
Coursera blocks access to students in Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria - zactral
http://blog.coursera.org/post/74891215298/update-on-course-accessibility-for-students-in-cuba
======
smnrchrds
As someone who lives in Iran, this is sad but not news. I have gotten used to
see half the websites blocked by my government(Facebook, YouTube, Flickr,
WordPress, etc) and the other half by your government(Java SE or anything else
from Oracle, Google Code, Google Play Store, anything from Xilinx, etc).

If one of my favorite websites was blocked, I may have considered not using it
anymore. When virtually all websites are blocked, I can either not use the
internet or find a way around it. Of course I chose the second option. Most
Iranians have been using proxies and VPNs for the past few years. This
blockage would not affect us much.

P.S. Please stop using Google Code. Edit: Also App Engine. Udacity has been
inaccessible to Iranians since the beginning because they use App Engine for
hosting. This is what I get when I try to access Udacity:
[http://i.imgur.com/zUecPHk.png](http://i.imgur.com/zUecPHk.png)

P.P.S. I am curious what percentage of the internet is blocked in Iran. When
you try to access a blocked website, the censorship system shows a page
explaining that the website is blocked and some links to Iranian websites. Is
it possible to write a script to scan all the internet (or at least the
popular websites) and determine which ones are blocked? Here is what I get
when I try to access YouTube: [http://git.io/HG3nsQ](http://git.io/HG3nsQ)

I have two questions:

1\. Where can I find a list of all domain names, top 1000, top 100000?

2\. Is it possible to conclusively determine censorship from headers only or
do I have to load the whole page and compare HTML code with a sample?
Bandwidth is very expensive here.

~~~
antihero
How common are VPNs?

~~~
smnrchrds
Government has tried blocking all anti-censorship technologies, so normal PPTP
and L2TP VPN services will not work. VPN vendors now offer their own software
which I assume uses non-conventional ports and settings to circumvent it. But
VPNs are not the only solution. Most people use software like Psiphon or
Freegate to access the internet. I don't know about general population, but
everyone I know uses some kind of anti-censorship solution.

Facebook is censored in Iran, yet it is very popular. If you want to roughly
estimate how many people circumvent censorship on a daily basis, just find out
how many Iranians actively use Facebook. I guess it would be possible to find
a number with Graph Search.

~~~
gtirloni
Here in Brazil we have many laws that have not "caught on", that means nobody
follows them and the government doesn't care to enforce it. Of course that is
bad, but sometimes these laws are very stupid and that's why it is the way it
is.

In Iran with the censorship, could the same thing be happening? Someone
created it, the government sees some uses for it, an organization was tasked
with enforcing it but since there are a lot of ways to circumvent it and
everybody knows how, that might show this organization does not actively care
enough to update it's filter. That is, it's there because someone someday had
the stupid idea of creating a big firewall, but there is less and less support
to actually make it real and effective?

Would I be right in assuming this much?

~~~
smnrchrds
The situation is quite different in Iran. Traditionally the government had
control over all media. Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance reviews all
books before publishing and may remove the parts it doesn't like or prevent
books from being published altogether. Same for newspapers and magazines,
except they don't review them before publishing, but if they find something
offensive they close the newspaper. The only entity allowed to operate TV or
radio channels is Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting(IRIB) which is part of
the government, etc.

When internet became popular, the government monopoly got threatened. Since
then they did everything in their power to restrict the use of internet. First
they passed regulations that forced private ISPs to buy their bandwidth
through a government organization and deployed a censorship software (rumored
to be Chinese) on all of it, so blocking is national not per ISP. The they
passed a law restricting home users to 128 kbps (yes, kilobits per second not
even kilobytes). Then they criminalized providing anti-censorship solutions
(but not using them, although it is debated). In some occasions (like after
2009 election), they make the internet so slow it is virtually impossible to
use. HTTPS traffic is always slower than HTTP and occasionally completely
blocked.

