Hacker News Reader

Comment by whimsicalism | Hacker News Reader

Any sort of export control/embargo that cuts off specifically VPN access to foreign nationals is supremely stupid imo

then talk to the US government about their very fucking dumb failed sanctions regime against Cuba?

Dear US government, please open VPN access to everyone in the world. If you want citizens of an authoritative nation to be able to escape their local firewall, then these systems need to be available. You have a history of making these products and even funding them through things like Radio Free Asia. Though for some reason you also attack these systems too and cut their legs off. Get your fucking act together. Both citizens of our own country need encryption to avoid spying on from foreign nations as well as citizens of authoritarian nations need encryption to avoid spying from their own governments. They'll never rise up against their governments if they can't secretly communicate. Preventing encryption in our own country means you fear this too, which is not a great thing to tell your citizens.

Right, that is what I was referring to

Cubans are nice and poor. With their strong friendship with Russia and China, that is where we want them to be.

America's Cuba policy is a failure and continues to be a failure. Do you not think if America opened up to Cuba that wouldn't over time drastically lesson their dependency on Russia?

Cuba really doesn't have much of a choice, they have to trade with "friendly" nations of which America refuses to be.

Fun fact, when we (Canadians) go to Cuba they typically won't stamp our passports because they know it causes us issues when trying to enter the US.

You would think we'd want the contrapositive: to enrich them with global influx of capitalist market consumer demand, enough that they gain an independently self-stable economy, and stop feeling the need to rely on the support of Russia and China so much.

(Or, at least, offer subsidies to their government if they stop supporting Russian and Chinese spies with their numbers stations et al.)

This is a very naive way to look at the world. Even if theoretically they would be happy with such "self-stable economy" [they naturally won't—nothing prevents human desires to ask for more and try to build win-win friendships,] Russia and China are not sitting around; they would go and meddle with their affairs.

Mind you, I am not saying there is an existential possibility of a better policy, but the calculus would be nowhere as trivial as this.

> Russia and China are not sitting around; they would go and meddle with their affairs.

I mean, certainly, but it's like having a club on your car's steering wheel: it's not about creating perfect protection, it's about ensuring your car isn't the softest target for theft in the parking lot.

If Cuba had fewer reasons to talk to Russia and China, then Russia and China would have fewer reasons to talk to Cuba in particular, vs. other Caribbean and Central American nations. Which would, potentially, spread their resources thinner and decrease covert-ops ROI, as they'd be having to engage with several nations who only weakly want them there, instead of one nation that desperately wants them there.

(And yes, I do realize that these powers do already engage with other nations in the area, e.g. Nicaragua. But not in the same way / not for the same reasons.)

Given how badly that idea failed with China, I don’t see it happening any time soon with Cuba, a mere 90 miles from the US mainland. That proximity is a main reason why Cuba gets such special attention.

I mean, China has all the base resources to be a superpower — and has been a continent-spanning, colonizing empire many times in its past — so it's unclear what the US was expecting to happen there. (Probably something to do with short-term realpolitik "rock and a hard place" leverage.) Cuba has never and will never be a threat to the US, except insofar as they provide projection of strength for some other ally. A Cuba that sees itself as a sovereign nation would be a good thing, in the same way that ex-USSR satellites that see themselves as sovereign nations are a good thing.

Also, if you want to talk about countries that the US actually gives "special attention" to, I'd more compare/contrast to the relationship between the US and Panama.

> in the same way that ex-USSR satellites that see themselves as sovereign nations are a good thing.

Cuba would have do what those other ex-USSR satellites did and discard communism and authoritarianism in favor of democracy. Then, yes, seeing themselves as a sovereign state would be a good thing.

It doesn't even have to discard the communism. Look it Vietnam: we fought a war against them in living memory, and we invite their people to go through our military training schools now so they can see how we do things.

Yeah that's an interesting comparison, though it's mainly b/c Vietnam sees China as its main adversary and threat, along with an opportunity to steal parts of the Asian manufacturing supply chain from China. The shared enemy and shared economic interests b/t US and Vietnam are pretty strongly aligned.

But I'm not sure if such an alignment could be created between the US and Cuba while Cuba remains a communist authoritarian hereditary dictatorship, since there's no shared enemy nearby and no strong shared economic incentive. Seems like the only real alignment would be Cuba becoming a democracy.

We were happily allies with Mexico which was effectively a single-party dictatorship for most of the 20th century.

Exactly. I do believe that certain individuals and organizations might/should be excluded from service here; however, it seems like the only technical solution to regulations enforcement is to wholesale block a whole country.

Should they sell VPN services to North Korea? What might the reasons be on the "no" side?

The NK state is more than capable of arranging their own VPNs.

I think the West gains a lot more by having generally available VPN access in adversary states than it loses from their ability to purchase technical services that they still will have difficulty getting access to currency to pay for and they still will have difficulty actually shipping anything to NK.

> Should they sell VPN services to North Korea?

Yes? Making it easier for North Korean citizens, or even just leadership, to communicate privately with each other and with people outside makes it easier for them to negotiate or even defect, and would help de-escalation efforts.

> What might the reasons be on the "no" side?

I guess one could argue that the North Korean government doesn't have access to secure VPN systems for government use (pretty implausible IMO) and that increasing their costs is inherently worth it? Realistically most of the opposition would come from those who benefit from the status quo (e.g. arms suppliers) and don't want to see that de-escalation, and I guess the extremely risk averse who would rather keep kicking the can indefinitely and hoping the blowup doesn't come until after they're dead, than risk actually trying to help North Korea's people.

The vast majority of north koreans only have access to the nationwide intranet. Those that do have outside connection are few trusted elites who are there to do business. And no matter who you are (this also applies to foreigners in the country), your device and connection is heavily monitored by the state. Merely posessing a non-state sanctioned device as a north korean is considered a serious criminal offense. At that point the only use case of a VPN for someone with a north korean IP is for cybercrime and not dissidents.

Bad comparison. NK is a nuclear state with nuclear weapons that is constantly threatening its neighbors. Cuba flirted with the idea but they didn't really materialize any nuclear or military capabilities. This was also a long time ago.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com