Female programmers in Sudan hindered by U.S sanctions on Internet access | Hacker News Reader

Female programmers in Sudan hindered by U.S sanctions on Internet access

techpresident.com

18 pointsosmnshkh16 comments

> Female programmers in Sudan hindered by U.S sanctions on Internet access (techpresident.com)

s/Female p/P/

The sanctions are bad because they hinder progress, not because of the genders of some affected parties.

edit: This is all in the HN title. The article focuses on a few women, but doesn't make a thing out of their gender.

I put female in the title because I thought it would get more attention due to the recent "controversies" on gender and programming.

It's a cause I care about so I'm willing to be link-baity to get more attention.

But I definitely agree with you.

You know that posting irrelevant information or bias just to be controversial in order to raise attention is called "trolling", right?

It's not irrelevant. Female programmers were hindered and the story focuses on those female programmers. The goal is not to be controversial but to raise awareness.

The story focuses on programmers. It uses gendered pronouns, but no more than if the article were about the sanction-beleaguered for-pay wifi down at the bazaar and the IT guy who owns the business.

Deceptive [expletive].

While I agree the restrictions the regular Sudanese population must face are deeply regrettable, it's easy to see why they're in place, and it's mostly Sudan's fault. I know people working at a cc payment gateway company you've probably heard of, and they regularly block whole countries because of widespread fraud and the fact that the local police simply do not care about their citizens stealing from foreigners and will do nothing. It's too much to expect companies to open the gates and constantly lose money to fraud just on the off chance one of the transactions might be to an honest actor.

Don't even get me started on the stories I hear from my friend at Western Union. It's very hard to do business with a country where there is simple no rule of law as we know it. The sanctions are likely a symptom of that, not the cause.

The sanctions are in place because the Sudanese government has numerous human rights violations and supported terrorist elements in the 90s, including Osama Bin Laden.

The issue is that the sanctions hurt regular people way more than the government.

The government is a dictatorship that has been in power since 1989, there are protests against the government almost every year, usually ending in a few deaths.

I'm not sure if fraud has anything to do with it, but I can see that it may be an issue.

The reason that they were sympathetic to Osama Bin Laden was because he was building roads, schools and hospitals in Sudan while the rest of the world didn't give a shit.

Of course. You need roads so you have somewhere to detonate IED roadside bombs.

Find me an example of an IED roadside bomb being used in Sudan.

Male programmers are not hindered by U.S. sanctions? Why title is so stupid and sexist?

US Sanctions are useless. they only affect the normal people, not the Governments or the people in power.

I lived in Syria for some time and it is impossible there to buy/use online services (hosting, apps, payment processing etc ..) or to use most Google services.

The funny part is that those same guys who brag about giving open access to knowledge and technology they themselves blocking it from the people who need it most.

> those same guys who brag about giving open access to knowledge and technology

Those same guys are forced by US laws (ie at gunpoint) to block these countries. The alternative would be bypassing these laws, going to jail and shutting down these companies. And they don't "brag", they just encourage open access and practice it as much as they possibly and legally can, no need to be so negative here. If you want to be mad at someone, be so at the US gov, not at these law abiding companies, just saying.

It's everybody, not just the women.

Of course, but the story focuses on a group of women whose project was hindered by U.S sanctions.

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