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Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

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Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#11

Post by willvarfar »

Its easy to speculate that if the feds wanted to speak to him on something computer-related he'd be let travel to the US and interviewed on arrive.

The "Do Not Fly" list is usually for suspected terrorists.

Perhaps it was just a name-match? The wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List says:

> Many individuals were "caught in the system" as a result of sharing the exact or similar name of another person on the list

However, there are at least 82 "Daniel Stenberg"s in Sweden (and I'm surprised its not considerably higher that that!) https://personer.eniro.se/resultat/Daniel%20Stenberg

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#13

Post by MatthewWilkes »

TekMol wrote: post #4

My feeling is that I read stories like these pretty often. That somebody was denied entry or arrested or humiliated while entering the USA. Is this because it happens more often in the USA then in other countries? Or is there some kind of reporting bias at play?

It's not just the US, this one last year was big news: https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4

I suspect there are a few confounding factors. Firstly, lots of non-residents travel to tech conferences in the US. This gives them a wider pool of people to reject. My personal experience is that US-Americans are underrepresented at conferences in other places. They're by no means absent, but it feels off to me.

I do think that even controlling for that it happens more in the US than other countries, though. Of my colleagues who travel a lot I don't know anyone who's had trouble at a border other than the US.

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#14

Post by sacheendra »

TekMol wrote: post #4

My feeling is that I read stories like these pretty often. That somebody was denied entry or arrested or humiliated while entering the USA. Is this because it happens more often in the USA then in other countries? Or is there some kind of reporting bias at play?

I guess its both.

Newsworthy people visit the USA more often than other countries due the concentration of a lot of companies and conferences. So, I believe denial of entry happens more often than in other countries.

But, there is also the running trend of focusing on bad/silly things happening in the USA.

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#16

Post by willvarfar »

kraftman wrote: post #7

My guess would be that the US found some dodgy software that happened to make use of cURL, add flagged him as part of it, given what he's previously said about receiving emails from people that have found his details in other software: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/11/14/i-have-toyota-corola/

Except if that were so they'd just routinely stop him on arrival instead. We've had countless stories of programmers being interviewed crossing borders and offered deals. There was one on HN just last week about a programmer tweeting about being approached, but I can't find that story.. but its their MO.

Do-Not-Fly is for people they fear might blow up the plane before it arrives in the US.

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#17

Post by benmarks »

Denied before boarding? I'd first level blame at the airline / CBP connection, rather than a DNF entry or change to ESTA status. Curious to hear what happens.

Ironic, as someone pointed out on Twitter, that likely cURL is probably used somewhere in the chain of communication!

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#18

Post by curiousgal »

willvarfar wrote: post #16
kraftman wrote: post #7

My guess would be that the US found some dodgy software that happened to make use of cURL, add flagged him as part of it, given what he's previously said about receiving emails from people that have found his details in other software: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/11/14/i-have-toyota-corola/

Except if that were so they'd just routinely stop him on arrival instead. We've had countless stories of programmers being interviewed crossing borders and offered deals. There was one on HN just last week about a programmer tweeting about being approached, but I can't find that story.. but its their MO. Do-Not-Fly is for people they fear might blow up the plane before it arrives in the US.

Wouldn't he not be given a visa in the first place if he was such a suspect?

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#19

Post by raverbashing »

TekMol wrote: post #4

My feeling is that I read stories like these pretty often. That somebody was denied entry or arrested or humiliated while entering the USA. Is this because it happens more often in the USA then in other countries? Or is there some kind of reporting bias at play?

It's a bias (not sure how it's called, maybe a type of "survivor bias")

You don't hear about the thousands admitted without an issue in the US every day. But of course those that aren't admitted show up here

May I also note some (tech people) display an increased level of naiveté in dealing with border people.

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#20

Post by zegl »

willvarfar wrote: post #16
kraftman wrote: post #7

My guess would be that the US found some dodgy software that happened to make use of cURL, add flagged him as part of it, given what he's previously said about receiving emails from people that have found his details in other software: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/11/14/i-have-toyota-corola/

Except if that were so they'd just routinely stop him on arrival instead. We've had countless stories of programmers being interviewed crossing borders and offered deals. There was one on HN just last week about a programmer tweeting about being approached, but I can't find that story.. but its their MO. Do-Not-Fly is for people they fear might blow up the plane before it arrives in the US.

I think that the US and the Swedish airlines are co-operating so that the airline doesn't have to pay for the flight back to Sweden, in case of being denied entry.

Many controls are done before leaving Sweden.

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