It is all about maintaining power to control the narrative. As I said, it
hasn't worked as well as they have expected. Now they are building something
called National Internet. They say they don't plan to block access to the
internet but I am not so hopeful.

It has been a decade-long battle between government and freedom of information
and speech. Most people who are affected aren't dissidents, but simply people
who want to update their Facebook status.

It is sad because we are a fairly developed country. There is no war or
famine, our healthcare system is good, we have powerful industries, good
universities, big cities with good public transportation and interstate
highways, etc.

The problem is that over the years since the Islamic Revolution our nation has
become more liberal in general while the government remains rigidly
conservative. It will be a long answer to describe where we are and how we got
here, but I think this short comment is enough to answer your question.

------
reuven
The problem here is that Coursera is a for-profit company. If they were an
educational non-profit, my guess is that they could find a way to somehow work
with individual citizens of these countries. But the sanctions are in place to
stop US companies from doing business with these countries, and it probably
never occurred to anyone that a for-profit company, in the US, would want to
educate people in Iran.

Thus, this seems less a case of the US trying to stop citizens of Cuba, Iran,
Sudan, and Syria from being educated, and more a case of the law not keeping
up with the times.

It would be nice if the US Justice Department, or whoever is in charge of
enforcing such sanctions, could give a clear waiver to education-related
companies. I doubt that this will happen, though.

~~~
schrijver
Do they license their course materials under an open source license? If so,
other parties could easily redistribute the material.

If not, I guess we once again feel the pain of universities selling out their
knowledge to commercial gatekeepers.

~~~
ekianjo
Well most of their courses are free (as in free beer) while they have recently
been expanding their "paying only" courses catalog.

~~~
vdaniuk
There are no "paying only" courses on Coursers.

~~~
ekianjo
yes they do. recently started.

~~~
repsilat
Don't just disagree, provide information if you have it.

I think you were talking about Coursera's "specialisations," which are
essentially a grouping of "signature track" courses with a project or exam at
the end. All of the courses can be taken for free if you don't care about the
special certificates, but the project is just for paying customers.

Udacity is running some "pay only" courses with Georgia Tech for its online
masters program, too. Not sure about their other offerings, or about edX.

~~~
ekianjo
Ok I am not 100 percent sure about that but it does seem that some courses in
specializations are only available in this way.

EDIT: ok, so you were apparently right. The specialization courses stay free,
but it's not so obvious when you are looking at them from the specialization
page.

------
rikacomet
This is ridiculous! What is the use of being the premier institute in the
world, and do just about nothing about such a obvious immorality!?

The kids in these countries are already suffering under oppression/war/famine/
you name it.. things you won't want upon yourself, much less on your kids.I
know a guy who plays a rpg with me who is from Syria, he is 14 year old, and
his school is defunct. Just few months back I recommended him Coursera and
EdX.. and now this..? This is shit!

Whats next? Edx, Khan Academy follow course!?

This is almost like that rule that was imposed back in 2003-2007 era.. when
all rpg players with name Osama/Usama were banned, or forced to change their
usernames. People who had their legimate natural name as Osama/Usama way
before 9/11.

Talk about overkill!

~~~
slazaro
> The kids in these countries are already suffering under
> oppression/war/famine/ you name it..

Just a nitpick. Maybe in the other three countries this is true, but Cuba is
pretty well off in those respects. Especially education wise.

~~~
InclinedPlane
You're clueless about what goes on in Cuba. Informers for the secret police
are everywhere, nobody dares speak their mind in public. People are limited by
a _maximum_ wage. There are regular inspections of people traveling to ensure
that they aren't sneaking illegal food, especially meat, around. And so on.
It's as oppressive a totalitarian dictatorship as they come.

~~~
bromagosa
Unlike in the US, where the government doesn't spy on the citizens, everybody
has free access to education, free universal healthcare, guaranteed housing
and... oh wait.

