GitHub has begun to restrict users from regions that fall under U.S. sanctions.

GitHub announced a new version of the rules defining the policy regarding compliance with U.S. export regulations. The rules regulate restrictions on private repositories and corporate accounts of companies operating in areas under sanctions (Crimea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Sudan, North Korea), but they have not yet been applied to individual developers of non-commercial projects.

The new version of the rules contains a clarification indicating the possibility of restricting the operation of public services for individual users located in sanctioned territories. For these users, the platform is prescribed for personal communications only. In addition to changing the rules, GitHub has also begun to practically restrict access to its services for non-commercial users from sanctioned countries.

For example,
is under restriction fell into the account of Anatoly Kashkin, a resident of Crimea and the author of the project GameHub, whose site tkashkin.tk, hosted through GitHub Pages, was blocked, and a ban on creating free private repositories was imposed, while the existing private repositories were disabled. The ability to create public repositories was retained. To lift the restrictions, it was suggested to provide proof that the user does not reside in Crimea, but Kashkin is a Russian citizen living and registered in Crimea, so sending an appeal is impossible.

Similar restrictions have also been applied to many individual Iranian developers, who also had their free private repositories blocked and their GitHub Pages shut down. Services were blocked without prior notice and without providing the opportunity to back up (including support refuses to provide current data from the blocked services). Meanwhile, access to public repositories remains unchanged for everyone.

Source: opennet.ru