<story><title>Encrypted Chat Developer Detained, Interrogated at US Border</title><url>http://www.zeropaid.com/news/101174/claim-encrypted-chat-developer-detained-interrogated-at-us-border/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gavinlynch</author><text>&quot;But when the software could be used closer to home, they target developers like they are one step away from terrorists. The hypocrisy is... challenging&quot;&lt;p&gt;So you see this border interrogation as part of a systematic policy to intimidate developers entering the United States with expertise in cryptographic dev? Gotta be honest, that seems like a wild and illogical extrapolation to me based on this anecdotal story. So the end game of the United States government is what exactly, in this effort? To keep people with cryptographic talent outside of the US?&lt;p&gt;1) Why? I presume your point is that the government is attempting in a very, very, very round-about way to stifle free speech? Please inform me if this is not your point, I don&apos;t want to put words in your mouth.&lt;p&gt;2) What would that accomplish. We live in an era of instant communication and transportation of software. Developers can work on products from anywhere in the globe. If this man was denied entry to the United States, what is stopping him from simply working for his company from abroad? The answer: nothing.&lt;p&gt;It would serve pretty much zero purpose to run a campaign of intimidation against an incredibly small subset of the developer population... Programmers with cryptographic expertise who frequently travel in and outside of the United States... I don&apos;t get it. What about all of those with crypto experience who are already in the US and don&apos;t travel. Aren&apos;t they a threat? Are they being targeted? Where are their stories?&lt;p&gt;Doesn&apos;t the government, when they are looking to either break or make these same crypto software, draw from the same talent pool as private industry here in America? Why would they run that talent out of town?&lt;p&gt;If the US government wanted to suppress cryptographic research or otherwise circumvent it in an effort to subvert Free Speech, don&apos;t you think there are more precise and non-haphazard-and-idiotic ways of doing it?&lt;p&gt;This goes against the general sentiment of comments I&apos;ve seen in this article, but I just have to say it. I think the idea is ridiculous and above all, completely inefficient for the goals everyone is ascribing to the border agents and the government here.&lt;p&gt;Logic doesn&apos;t really back this up. I can&apos;t imagine the point of this. I am not naive enough to think the government doesn&apos;t do some shady stuff, but I simply don&apos;t see the point and don&apos;t see this as an effective tool in whatever their war on developers is supposed to be.</text></item><item><author>mindstab</author><text>I love the inherent schizophrenia in the US political system. They are so in love with anti censorship technologies when employed against countries they don&apos;t like, like in China or Arab Spring, even going so far as to help develop the tech (tor) or ask the maintainers for special considerations (the US gov asked twitter to alter its maintenance schedule for Arab spring). But when the software could be used closer to home, they target developers like they are one step away from terrorists.  The hypocrisy is... challenging</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>javajosh</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;#62;So you see this border interrogation as part of a systematic policy to intimidate developers entering the United States with expertise in cryptographic dev? Gotta be honest, that seems like a wild and illogical extrapolation to me based on this anecdotal story.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is not the only inference you can make. Something that I&apos;ve noticed about domestic law-enforcement, which I think successfully extrapolates and pertains to the DHS and TSA, is that &lt;i&gt;outlying behavior is discouraged&lt;/i&gt;, especially outlying behavior associated with volatile keywords. How many times have I done something unusual, and stopped when the police come by because I just don&apos;t know if it&apos;s legal or not, and I don&apos;t want to get hassled?!&lt;p&gt;The law is so extensive and arcane that enforcement relies almost entirely on precedent and patterns rather than direct application, especially when dealing with rarer violations.&lt;p&gt;The result is systematic harassment with no end-game required. It&apos;s a policy that kind of sneaks up on institutions as big as the US Govt: discourage interesting, dissenting behavior; encourage boring, mainstream behavior. It doesn&apos;t require passing a law - it&apos;s an emergent behavior that only requires extra scrutiny of behavior that is outside the experience of the enforcer. This will tend to get worse with scale and the application of technology because a) more people are scrutinized and b) more of their life will be scrutinized, increasing the risk of finding outlying behavioral points.</text></comment>
<story><title>Encrypted Chat Developer Detained, Interrogated at US Border</title><url>http://www.zeropaid.com/news/101174/claim-encrypted-chat-developer-detained-interrogated-at-us-border/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gavinlynch</author><text>&quot;But when the software could be used closer to home, they target developers like they are one step away from terrorists. The hypocrisy is... challenging&quot;&lt;p&gt;So you see this border interrogation as part of a systematic policy to intimidate developers entering the United States with expertise in cryptographic dev? Gotta be honest, that seems like a wild and illogical extrapolation to me based on this anecdotal story. So the end game of the United States government is what exactly, in this effort? To keep people with cryptographic talent outside of the US?&lt;p&gt;1) Why? I presume your point is that the government is attempting in a very, very, very round-about way to stifle free speech? Please inform me if this is not your point, I don&apos;t want to put words in your mouth.&lt;p&gt;2) What would that accomplish. We live in an era of instant communication and transportation of software. Developers can work on products from anywhere in the globe. If this man was denied entry to the United States, what is stopping him from simply working for his company from abroad? The answer: nothing.&lt;p&gt;It would serve pretty much zero purpose to run a campaign of intimidation against an incredibly small subset of the developer population... Programmers with cryptographic expertise who frequently travel in and outside of the United States... I don&apos;t get it. What about all of those with crypto experience who are already in the US and don&apos;t travel. Aren&apos;t they a threat? Are they being targeted? Where are their stories?&lt;p&gt;Doesn&apos;t the government, when they are looking to either break or make these same crypto software, draw from the same talent pool as private industry here in America? Why would they run that talent out of town?&lt;p&gt;If the US government wanted to suppress cryptographic research or otherwise circumvent it in an effort to subvert Free Speech, don&apos;t you think there are more precise and non-haphazard-and-idiotic ways of doing it?&lt;p&gt;This goes against the general sentiment of comments I&apos;ve seen in this article, but I just have to say it. I think the idea is ridiculous and above all, completely inefficient for the goals everyone is ascribing to the border agents and the government here.&lt;p&gt;Logic doesn&apos;t really back this up. I can&apos;t imagine the point of this. I am not naive enough to think the government doesn&apos;t do some shady stuff, but I simply don&apos;t see the point and don&apos;t see this as an effective tool in whatever their war on developers is supposed to be.</text></item><item><author>mindstab</author><text>I love the inherent schizophrenia in the US political system. They are so in love with anti censorship technologies when employed against countries they don&apos;t like, like in China or Arab Spring, even going so far as to help develop the tech (tor) or ask the maintainers for special considerations (the US gov asked twitter to alter its maintenance schedule for Arab spring). But when the software could be used closer to home, they target developers like they are one step away from terrorists.  The hypocrisy is... challenging</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>halvsjur</author><text>From the Wikipedia page on Jacob Appelbaum:&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62;  He has worked for Greenpeace and has volunteered for the Ruckus Society and the Rainforest Action Network&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; Appelbaum is known for representing Wikileaks at the 2010 Hope conference.&lt;p&gt;The US government has a long and well documented history of systematically harassing political dissidents.&lt;p&gt;Edit: my bad, skimmed the article and thought it was Appelbaum who was detained.</text></comment>