[liberationtech] Blue Coat and Syria

[Jillian York]

Callie,

I assume you're asking re: Syria, in which case this should outline most of
the export law:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/09/stop-the-piecemeal-export-approach

In respect to non-sanctioned countries, there are very few restrictions,
period.  In respect to pre-revolutionary Tunisia, for example, it appears
there were zero restrictions, leaving companies free to use Tunisia as a
testing ground for their products (see:
http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2011/10/20/tunisia-internet-elections/
)

Best,
Jillian

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 6:40 PM, Callie Wallace <wallace.callie at gmail.com>wrote:

> Perhaps not particularly relevant in light of all evidence stacked against
> BlueCoat, but where does the law draw the line on this? As Aaron points out,
> it would be relatively easy for Syrian govt to procure software indirectly
> and for BlueCoat to claim ignorance & innocence. Do companies have a legal
> responsibility beyond initial sale or does liability end there?
>
> C
>
> On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 7:46 PM, Aaron Huslage <huslage at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Jake for the comment. This is informative :)
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 10:43 PM, Jacob Appelbaum <jacob at appelbaum.net>wrote:
>>
>>> On 10/15/2011 05:47 PM, Aaron Huslage wrote:
>>> > Has anyone considered the possibility that these boxes were procured on
>>> the
>>> > (rather substantial) grey market that exists for network hardware? It
>>> also
>>> > seems to me that it would be trivially easy for any entity to buy a
>>> bunch of
>>> > network gear and have it shipped to a non-embargoed country where it is
>>> then
>>> > taken legally into Syria.
>>> >
>>>
>>> The devices in question are not very old, I think they were probably
>>> brand new.
>>>
>>> > You could even have service contracts on the stuff. No one would be the
>>> > wiser. It's not like companies check up on the location of every box
>>> they
>>> > sell.
>>> >
>>>
>>> They phone home and Bluecoat knows the geoip location as part of their
>>> analytics service. Additionally the IP addresses of these servers are on
>>> known Syrian IP addresses.
>>>
>>> > It doesn't take much imagination to see that BlueCoat isn't selling
>>> anything
>>> > to Syria directly...in the least, plausible deniability is intact.
>>> >
>>>
>>> Your thoughts are speculation and while reasonable, I see no evidence to
>>> support it.
>>>
>>> The evidence shows that there are Bluecoat devices in Syria. These
>>> devices are running on Syrian IP addresses, phoning home to BlueCoat's
>>> services and servers from Syria in a very detectable manner. All the
>>> while Bluecoat denies it all and looks absolutely foolish.
>>>
>>> In addition, these devices have had upgrades in the last year. Bluecoat
>>> has a direct hand in these matters and those in Syria aren't even
>>> bothering to cover their tracks.
>>>
>>> All the best,
>>> Jake
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Aaron Huslage
>> http://blog.hact.net
>> IM: AIM - ahuslage; GTalk - huslage at gmail.com; Skype - huslage
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Callie Wallace
> @calliewallace
>
>
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-- 
jilliancyork.com | @jilliancyork | tel: +1-857-891-4244
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