[Solved] Syria Damascus

[ayman111]

Dear Hillo Net Team,

Following the recent removal of U.S. sanctions on Syria, we kindly ask you to lift access restrictions on Syrian users. We believe this would restore fair access and align with current international updates.

Thank you for your understanding.

Best regards, 

[wolstech]

Looks like June 5. https://www.omm.com/insights/alerts-publications/economic-sanctions-relief-for-syria-provides-opportunities-and-risks-for-us-companies/

it does say that the lifting of sanctions is subject to change or be revoked, but that trade with Syria is currently authorized except for trade with people/companies on a specific list attached to the general license. Keep in mind that even if we do allow Syrian users, we would be required to ban them again in the event that the sanctions are reimposed. I'm also not sure whether our service would be prohibited due to export controls or not, which they said do still apply.

Escalating to Krydos to see what he says.

[Krydos]

1 hour ago, wolstech said:

I'm also not sure whether our service would be prohibited due to export controls or not, which they said do still apply.

The export laws do apply to software. I know with cPanel, since that company is headquartered in the US, therefore US export laws applied to us providing access to their software that we were running. Even though the software never leaves our US based servers, allowing people from countries that the government of the country of origin of the software decides if it can be "exported" even if there is no money changing hands, such as free hosting.

Plesk is headquartered in Canada so I would assume it is Canadian export laws that would decide whether Syrians can use Plesk or not. Canada has also eased sanctions on Syria starting in March of this year, so I think Canada would be ok with us "exporting" their software to Syria. Plus there is precedent of other Syrian websites and webhosting companies are already using Plesk.

The Canadian general permit is valid until August 25th of this year, and it may or not be renewed at that time. Likewise, the US agreement tentatively ends on December 2nd, but could be revoked at any time.

1 hour ago, wolstech said:

Keep in mind that even if we do allow Syrian users, we would be required to ban them again in the event that the sanctions are reimposed.

Yep, definitely.

6 hours ago, ayman111 said:

Following the recent removal of U.S. sanctions on Syria, we kindly ask you to lift access restrictions on Syrian users. We believe this would restore fair access and align with current international updates.

Sure, but if either Canada, the origin of some of our software, or the US, the origin of our hardware, changes the rules again we will need to suspend all Syrian accounts immediately. You should be able to create an account now.