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Iranian Players Blocked From World of Warcraft Due To Trade Sanctions
cold fjord writes "Is this the end of the world . . . of Warcraft? Maybe for Iranian gamers who are undergoing a forced morale check due to tightening sanctions cutting access to their game of choice. From the article: 'Iranian players of "World of Warcraft" ... have found themselves frozen out by Blizzard Activision Inc., the American company behind the game. Iranian role playing enthusiasts have spent much of the past week peppering Blizzard's message board with complaints about how they weren't able to log on to the service — only to be told recently that U.S. law was to blame. "United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran," the company said in an email sent to players last week...'"
Thanks to the sanctions, they can't get refunds either.
I remember growing up during the Cold War, and being taught all the pro-U.S. propaganda: The Russian space program sucks. You don't need papers to travel in the U.S. unlike the USSR. U.S,. citizens were free to travel anywhere, unlike those poor Soviets. Only Poland cracked down on labor unions and dissedents. And so on.
It was only after I grew up and learned to see through the bullshit that I realized that was all lies. We had been lied to just as much as the Soviets. The Russian space program is filled with firsts that American students never learned about (we only got the NASA stuff and a brief mention of Sputnik). You DAMN SURE DO need papers to travel in the U.S. (try getting pull over by a cop sometime and tell him you have no identification, driver's license, proof of insurance, and registration and just see what happens, or try coming here sometime to see if the cops accept "We don't need no papers, this is America!" in lieu of your passport/green card/visa). Polish labor unions weren't the only ones that got cracked down on in the 80's. And American are ABSOLUTELY NOT allowed to travel anywhere they wish (try joining your European friend on his vacation in Cuba sometime if you think so).
And if you're American you are also prohibited from doing business with any country the American government doesn't like (which are usually the ones who dared overthrow one of the U.S.'s corrupt puppet regimes).
Land of the free...not so much.
So they move to private servers.
Because obviously there's nothing more likely to inspire outrage and violence than nerds denied their gaming habits.
This will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and returns Democracy and Freedom to Iran, decades after the CIA took it away.
I think that last part is just Blizzard actually, lol. I would think that receiving $50 or whatever from services provided to an Iranian then getting told that's not allowed would mean you have to undo the trade by giving that $50 back.
Given the hardline stance in Iran, I would think all western games would be banned for being un islamic in the first place.
Life is not for the lazy.
I'm always shocked at just how much American culture has spread world wide. And the thing is - it often works in our favor. Iranian kids playing WoW can't in any way benefit Iran that I can think of, but has multiple benefits for the U.S. Someone from the gov should be on the horn right now getting those accounts reactiviated.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The US has just pissed off a few hundred more Iranians. Ahmadinejad couldn't be more happy.
I have a feeling that bored Iranian computer savvy individuals, newly irritated with United States foreign policy, could backfire.
The Bureau of Industry and Security, US Department of Commerce, is the place to go to see the appropriate regulations. See, especially, the Export Administration Regulations, the Commerce Control List (especially), and the Lists to Check list. (Yes, there are so many lists that the lists themselves have a list.)
But how would we sneak in SCADA viruses to break their centrifuges, if not through games downloaded from Steam?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
There have been no recent changes that would require them to no longer provide WOW in Iran.
Its a widely held, but completely wrong, belief that US companies can't do business with/in Iran. Totally false. We mostly export "bad stuff" to them like tobacco products, corn, soy... the kind of stuff we use to sicken and poison our own walmart-ian underclass. So thats kind of weird. We also export stereotypical medical stuff to Iran. No one wants TV stories about how the state dept slowly killed a cute little Iranian kid by denying export of some obscure medical pill. Well, maybe it would play at the republican convention but in general it would be bad PR.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-United_States_relations#Economic_relations
It is, however, expensive with endless forms and licenses to fill out. All you need is a PHB to decide, "The paperwork isn't worth the profit" and its done. If there were a million profitable subscribers I'm sure they'd still be playing WOW right now, but if the legal compliance costs exceed gross revenue from just a couple gamers (which sounds extremely likely) then ....
