Slack has apologized after it shut down the accounts of users who have visited Iran following a poorly executed effort at complying with U.S. sanctions against the country. The company, which has eight million users of its productivity tool, has scrapped that first go at the policy. But it did confirm it will now block […]
View More Slack says it will comply with sanctions and block Iran-based activity, apologizes for botched first effortCategory: Iran
Slack is banning users who have visited U.S.-sanctioned countries while using its app
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If you’ve ever visited Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, or the Crimea region, you should probably check if you’re Slack account is still active.
Early Thursday morning, Slack users began reporting the real-time messaging app had sent a message notifying them that they had been banned from the service. The reasoning given to these banned users: U.S. economic sanction laws and regulations.
“Slack complies with the U.S. regulations related to embargoed countries and regions. As such, we prohibit unauthorized Slack use in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and the Crimea region of Ukraine,” Slack said in a statement provided to Mashable. “Our systems may have detected an account and/or a workspace owner on our platform with an IP address originating from a designated embargoed country. If our systems indicate a workspace primary owner has an IP address originating from a designated embargoed country, the entire workspace will be deactivated. If someone thinks any actions we took were done in error, we will review further.” Read more…
More about Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Slack
Slack shuts down accounts belonging to Iranian expats and users who visited Iran
A number of Slack users report that they have suddenly lost access to their accounts with no warning in what appears to be an aggressive implementation of U.S. sanctions on Iran. In some cases, users have reported seeing revoked their access to free, public Slack groups, while access to paid accounts remains. Administrators of the […]
View More Slack shuts down accounts belonging to Iranian expats and users who visited IranChina demands release of Huawei executive arrested in Canada
China is demanding the release of a Huawei executive who was arrested in Canada.
Canadian law enforcement detained Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer, Meng Wanhzou, in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Dec. 1. Meng, the daughter of Huawei fou…
Chinese stocks plummet as Huawei CFO arrest raises trade fears
A string of Chinese stocks fell hard on Thursday after the arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver deepened concerns over US-China trade tensions. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong was off 2.76 percent as of 12:40 p.m. On the Mainland side, the CSI 300 […]
View More Chinese stocks plummet as Huawei CFO arrest raises trade fearsHuawei CFO arrested in Canada, awaits US extradition
Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, awaits a bail hearing upon suspicion she violated U.S. trade sanctions against Iran.
View More Huawei CFO arrested in Canada, awaits US extraditionFacebook takes down more ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’ linked to Iran
Facebook has removed 82 pages, groups and accounts for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that originated out of Iran. The social networking giant discovered the “inauthentic behavior” late last week, according to a blog post by the company’s cybersecurity policy chief Nathaniel Gleicher. He said the operation relied on posing as U.S. and U.K. citizens, and “posted about politically charged […]
View More Facebook takes down more ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’ linked to IranTwitter releases trove of 10 million tweets by foreign bad actors
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Twitter has brought the foreign election-interfering trolls out from under their bridges.
On Wednesday, Twitter announced in a blog post that it was releasing the complete cache of data and content by foreign entities including Russia and Iran created to interfere with American politics and information. The amount of content is staggering: 4,611 accounts from foreign bad actors published over 10 million tweets to manipulate American discourse since 2009.
Twitter is publishing the data in compliance with promises it made to the US government, and to enable independent research of the information campaigns. Read more…
More about Twitter, Russia, Iran, Elections, and Tech
View More Twitter releases trove of 10 million tweets by foreign bad actorsZTE hit with 2-year ‘monitoring’ extension after breaking probation terms
Embattled Chinese tech firm ZTE narrowly survived after the U.S. Department of Commerce hit it with a $1 billion fine and forced changes to its business earlier this year, and. Now it is back in the news for negative reasons after it was judged to have broken the probation around a fine that it copped in […]
View More ZTE hit with 2-year ‘monitoring’ extension after breaking probation termsTrump’s new cyber strategy eases rules on use of government cyberweapons
The Trump administration’s new cyber strategy out this week isn’t much more than a stringing together of previously considered ideas. In the 40-page document, the government set out its plans to improve cybersecurity, incentivizing change, and reforming computer hacking laws. Election security about a quarter of a page, second only to “space cybersecurity.” The difference […]
View More Trump’s new cyber strategy eases rules on use of government cyberweaponsFacebook and Twitter remove hundreds of accounts linked to Iranian and Russian political meddling
Facebook has removed hundreds of accounts and pages for what it calls “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” generally networks of ostensibly independent outlets that were in fact controlled centrally by Russia and Iran. Some of these accounts were identified as much as a year ago.
View More Facebook and Twitter remove hundreds of accounts linked to Iranian and Russian political meddlingUS targets 2020 for the creation of a Space Force
In a speech before the Department of Defense at the Pentagon today, Vice President Mike Pence outlined the broad contours of the new Space Force that the Trump administration wants to create as the sixth branch of the U.S. military. Emphasizing the need to both further militarize and privatize space as a new war-fighting domain, […]
View More US targets 2020 for the creation of a Space Force