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GetAlby
I'm pretty certain of this now and but it appears that the Alby Lightning software which has "Bitcoin without boundaries" as it's tag line is geo-blocking Israel because some of their people hate Israel.
If you try to log in from Israel (but not from anywhere else I've tried via VPNs) you get the following friendly screen:
Behind the scenes they're returning a 451 Unavailable for Legal Reasons error
Tuesday Morning update
I drafted most of this post on Friday 22nd waiting for answers. I sent my first support request having noticed this on Tuesday 19th.
The situation as of Tuesday 26th November is that, following direct communications with GetAlby after I posted publicly on the Podcasting 2.0 Mastadon site and they found my direct support email questions from a few days ago, the geo block seemed to have been lifted.
However I'm checking again now and the message is back trying to re-authenticate.
{ "message": "Service unavailable in your region. Refer to GitHub to setup your own system. If you lost access or if you have questions/concerns contact support@getalby.com", "error": true, "code": 451 }
After specifically saying I would be publishing this publicly I asked them the following questions, but these have not be answered at time of publishing this.
Is Alby officially geo blocking Israel deliberately?
If so when did you officially start this policy?
What is the reason for the block?
Do you block any other countries or regions and for what reasons are they blocked?
Have you made any public announcement or given reasons publicly?
Alby accounts to Alby Hub
When Alby first started they gave users a non-custodial wallet (i.e. they held sats on your behalf). But they have phased this system out in favour of one where you have to run your own node and link it to their back end or you can pay them some large amount and they will give you a virtual node of your own.
In order to keep using Alby with the various podcasting 2.0 apps I did this transfer and used my own secondary Lightning node (I have a primary one for @v4vapp and a secondary I use for testing).
But, and this is a huge problem because of the very poor architecture of Lightning as I've discussed for years, for a lot of this to function you need to rely on Alby's infrastructure. For example, in order for me to have a Lightning Address brianoflondon@getalby.com I need their servers to answer with my Lightning Node's address.
So in order for this to work, even though I'm running their software on my own Lightning node, part of the authentication process for managing this bounces through their servers.
What Legal Reasons?
As far as I know there are no regulatory legal issues where I live with using my own Lighting node. If I VPN into the USA (one of the most problematic jurisdictions for Lightning and the main reason Alby stopped offering their non-custodial wallet) I can log in to the account.
But in Israel it really appears to be geoblocked.
Even using a VPN it's actually not working right now for logging in via my Lightning node, possibly because while I can divert my browser traffic through a VPN, I'm not sure how to put the entire Lightning node behind a VPN without breaking things.
Hate Israel, censor Israel
Unfortunately, right now, it does appear the reason for this is probably hatred of Israel. I can see from the social media posts of at least one of the primary developers for the project that there isn't a lie about Israel and Jews which he hasn't swallowed in whole, hook, line and sinker. It's a pity that otherwise news and media skeptical BTC type people will believe anything if it confirms a deeply held prejudice like hatred or deep jealousy of Jews.
Lightning is crippled
And this is why Lightning is a crippled system which is the antithesis of open Bitcoin. So much of it relies on centralised systems (like the entire Lightning Address system) that it will be captured. This is also necessary if I want to give a Podcasting 2.0 listening app permission to send sats on my behalf to a podcaster via an API call in the background.
The only reason they could consider using Lighting in El Salvador is that by centralising most of the population on the El Chivo wallet software, that app becomes a defacto Central Bank Digital Currency. The fact that it is denominated in Bitcoin sats is just an annoyance and a principle reason that the vast majority of El Salvadorians have ignored it.
But if the people capturing control take arbitrary decisions to block an entire country like Israel how is this acceptable in the Bitcoin world? What happened to "censorship resistance" and liberty? Alby doesn't seem to believe in either of these ideals.
Value for Value
For the last few months while building @v4vapp I was generously supported by the DHF. Going forward I have a much more modest support which covers direct server costs and a little of my time.
If you appreciate the work I do on and around Hive, you can express this directly: upvoting posts on Hive is great. Also consider a direct donation (there's a Tip button on Hive or a Lightning Address) on all my posts.
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