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Why is this an issue? Guess what, the online yarn store also can't sell to them, or puzzles R us, or any other businesses. This is why it's called sanctions. You aren't supposed to be doing business with them in an attempt to influence policy change.
On the other hand, NASA failed to realise that building the contents of a capsule that was going to be filled with high-pressure oxygen from materials that spontaneously combusted when in a high-pressure environment of pure oxygen might be a bad idea until it killed an entire crew of astronauts in early testing.
Iran is committed to the extinction of the Jews.
Not they're not. That's a bunch of horseshit propaganda that the U.S. and Israel have created to justify their shadow war against Iran, one that's been going on since their puppet totalitarian Shah got tossed out by the modern DEMOCRATIC government of Iran.
>>>Iran is committed to the extinction of the Jews. This is a publicly stated policy
No there isn't. The comment you are referring to has been accurately translated as, "Someday the government in Jerusalem will fall and be wiped from the pages of history." It isn't the Jews that government hates, but the government. In fact there are many Jews living in Iran even as we speak, and they are not being round-up and exterminated. So stop spreading anti-Arab/Iranian hate speech and racism.
As for the nuclear weapon Secretary of Defense Panetta has alread said, "No I don't think Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. The fuel they have is not anywhere pure enough for weapon use, and it is within compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty."
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I thought it said that Iranian prayers were blocked.
I would require Blizzard set aside the funds so that if/when the sanctions get lifted they can either process the refunds or reinstate the accounts. Otherwise how much money has Blizzard "gained" by doing this??
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Ahmadinejad has made too many anti-Semitic remarks to mention here so here is a handy list by year: http://www.adl.org/main_International_Affairs/ahmadinejad_words.htm
So no it is not just one "mistranslated" statement. And no, mentioning it has nothing to do with "spreading anti-Arab/Iranian hate speech and racism". Where the hell did you get that from?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
"Unless all the other Islam countries are going to do nothing which is very unlikely"
The arab countries' governments would be quite ecstatic to see Iran taken down. 'Persia' and Arabia have had this power competition for centuries. Notice how the arab countries are trying to change the name of the Persian Gulf to just the Gulf in order to piss Iran off. There might be other countries to jump on Iran's side, but not their closest neighbors.
Which starts with the well known sophistry of "wipe Israel off the map", a debunked lie. Between that and their support of the 'Ground Zero Mosque' ban, the ADL has zero credibility.
Iran had a secular democracy in 1953. The CIA helped overthrow it and installed a dictatorship. Then the US puppet's security arm, Savak, worked with the CIA to kill off, imprison and exile the left. By the late 1970s, the only independent bodies in Iran were the mullahs, and the informal relationships bazaar merchants formed. Thus when the economy collapsed, and repression intensified, the mullahs and bazaar merchants were at the forefront of the revolution, they were the only independent bodies the CIA had not wrecked.
Then Americans have the gall to stick up their nose and whine about theocracies. Of course, Iran is a secular paradise compared to somewhere like US puppet regime Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, women are not even allowed to drive cars. So why do we hear this theocracy stuff for Iran but not Saudi Arabia? Would it have something to do with the government (which has popular support, and some democratic forms - much, much more than Saudi Arabia) not asking "how high" whenever the powers that be in the US say "jump"? The gall and hypocrisy and rose-colored glasses of imperial-happy Americans seems unlimited, only planes flying into their war-planning pentagon buildings seem to wake them up from their stupor for a short bit.
Not due to superior American-ism, but due to: 1) learning from Russian mistakes (they went first almost every time), 2) better luck.
NASA killed plenty of people, in space and on the ground. Space exploration is dangerous-- in the 50s and 60s space exploration was insanely dangerous-- for every country attempting it. That's just a fact.
You also have to remember that during pretty much the shuttle era, Russian space travel was on average far more safe than US space travel.
I will say that the Russians seemed to lose a lot more automated probes due to stupid mistakes (giving bad instructions, bad change control, etc.) But those were just robots. And the US has lost probes due to stupid mistakes, too.
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