~~~
pekk
If you think the way that Cuba is run is the same as the way that the US is
run, there is no evidence that will ever change your mind

~~~
bromagosa
I don't think both countries are run in the same way, I know they are not.

What I don't know is how you inferred I did think in that way from my comment.

~~~
mattdeboard
I don't know, could it be the way you sarcastically drew parallels between the
two as if they were the same? If you had just said what you meant, instead of
trying to be clever or cute, maybe there wouldn't be such room for
misinterpretation.

~~~
bromagosa
Could be that, but that would indeed be a misinterpretation. Could also be
that people who don't agree with a reasoning tend to try to twist other
people's words to make their arguments look wrong.

Anyway, I'll try to be stupid and mean next time so there is no ambiguity.

------
c7b0rg
The US regime never ceases to amaze me.

Power projection at all levels of an ordinary human's life, from privacy to
education.

I'm dumbfounded they are self proclaimed defenders of freedom. How can such
cognitive dissonance run rampant within the US.

------
johnhess
What's really chilling about this is:

>Federal regulations prohibit U.S. businesses from offering services to
countries subject to economic sanctions -- a list that includes Cuba, Iran,
Syria and Sudan

On this message board, I can imagine that "U.S. businesses" includes a
substantial number of us. You're all blocking those IPs, right?

The State Dept. set a dangerous precedent when it didn't immediately respond
to edX and Coursera with an "Of course a web application filled with
educational content doesn't constitute doing business with the enemy."

It leaves those of us without a legal team in a real pinch.

~~~
caf
This is why I upvoted this article - anyone selling online services from the
US should be thinking deeply about their export control obligations.

------
rdl
It would be nice if there were a safe harbor for open source/educational/non-
dual-use materials even to individuals in a sanction-restricted regime.

I doubt the Government of Cuba (the true target of the sanctions) would get
material benefit from free courses for their populace. Certainly only the most
indirect and limited military benefit.

Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, the treasury and state restrictions aren't
so specific. IANAL though, particularly not an export-compliance lawyer.

~~~
xmonkee
Yep. Surely an uneducated adversarial population is more dangerous in the long
run than an educated and productive one? I cannot possibly fathom the intended
outcome of this sanction. Keeping a few kids from doing programming courses is
not going to help the US ever have friendly ties with them. And it's not like
this is an issue about which the opposing govt will care enough about to
change their policies.

~~~
rdl
Blocking classes like this is like 0.0001% of what the sanction is for. It's
an unintended consequence of a blanket sanction.

The sanctions exist for two reasons: to directly prevent "enemy" nations from
gaining weapons (or economic infrastructure) to use for bad purposes, and to
put pressure on the foreign government (directly on members of the government,
and indirectly through the population) to provoke change.

Sanctions which are directly targeted against weapons are pretty obvious --
don't sell chemical weapons to middle-eastern dictators with a history of
gassing parts of their own population (oops, Iraq and Libya...).

Sanctions which are targeted to dual use technology, e.g. not selling advanced
routing and firewall equipment to countries which are engaged in repression
and murder of their own populace are more of a grey area (oops, Syria and I
believe Libya...); selling to the government directly is generally out, but
it's often ok to civilian businesses as long as you're able to document that
it's not going to end up in the hands of the government.

General "punishment" economic sanctions are a lot more rare, and even then
they generally try to weight them so the leadership is disproportionately
affected (I believe the ruling cadre's favorite brands of cognac, etc. are
embargoed to North Korea, which wouldn't affect normal people; regular food is
not restricted.)

~~~
ekianjo
> Sanctions which are directly targeted against weapons are pretty obvious --
> don't sell chemical weapons to middle-eastern dictators with a history of
> gassing parts of their own population (oops, Iraq and Libya...).

Interesting, wasn't the US an ally of Iraq in the past, and completely closed
their eyes on the gassing of Iranian populations during the Iraq-Iran war, as
well as the gassing of Kurds living in Iraq ? Should the US sanction
themselves? :)

~~~
phaer
> Should the US sanction themselves? :)

They do, you can't _export_ from the US to the US, can you? ;)

------
mavdi
As an Iranian I can't really blame them. They are forced to comply with the
law, and unfortunately the law is very broad. Can't really blame the US
government for this sort of blanket ban either because exceptions to laws
create loopholes. It won't take long until people find ways to ship missile
chips as educational material.

