, pertain to limits or boundaries set on certain areas or locations.

The primary reasons for geographic restrictions are usually grounded in legal, regulatory, and administrative decisions. These decisions might stem from concerns related to national security, resource management, public safety, or diplomatic reasons. Race doesn't inherently dictate these legal and regulatory restrictions. While it's true that some restrictions historically may have been influenced by racial prejudices, conflating race with the primary purpose of most contemporary geographic restrictions can be misleading.

@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:

Living outside the USA has shown me how many supposed 'IT Security Policies' are in my opinion, racist.

I got this today:

403 ERROR
The request could not be satisfied.
The Amazon CloudFront distribution is configured to block access from your country. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner.
If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.
Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)
Request ID: zomv8JAx_0HrRCvqqrBVKdUVY0WYlrp6F0BhpVut-NLG060J2fKC-w==

1. I happen to be in Nicaragua right now, and I think it would be hard to argue that there are a lot of Nicaraguan hackers (In other words we aren't talking originating from China or Russia here).
2. Do IT staff really think that the hackers they should worry about aren't familiar with VPN's or other ways of spoofing their IP or location?

This happens from time to time and today it I guess annoyed me more than it normally does.

Thoughts?

Not sure what race has to do with geographic restrictions. I'd say it more-so has to do with laws, regulatory, and other such things:

• legal and regulatory compliance
• export controls
• licensing
• infrastructure / performance concerns
• economic considerations
• fraud/security concerns
• content sensitivities
• strategic business decisions
• taxation and financial regulations
• local partnerships or agreements
• network abuse (sure there's one single aspect of your hacking point)
• language and support concerns
• etc.

@nadnerB said in Helpdesk options / Ticketing system for non-IT purpose:

We are using Freshservice and have been for several years.
Very happy with it.

In fact we've spread it to several other departments.

Propaganda page: https://www.freshworks.com/freshservice/features/

Samsies!

@EddieJennings