Forget the no fly list - welcome to the no game list

[TheNewYorker]

Muslim professor blocked from game because his name was on US blacklist
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/13/muslim-professor-blocked-paragon-game-name-us-blacklist
Epic Games has apologised after mistakenly barring an American professor from playing its online game Paragon because someone who has the same name as him was on a US government blacklist.
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Muhammad Zakir Khan, an assistant professor at Florida’s Broward College, had tried to sign up for the beta of first-person shooter Paragon, a multiplayer game inspired by esports hits such as Dota2. But instead of being given an account for the game, Khan was hit with an unusual error message.

[TheNewYorker]

WHY is the government mandating that game companies have to check people's names against a foreign nationals list?

[LibForestPaul]

You made me look...damnit


individuals and companies are called "Specially Designated Nationals" or "SDNs." Their assets are blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing with them.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury

I am certain SCOTUS will strike this down any day now. Amendment 4,5,6,7

[pcosmar]

WHY is the government mandating that game companies have to check people's names against a foreign nationals list?

What does it have to do with foreign nationals?

US citizens are targeted.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/09/nsa-world-of-warcraft_n_4413914.html

[Zippyjuan]

In a reply, Tim Sweeney, the founder of the company, apologised, and said that the ban was a result of errors on top of errors. Not only should Khan’s name not have matched against the list at all, a simple name match shouldn’t have been enough to spark a block.

What’s more, the filter wasn’t supposed to have even been applied to the simple consumer-level ability to sign up to the beta for Paragon. Instead, Sweeney explained, it was intended to control access to Epic’s game creation tools – built around the Unreal Engine – for large commercial projects. The company had re-used the code without considering how it would work with orders of magnitude more names running through it.

...

[Anti Federalist]

...

Yeah, but his name was, Zip.

The company and government and you, can fall all over other in apologia, after the fact, but his name was.

There's something fundamentally wrong with secret government blackball lists, no matter what the circumstances.

And you're trying to downplay it as nothing more significant than a clerical error.

Shame on you.

[Zippyjuan]

You are right.

[unknown]

Thought that OFAC, FINCEN was supposed to prevent Americans from doing business with these people, whats that have to do with game play?

Regardless, its scary when you consider the Orwellian nature of government watch lists.