Maybe if our government didn't threaten other nations with annihilation, this
sort of shit wouldn't happen to us. Who knows.

~~~
betterunix
"It won't take long until people find ways to ship missile chips as
educational material."

We already lived in fear of that sort of thing once before:

[http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061399china-chips-
revi...](http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/061399china-chips-review.html)

------
primitivesuave
"Mr. Secretary, how can we show these democracy-haters that we mean business?"

"I've got it! Let's go after the studious ones by blocking their access to
online education! Let's force them to overload their VPNs and proxy servers
while chasing their aspirations to improve the social and political climate in
their countries of origin! That'll show them."

------
sdfjkl
This export rule nonsense can be bypassed, as demonstrated successfully by
Phil Zimmerman[1], who ended up getting crypto legislation changed. Also in a
similar case about European laws that prohibited bypassing DRM, the developers
of CloneCD moved their development to Antigua[2] (and named the new company
Slysoft).

Coursera, please investigate such avenues of bypassing this nonsense.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_investigation)
[2] [http://www.myce.com/news/Elby-announces-that-CloneCD-
emigrat...](http://www.myce.com/news/Elby-announces-that-CloneCD-emigrates-to-
Antigua-6639/)

------
ad93611
Interesting that coursera mentions that they only have a IP address block. It
seems like they just want people to workaround that and access the courses.

~~~
johnhess
This gives you a good idea of how difficult it is to comply with regulations
in the US. And, conversely, how (in)effective regulations which don't respect
the underlying technological capabilities can be.

A few things to think about: -What if students try to access once from a
blacklisted IP? Is their account now blacklisted? -Does Coursera need to comb
its logs for past accesses from those countries? -What if a student mentioned
their home country on the message board? -What if the person claims to be an
American working in Sudan?

------
bambax
> _Why has this not been an issue in the past?_

> _Until now the interpretation of export control regulations as they relate
> to MOOCs has been unclear and Coursera has been operating under the
> interpretation that MOOCs would not be restricted. We recently received
> information that has led to the understanding that the services offered on
> Coursera are not in compliance with the law as it stands. Accordingly we
> have instituted a restriction..._

I don't understand such a proactive respect of the law. Why don't they wait to
get sued instead?

Laws are not always meant to be respected; they're meant to be broken and
challenged in court.

~~~
testrun
That is an extremely interesting philosophy. So how does this work? If I don't
like somebody and shoots him, I can challenge the notion of
manslaughter/murder in court?

~~~
bambax
It means you don't surrender your conscience to your government.

So for example if your superiors, some official from some agency, or the
President, asks you to torture suspects, or to monitor the private
conversations of every citizen, or to keep so-called "National Security
Letters" secret, and they say you have to do it "because it's the law", you
can either hide behind authority or try and think for yourself.

It doesn't mean you have to break every law; when thinking for yourself you
may arrive at the same conclusion as the legislator, that torturing suspects
is indispensable to get the information you need, for example, and that, in
your opinion, there is no better option.

But it does mean you lose the excuse of doing something morally objectionable
just because someone told you to do it; from that moment on, you do it because
you want to.

The reason you don't go around shooting people should be because you find
killing human beings repellent, not because you fear getting caught.

~~~
testrun
Interesting. So what it means is that depends on my believe system I can do
whatever I want? If I am a psychopath I can kill people, if I believe in saria
law women need to cover up their faces and so on. What makes my believe system
superior to yours or anybody else?

