Slack Banning Random Iranian Ex-Pats Shows Why Making Tech Companies Police The Internet Is Crazy Stupid

from the this-is-a-bad-idea dept

On Thursday morning, I started seeing a bunch of tweets pop up in my feed from people of Iranian backgrounds, who no longer lived in Iran, who were having their entire Slack groups shut down, with the company blaming US laws regarding sanctions on Iran.

There are a lot more reports like this, but that was just the first batch I found with a quick search. Slack's explanation to the press seems... lacking:

“We updated our system for applying geolocation information, which relies on IP addresses, and that led to the deactivations for accounts tied to embargoed countries,” the representative said. “We only utilize IP addresses to take these actions. We do not possess information about nationality or the ethnicity of our users. If users think we’ve made a mistake in blocking their access, please reach out to feedback@slack.com and we’ll review as soon as possible.”

All of the blocked people talking about it on Twitter note that they don't live in any sanctioned country -- though many admit to having visited those countries in the past (often years ago) and probably checking in on Slack while they were there. That... is not how the sanctions system is supposed to work. In another press statement Slack tries to pin the blame on the US government:

“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. For more information, please see the US Department of Commerce Sanctioned Destinations , The U.S. Department of Treasury website, and the Bureau of Industry and Security website.”

But that's bullshit. The sanctions rules don't say you have to cut off completely anyone who ever connected from a sanctioned country. The Verge (linked above) spoke to an Oxford researcher with knowledge in this area:

“They are either incompetent at OFAC interpretation or racist,” said Oxford researcher Mahsa Alimardani, who specializes in communication tools in Iran.

[....]

“Detecting an Iranian IP address on a paid account (which is presumed to be for business) login as a violation of sanctions is a wrong interpretation of these regulations,” Alimardani says. “At best it’s over-regulation to prevent any sort of misunderstanding or possible future hassle with OFAC.”

Of course, as former Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos notes in his own tweet on this topic, this is exactly what happens when you have vague rules with strong punishment, and expect internet platforms to magically police the web:

And of course, we're seeing more and more and more of that. FOSTA does that in the US. The GDPR is doing that around the globe. The EU Copyright Directive will do that. The EU Terrorist Content Regulation will do it. And a bunch of other regulations targeting the internet as well. That's why some of us keep warning that these laws are going to lead to widespread censorship and suppression of free speech. Because that's how it always works out. If you threaten internet platforms with huge penalties for failing to block content, but leave the details pretty vague, they're going to make decisions like that and simply kick people off their services entirely, rather than face liability. It's a recipe for disaster -- and one that seems to be favored by tons of clueless regulators, politicians, and plenty of people who just don't realize how much harm they will cause.

Filed Under: iran, iranians, ofac, sanctions, technology
Companies: slack

The Rise Of More Secure Alternatives To Everyone's Favorite Chat App, Slack

from the well-this-could-get-interesting dept

Like a ton of people and companies, we've been using Slack here. While we saw some folks claim it was revolutionary, we found it to be a nice, but somewhat marginal, upgrade to our previous use of Skype chat rooms. But, over time, it has certainly gotten comfortable, and there have been some nice feature add-ons and integrations that have made it a pretty cool service overall -- though if you really want to use it to its fullest extent and switch to the paid version, it can get pretty pricey, pretty quickly. I also am in a bunch of other group Slack chats, as it's basically become the platform of choice for group discussions.

However, in these days where hacked emails are in the headlines, I can see why some might get nervous about using a tool like Slack. Not that there have been any known breaches of Slack that I'm aware of, and I'm sure that the company takes security very seriously (it would undermine its entire business if it failed on that front...), it's been interesting to see other options start to pop up, which might be more appetizing for those who are extra security conscious.

Just as we've been encouraged to see greater use of encryption on mobile phones, email and on websites, it's good to see new entrants trying to take on Slack with a focus on security and privacy. The most recent, and perhaps most interesting, player in the space is SpiderOak, which recently launched its Semaphor Slack competitor on the market. I've been playing around with it -- and while it's early on, it certainly has potential. SpiderOak is the company you should already know of that provides an encrypted "zero knowledge" cloud backup solution. Since you keep the keys, even though it's hosted in the cloud, SpiderOak has no way to decrypt your files should anyone hack in, or should the government come calling. It's now taken that approach to Semaphor, which obviously takes its inspiration from Slack (and feels quite similar), but with the same zero knowledge encrypted setup. You get a key and that encrypts all of the data in your group messaging.

There are some limitations there -- of course -- because any team member might leak their key (though whoever gets in would just have access to whatever that team member can see). And, because of this setup, it's not as easy to do "integrations" with third-party apps and services, which is a key selling point of Slack. Semaphor is apparently trying to work its way around this limitation by creating bots that act as their own users within Semaphor (something Slack has also), but where the bots themselves become the key to integrations. It's a bit more clumsy, but if it helps keep things secure, that seems promising.

SpiderOak also, kindly, makes the Semaphor client source code available for anyone to audit, which is necessary if anyone's going to take their encryption seriously. Of course, Semaphor is, like Slack, working off a Freemium model, where additional features require per user fees, which can add up. One nice feature of Semaphor that Slack doesn't have: the ability for individuals to pay their own way. That is, there are lots of Slack groups that are general interest groups around certain topics, and not a company's own internal group. Those groups are never going to use a paid option, because there's no "company" to pay for all users. Semaphor offers an alternative, where each user can just pay their own way -- which might be appealing to some user groups.

The other alternatives that have been getting some attention lately are a couple of attempts to basically create a truly open source Slack clone that can be self-hosted. The two big players here are Mattermost and RocketChat. Both have built open source, self-hosted Slack clones (and both try to make money by offering paid hosting for those who want it). Mattermost is quite upfront that it's building a Slack alternative -- it's all over its website -- though it also points out that it's tried to improve on some things in Slack. RocketChat doesn't seem to mention Slack, and, frankly, feels a bit behind Mattermost in development (though it also announced that it's about to run a Kickstarter campaign to jumpstart more development.

Now, whether or not a self-hosted open source alternative is more secure than Slack... may depend. If you're doing the self-hosted version then you're basically relying on your own ability to keep the implementation secure. That might work. Or, whoever you have securing your installation might not be as good or as responsive as, say, the security team at Slack. But, using an open source solution that you host obviously does provide you with a lot more control and the ability to make any changes you think are necessary.

As someone who talks quite frequently about how competition drives innovation, it's great to see all of this happening. I don't think any of them will harm Slack's place in the market, which has become pretty standard in a lot of companies, but as more and more companies are realizing that they need to really think through security of their communications tools, it's a very good thing to see competition popping up. Hopefully, these competitors get stronger as well, and help drive more overall innovation -- including the focus on security and encryption -- across the entire market.

Filed Under: chat, cloud services, encryption, messaging, open source, security, work
Companies: mattermost, rocketchat, slack, spideroak