Just Uber

The world got a little less open today as Sourceforge announced that it is to ban users from Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, and Syria from using its open source software repository.

Using IP address based blocking, users from countries on the US Office of Foreign Assets Control sanction list will no longer be able to contribute to or use code hosted on Sourceforge.

It would seem that although Sourceforge do not support this move, they feel that as occupants of the ‘real world’ they must remain reticent stating:

“…in addition to participating in the open source community, we also live in the real world, and are governed by the laws of the country in which we are located. Our need to follow those laws supersedes any wishes we might have to make our community as inclusive as possible.”

In the meantime, freedom lovers can go here for a list of other open source software hosting facilities.

Google is currently in the process of enabling https by default on all Gmail accounts.

Gmail users have been able to use https since 2008, however due to performance concerns the option was disabled by default.

Users who wish to collect their email over plain old http can still do so by selecting this option on the Gmail settings page.

It seems likely that Google was spurred into action by the malicious access of dozens of Gmail accounts used by human rights activists by suspected Chinese hackers.

On a side note – anyone tasked with administering any type of Squid proxy using NTLM Auth should be pleased too. Accessing Gmail over https eliminates an irritating authentication error when trying to upload a file attachment to the webmail service.

Bonus!