~~~
smtddr
Why these extreme examples? OP said "not always" and we are talking about
viewing webpages here, not killing people. Nobody is saying to just do
whatever you want but sometimes you should reflect on what you're being told
to do.

Remeber this?
[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870411730...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704117304575137960803993890)
_> >Google Defies China on Web. Search Giant Stops Censoring Its Results_

Did you know the excuse _" I was just following orders"_ is no longer a valid
defense 100% of the time? That means you need to consider sometimes not
following rules/orders if it seems unethical.

Also, if you're protesting something you believe is unethical there can be
situations[1] that breaking the law on purpose brings about progress. I think
Google alm

1\. [http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/11/jackson-ms-sit-
in.jpg](http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/11/jackson-ms-sit-in.jpg)

____

P.S. I don't understand how anyone doesn't already know this. The law is not
absolute. You don't just follow it unquestionably & unthinkingly. There are
countless examples of people breaking laws that are unethical to bring about
progress in a society. I suspect you're just trolling.

~~~
testrun
>>Laws are not always meant to be respected; they're meant to be broken and
challenged in court.<<

As quoted from parent.

So if I ask the OP to explain, that is trolling? What do you define as
discussion?

And my question still remains, who decides what is good or bad?

~~~
smtddr
This is ridiculous. Are you purposely ignoring the _____NOT ALWAYS_____ in the
qoute?

Do you understand what this picture is?
[http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/11/jackson-ms-sit-
in.jpg](http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/11/jackson-ms-sit-in.jpg)

Do you understand the good that comes from Google disabling censorship in
China even though it was not lawful under Chinese law to do so?

I'm not going to get into some silly pedantic debate about who gets to decide
right & wrong. If you don't undestand those 2 examples and what the OP is
saying, then ....good luck to you.

~~~
testrun
I will make this simple:

1\. Not always means that you have to make a decision, the question is on what
principle do you decide to challenge a law in court, and why that principle
will be superior than somebody else principles.

2\. I did not discuss this with you at all, I am asking bambax, so if you want
to jump into a discussion, and suddenly decides to throw a tantrum, good luck
to you.

3\. Google censorship or radgeek does not add to this discussion, all I want
to know is what makes bambax decide when to challenge the law and on what
principle.

~~~
dariopy
Of course it depends on your "belief system". It's called morals. And what
makes a certain set of moral rules superior to a certain other set? That's a
centuries old question that will probably not be settled in this forum, but a
good approach is the wideness of its adoption among the population. There's
probably much more consensus on murder being wrong, than on providing free
education being wrong.

But you're welcome to challenge both in the courts of justice and public
opinion.

------
acd
Personally I do not understand the hard grudge against Cuba. My girl friend
met a car mechanic from Cuba temporarily living our country who really
struggled to make a living and trying to ship home some money for their
family. Yes communism is shit bad, that doesn't mean we should shield them
from our culture and knowledge. I think opening up our culture to these
countries as much as possible makes for the maximum possibility of influencing
the local people to want change.

The other countries on that list I'm more skeptical too especially when they
are not fully peaceful as knowledge can be miss used.

~~~
MisterBastahrd
There's nothing wrong with communism. There's everything wrong with communist
dictators for life. When one dude basically owns everything in the country,
the country ceases to become communist.

------
kriro
Call me naive but I always assumed access to more information and education
was a strong driving force towards less oppression and more freedom.

I guess US brass disagrees and would rather put a nice "rogue" label on things
and replace governments with worse governments over and over instead of
supporting generic change that comes from the people.

------
samstave
Coursera should ___ONLY_ __allow access to IPs from .GOV -- Clearly these are
the most desperately in need of an education.

------
shervinrs
In Iran there are restrictions on downloading articles from IEEE and ACM
databases, not that we cannot access them, but our universities cannot renew
their subscriptions. But there are always some ways to get what you need. It
won't be different for Coursera. But it's not fair, because facebook, youtube,
gmail and services like these are always available, and in here people are
very good at hating US for making these differences.

------
kfk
A startup in Europe should create a free proxy to use Coursera for these guys
living in those unfortunate countries. Berlin, London, Munich, etc. anything?

