rosndo

lol. Yeah, censor my reply instead of explaining how exactly my comment is against the guidelines.

The double standard is palpable. Criticizing Scholz for lying is apparently a no-go but we can call Putin a monster https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

> Sadly, a few of my friends (not Instagram friends, actual people that I see IRL) have been physically assaulted for being gay or trans in Canada for fuck's sake, rural and urban; one is paralyzed below the neck because he got stabbed for being gay.

The people who I follow on Instagram that are openly gay on their profiles are also real people I have met many times in the UAE. These aren’t instagram friends, their profiles were just relevant in response to you bringing up social media profiles.

UAE is probably one of the least likely places in the world where you might be assaulted for being gay or trans. The government cares about optics more than anything, and would come down hard on anyone doing something like that.

> What happens if I stray outside of an unmarked tourist zone, maybe pop over to a random market and a cop doesn't like the look of me?

Nothing, UAE cops are nothing like Western cops. They’re paid very well and would rather avoid creating unnecessary trouble in their lives.

If you’re white, it’s extraordinarily unlikely that you’d end up having a negative interaction with UAE law enforcement unless you go out of your way to make powerful enemies.

I’m not saying UAE is great, I’m not saying it’s not a terribly corrupt place that can turn incredibly nasty sometimes. I’m just saying it’s a perfectly safe place for gay westerners.

Poland sent tanks to Ukraine, it’s not a big secret even if you’d like to pretend that it is.

I’m not sure why you’re getting caught up on the US, that’s just weird and makes it seem like you might have some ulterior motives.

US is sending other kinds of heavy armaments to Ukraine.

I think it’s fair and reasonable to expect a basic level of knowledge when someone is making such confident statements regarding their reverse engineering work.

Defeating certificate pinning with tools like Frida is one of the most basic and common tasks when reversing iOS/OS X applications.

Well, that works as long as the … is some fairly unobjectionable group of people. It doesn’t work if you substitute it with “drunk drivers” for example.

Not sure we should be too worried about “them” coming for a cyberbullying subreddit.

Can you put an email or other form of contact in your profile? Happy to make a referral, but they’re not interested in clients with below 250k GBP annual travel expenses.

It’s also not a problem for luxury hotels openly hosting gay clubs on premises.

What exactly would be sufficient evidence?

I already addressed this in the very comment you were replying to, certificate pinning is very easy to defeat with public tools.

> I can't see the contents of the traffic, since 99% of it is encrypted, but I can safely say Apple is very cozy with your device.

So in reality you are too lazy to hook their TLS verification code (super easy to do with public tools), or alternatively you did do this and the traffic just wasn’t that interesting.

Not really sure what we are supposed to take away from this.

Yes, the concierge company that handles essentially all of our expenses accepts cryptocurrency. It’s probably been a couple of years since I paid anything from my own bank account.

Meals are usually prepaid by the concierge or local hotel staff, they also handle all of our household staff.

I follow tens of Emirates staff on my instagram and it’s really hard to square this with all the profiles of openly gay Dubai residents I know.

Was your friend perhaps a local? The rules are unfortunately different depending on where you come from.

I have, they’re overwhelmingly grateful to be able to work in much better conditions for much better pay than they would at home.

This was before 2015, no?

It’s kind of meaningless to worry about things that used to happen years ago in a country that’s modernizing so fast.

> There are lots of cases of guys being thrown in jail and being fined for something as simple as long hair or wearing earrings

Even straight up crossdressing in public hasn’t been illegal since Nov 2020.

Nobody has been arrested in the UAE for consensual same-sex conduct since 2015. There are a lot of gay clubs openly operating in Dubai.

There are a bunch of fancy gay clubs in Dubai though, nobody goes to prison for being gay.

According to US state department there have been “ no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex conduct.” since at least 2015.

I’m not convinced that actually matters wrt North Korea.

Besides, sanctions enforcement turns pretty active when you start prosecuting violators.

> 1. I have a harder time getting jobs than people with degrees. Not people with CS degrees, people with any degrees

Probably an unpopular take, but you could lie, essentially 0 risk (especially if you’re even a little clever about it).

Yeah, this is not normal. Now before you can get a low-skilled worker visa you have to sit through an hour long lecture explaining your rights, they tell you over and over to not let anyone take your passport and who to call if someone does.

These countries have been modernizing so fast that it’s really pointless to talk about how things were a couple of years ago.

2 years ago if someone said that this would happen people would probably have laughed at you https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/courts/2021/11/28/uaes-n...

You say this like it’s the norm and that businesses don’t get penalized if they do this. That’s simply not true.

> beaten sometimes raped

You go to prison for this in Dubai.

> have their password taken away

I suppose you mean “passport”. This is also illegal, government has been cracking down on this for years. The MOHRE hotline for these issues is advertised everywhere, it only takes a quick call and the police will come recover your passport.

But yeah, I guess it’s pointless to try and have a conversation with someone engaging as dishonestly as you.

I obviously don’t mean that violence or rape are okay, and it’s really shitty of you to suggest that. What next? Will you accuse me of molesting children too?

It’s not nearly as widespread in 2022 as you might like to think.

To get a low-skilled work visa in Dubai you have to sit through an hour long lecture explaining these rights, including what to do if your employer takes your passport.

You are advised to not give your passport to your employer except to have your visa stamped, and then immediately demand it back.

This country is modernizing very rapidly, things that were true 5 years ago are often not true anymore.

If someone confiscates your passport in Dubai you can have it back within 24 hours by just calling MOHRE at 80060.

It is illegal to do this, enforcement is pretty aggressive.

As to denial of visas? At least the UAE offers these people a chance at a better life, Western countries give them nothing. A slight QOL improvement is much better than none.

Yep, it’s sort of hilarious to see us rich Westerners criticizing work conditions in Dubai while our countries simply make it impossible for these same people to get visas to work in the West.

UAE is doing more to improve the lives of these people than the West ever has, even if it doesn’t look all that pretty. It’s very unfortunate that photos of denied visa applications will never evoke the same response.

“near-slavery” is not slavery, neither is it worse than the places many of these workers come from.

But surely the victims are not sophisticated enough to google numbers?

And even if they are, how hard can it be to find some poor people to go get 10 sim cards for 10 euros? I know that wouldn’t be hard at all in my village.

Or to just corrupt one guy working for the telco and get unlimited SIMs registered using fake IDs?

Or not corrupt anyone and just go get SIM cards with trivial to fake Romanian ID cards?

But why does the amount sim cards matter for this scam? How many hundreds of sim cards do you need? Surely it’s easy to find other people to buy sim cards for you?

There’s a decent amount of maritime trade, especially for oil. Fishing is also important for the domestic economy.

> With North Korea we’ve blown our load

Actually no, much more could be done against North Korea. A total naval blockade, for example.

Remember that in many places it was very difficult to vote due to violent interference by Guardia Civil.

This story doesn’t add up. You need an ID to pick up cash from western union, why would showing an ID to get sim cards be an issue at all?

Odds are that this SIM card legislation actually had nothing to do with the scam fading anyway.

The village I’m from is internationally famous for internet scams, they’ve changed over the years because both the potential victims and scammers have become more savvy. Not due to legislation.