~~~
sentenza
So that startup can have their Paypal account frozen? No thank you. Probably
the best way is to create a Coursera competitor.

~~~
johnhess
That's tough. Not because the software isn't out there (see open edX), but
because of the content. The big attraction is that this is content from
premier universities. If you open Coursentenza, how could students (or
employers/colleges) down the road assess the quality of the education you
offer?

~~~
sentenza
Heh. Coursentenza. Not all that bad for a site name.

Probably the best way would be to build a solid network of non-english
speaking Universities and then, once the kinks are worked out, have them also
publish their english-language courses.

There are quite a bunch of Universities out there that already publish
lectures, and I'd imagine that with time there will be more and more. A
particular example of quality is TIMMS[1], which has been around almost as
long as MIT open courseware.

[1] [http://timms.uni-tuebingen.de/Themen/Themen.aspx](http://timms.uni-
tuebingen.de/Themen/Themen.aspx)

~~~
kfk
OK, since we are doing bar talk here. I have a gut feeling that North European
Universities will jump into this soon enough. They want to be innovative, if
they had a good platform with some kind of official back up, they would be
adding courses in a blink of an eye.

------
level09
This should be followed by a speech from a US official bragging about internet
freedom and equal access to knowledge.

Seriously, instead of starting projects like Google Proxy (to help people in
these countries bypass their government blocking), it would be better to start
a project that actually helps changing those ridiculous US laws.

Maybe offer some educational courses to those officials behind these laws.

~~~
Elrac
I don't mean to take sides here, but maybe the creation and existence of
workarounds like Google Proxy, which eventually turn into open secrets, can be
a way of communicating that there's a problem, which may in turn motivate
people to think about solutions?

I think a workaround doesn't necessarily preclude a "real" problem solution;
rather, it could serve as a prototype.

------
f_salmon
If first World countries can do 1 evil, it's suppressing/eliminating education
for the oppressed and/or poor. (So they have no chance for future equality and
can continue to be dominated by us.)

~~~
bromagosa
Except that Cuba is not an uneducated country... the other way around
actually, with universal and completely free access to university.

By the way, unlike Coursera, they even offer free college education to other
third-world countries. Something to think about.

------
mukundmr
There is a petition going on to stop these kinds of blocks. You should vote
for the petition if you want a change.

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reverse-policy-
whi...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reverse-policy-which-
prohibits-massive-open-online-courses-moocs-including-students-
sanctioned/dkpm2cyM)

~~~
gms7777
I signed the petition (before I found your comment actually), but I'm
generally cynical about the effectiveness of such things. I'm more than
willing to call/write to my state's senators/congressmen, but I feel as though
since this is an issue of the state department, they're a quite a bit removed
from the issue. So I'll throw the question out to the crowd: Who should I
contact here?

------
atmosx
> How is Coursera identifying students in sanctioned countries?

"Coursera has implemented an IP address block that prevents users in
sanctioned countries from logging into a Coursera account. When attempting to
sign in, these users will see a message explaining that we cannot allow them
to access the site due to U.S. export control restrictions. In rare instances,
students with IP addresses bordering on but not geopolitically within the
bounds of these countries will be affected. Our engineers are working to
mitigate this issue while pursuing a broader solution to the restrictions."

Translation, the USA gov is acting kinda stupid, we can't help it. Use a proxy
and you're fine.

NOTE: A link to TOR would be nice :-)

------
thorn
This is very sad news. Restricting education access for some people looks like
very bad move for whole MOOC community. I wonder what made them to do that?
Would Coursera be sanctioned or even close otherwise?

I wonder what is the process how those restriction are being applied to the
company and what are the consequences if you not follow this (law)?

~~~
azernik
Yes - they would be violating US sanctions on the countries in question, and
would be subject to heavy fines. For an example of a company being penalized
for violating these sanctions, see [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/rbs-iran-
sanctions-fine-ross-mcewan...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/rbs-iran-sanctions-
fine-ross-mcewan-compliance-529411)

------
lispm
Cuba? About time to get rid of the sanctions.

------
camus2
the land of free enterprise, hey ?

------
pjmlp
Such attitudes only increase the hate from the affected countries towards US.

------
impeachgod
Someone should create a Coursera clone that's not hosted in the US.

~~~
onli
No. Coursera should relocate into a country that values freedom, at least in
respect to their mission and business.

------
k-mcgrady
What a stupid thing to do. I'm hoping (but not holding my breath) that the USG
will change the export laws to accommodate businesses like Coursera. I don't
really agree with the US export bans at all but banning an educational service
just seems really dumb. If you want people in a country to agree with your
ideals what better way than to allow them to access educational resources for
free!

------
Grue3
It's like it's the first time some of you hear about these sanctions. Shows
how much you cared about these countries until now.

------
au_dude
Don't live in any of those countries (Australia) but Coursera should take a
very hard look at themselves. I have a few friends from those countries and
they are great scientists/engineers cause they recognize that through
education and improving learning standards the world could truly be their
oyster. Thanks for taking it away.

~~~
easytiger
Would you rather the US government shut them down for violating export bans?

------
blackRust
Why doesn't Coursera do what corporations that export far more dangerous goods
than education do: Have a subsidiary in another country where export
restrictions permit you to work with Cuba, Iran, Syria and Sudan.

To not try to counteract this political manipulation is almost more outrageous
than the political manipulation itself.

------
shashikiran
Thought Experiment:

Imagine a large cohort of reasonable, well intentioned, creative,
knowledgeable and empowered people came together and asked each other this
question:

How can we as Homo sapiens, organize society, design and deploy systems,
create technologies that allow us to live and pursue the lives that we want on
a day to day basis.

More urgently, how can we as well save ourselves from eventual but certain
destruction, in the event that we are too complacent to venture outside planet
earth, remaining fragile to cosmological scale events that other evolved
animals couldn't survive?

\--

Run a 1000 simulations in 2014 January, include whoever you think is smarter
than you or Obama - say Gates, Page, Musk, Zuckerberg, Jobs - Snowden, Theil,
Kurzweil, Hawking, Dawkins or anyone who you think is competent.

Solution: First - Invent the Nation State. Create ~200 Nations of random
sizes, resources, people, but create a bureaucratic institution that nobody
takes seriously called the UN. All nations will be treated equally. Then
create armies, spend billions on mutually assured destruction. Create a fake
crime called 'sedition', create concepts of espionage. Use the nation state to
justify everything, like a modern religion. Inspire democides and
dictatorships. Prevent access and create isolation. Prevent Spotify from
running anywhere, make ibooks store in most countrues have only titles without
book covers from the victorian era 'because they are in public domain'. Have
people blocked or restricted access to BBC because they are not in britain so
they can't appreciate a neuroscience documentary. Create visas and passports
and foreign embassies and diplomatic immunities. Restrict movement on land air
water and radio waves or optic fibres. Have people do paperwork to see Niagra
falls or prove their nationality before they are allowed to apply for a
ONLINEprogram...

Then finally restrict and kill access to knowledge, with NO paywalls.

Can someone please tell me if they think this solution would show up?

Common, we have to recognize that the best invention since the wheel was not a
stupid technology like the nation-state. Even if it was, this is ample proof
that we've lived with it to a point where it's maladaptive. I hope we can see
the writing on the wall and convince ourselves that we need to dissolve and
bury this human invention, like most religions.

Our survival is literally at hand.

~~~
cdoxsey
Good luck re-engineering an entire human society.

Though for an ancient approach checkout Plato's Republic.

------
myzerox
This is the worst possible measure to deal with those sanctioned countries.

As we've seen in the Arab Spring or currently in Ukraine, extremist regimes
have to replaced by bottom-up grassroot movements, by the will of the people.

Having said that, what could be a stronger weapon than access to education?

~~~
MarkTee
You're assuming that the US _wants_ those regimes to be replaced.

~~~
myzerox
Yes, my assumption is that's what the US _people_ want.

------
level09
[http://www.change.org/petitions/united-states-government-
lif...](http://www.change.org/petitions/united-states-government-lift-some-of-
the-sanctions-on-syria-that-are-affecting-the-people)

------
droopybuns
"The Department of State and Coursera are aligned in our goals and we are
working tirelessly to ensure that blockage is not permanent."

Tirelessly: indefatigably: with indefatigable energy; "she watched the show
indefatigably"
[http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=tirelessly](http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=tirelessly)
Two thoughts:

1) Does anyone really think that the word "tirelessly" can honestly be applied
to any work done by the state department?

2) Tirelessly is one of those weasly pr words that I am promising never to use
again. Usually when a business says they are "working tirelessly," it turns
out that the real meaning is "We want you to feel like we're working towards a
solution, but this is pretty much out of our control."

------
znowi
Apart from the usual VPN advice for those affected, I'd like to suggest a EU
based competitor to Coursera - [https://iversity.org/](https://iversity.org/)

------
linuxhansl
Yeah, that's smart. The best tool against poverty and violence is education.
By enforcing export restrictions on this (and other things like software) the
US is doing itself a disfavor.

------
Anevenua
KNOWLEDGE DOESN´T MEAN PRIVACY... what da hack with U.S ?? Politics plays
laws, Knowledge plays proudly.

There´s too many ppl in America from those conuntries, so... they will feel it
too.

------
xamdam
Blocking educational content from countries which we would like to improve
relations with seems like a terribly dumb idea. There are not even sales
involved here - WTF.

------
alexeisadeski3
We mere vassals are happy to obey your wishes, m'lord.

------
strictfp
Why block the whole site? The notice mentions that some activity falls under
export restriction. Why then block every course?

------
mathattack
This seems counterproductive. Access to western educational services should
advance our causes there, not harm them.

------
sazary
as an iranian, i dont give a damn. i already route all of my traffic to my vps
in US, so i can access everything that is blocked to me either by iranian or
american government. but this kind of sanctions, just like financial sanctions
on iran, increases the hatred of americans in iran, and shows their hypocrisy.

------
guard-of-terra
"All students from Syria" Both in loyalist and insurgent areas?

That's a Solomon solution, I have to admit.

------
linux_devil
I don't understand the fault of students here. Are we still living in 90's?

Udacity can be a good alternative.

------
masterkain
dark times

~~~
apostolee
yeah, we're back to medieval ages...that's a shame...

------
macco
This is sad and not very clever. If you want to destroy this regimes: educate
the people. Period.

~~~
VLM
Follow the money. How would you make money if your business revolves around
having an enemy, FUD about the enemy, "protection" from the enemy? You'd need
to find new enemies, or new ways of earning a profit, and who profits off that
kind of pointless paper shuffling?

------
zukunftsalick
Coursera could suggest (and eventually subsidize) non-US VPN services for
those students.

~~~
fpgeek
Coursera advising and/or helping sanctioned individuals sounds like the kind
of thing that would blow up in their faces and make the overall situation
worse, not better.

------
donniezazen
This will not only fail but both antagonize and radicalize youth in those
countries.

------
nichochar
I find this simply shocking.

------
volune
God forbid someone in Sudan gets an education.

------
clamprecht
What if my proxy server is in Cuba?

