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“I was just asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by JFK's airport immigration”
- fahimulhaq 10y agoI want to joke that CBP might be looking for referral bonuses by referring great candidates to tech companies. However, if it's really true, it is depressing. He was actually given an A4 sheet to balance a BST. Wow. What if he failed the test? I assume that CBP cannot deny you entry because you didn't brush up on your algorithms and data-structures during your flight. But, they can still keep you detained for secondary screening.
- tacostakohashi 10y agoI'd speculate that they're really just looking for any indication of understanding the question, rather than a complete and correct answer. To the extent that's true, it's not entirely unreasonable.
- alphonsegaston 10y agoHey instead of speculating, I dunno, why just not listen to what happened from the person it happened to? He says in the same thread that he was asked 10 questions and only the "wikipedia answers" were acceptable. Americans elected a racist who has empowered racists to act as they see fit. This is the world now.
- oh_sigh 10y agoYou certainly lend a lot of credulity to something which is essentially a series of tweets right now. I'm not sure how this story could be confirmed, but it seems like you've already made up your mind as to the what, how and why of what happened.
- colemickens 10y agoDo you actually have some other interpretation or take on this event? Or are you just desperately looking for any reason to not admit how incredibly fucked up this is?
- alphonsegaston 10y agoYeah, I mean it's not like they did the same thing two weeks ago: http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/travellers-stories/aussies-weird-immigration-interview-in-the-us/news-story/8222c65d2f12e6691ef27c9b1753e821 http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/travellers-stori... Or harassed and intimidated a 70-year old children's book author: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/25/australian-childrens-author-mem-fox-detained-by-us-border-control-i-sobbed-like-a-baby https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/25/australian-c... Or almost deported a visiting Holocaust scholar: http://m.jpost.com/Diaspora/US-almost-deports-visiting-Holocaust-scholar-482609#article=6017ODBEQzY5MUVERUNDMjc2NDYxMUMwN0Q5RUQzODNBNjY= http://m.jpost.com/Diaspora/US-almost-deports-visiting-Holoc... Or maybe, just maybe, I come from a family of immigrants who has seen people around him treated this way even before we elected a racist reality tv star as POTUS.
- pfarnsworth 10y agoStuff like this happens all the time, the press never picked up on it until Trump came into power. I posted a story of a close friend who got denied entry at the border and banned for 10 years. I've heard other stories where friends of friends )I met them and talked with them) were accused of being strippers or hookers flying to Vegas and being banned for 10 years as well. All during Obama's time, so it's not new. Border guards are facists. And all 3 of those stories you provide are non-Muslims, and 2 of them are white Australians, so it's not directly a "racist" event.
- nikdaheratik 10y agoThere was also Mohammed Ali, Jr. this past weekend who was a US Citizen but still got detained. A schoolteacher from England who was refused entry, a Canadian Student-Athlete was was refused entry two weeks ago, all three of these are Muslims. Also, at least two US Citizens who were denied global travel cards even though they were businessmen who travel frequently, both Muslims. And it doesn't have to be a "racist" event. The administration literally said they wanted to "ban Muslims", this could be exactly the policy they wanted when they passed the Executive Order. And the only way to tell is to get Congress to do more digging.
- nilkn 10y agoDo you have any evidence that this just started ~30 days ago after Trump's inauguration? It's entirely possible -- likely even -- that this has been going on for quite some time and the media is just more interested in reporting on it right now because they know it'll play into the Trump narrative. That doesn't justify the actions in any way, but it shows you how powerful the media are at forming narratives -- and how easy it is to fall for the trap.
- alphonsegaston 10y agoThere's no trap to fall into, I can literally pull up YouTube clips of Trump scapegoating immigrants at a moment's notice. Awful shit that happened under Obama (of which there is no shortage) is on Obama. Now? Trump owns it.
- nikdaheratik 10y agoI don't know, and neither does anyone else because the people who are able to look into this are either running the show (the administration) or don't want to investigate (the Republicans in Congress). The best that the media can do is collect anecdotes and submit FOIA requests to see what they can find out.
- tomlock 10y agoI think Trump may have kickstarted that narrative, because of that whole thing about Mexican immigrants (and some of them I'm sure are nice people), and how he banned the citizens of 7 countries from returning or entering the US. I think its fair to say this kind of treatment of people is nothing new - but to say the media is "forcing" a narrative here is hard to swallow. Trump has made it, at the very least, incredibly easy to create a narrative of racism for his detractors and the richard spencers of his supporters.
- briandear 10y agoLet's back up a second: "Mexican Immigrants != Illegal Immigrants" One is a subset of the other and Trump's rhetoric was directed at illegal aliens and not "Immigrants." Allowing an innacurate narrative to propagate is part of the problem.
- umanwizard 10y agoThe guy appears to have successfully entered the US (his tweet was sent from Manhattan), so apparently he passed their test. He also explicitly stated that he refused to answer the BST question and they moved on to other questions. Meaning it's not even speculation to claim that they weren't requiring an accurate answer to the BST question for entry: it's demonstrably true fact.
- raggi 10y agoAsk Maher Arar what CBP is allowed to do, or better just read up on the case. Don't assume the laws in this area have any relation to what you would hope they are. They're not.
- nevi-me 10y agoThis is what happens when you have a populist president, people start disregarding the law and listen to the President even if he/she is wrong. Imagine this happening at the time when companies are starting to accept that you can't interview candidates solely by asking them to solve algorithms on a whiteboard, then some inexperienced staff go to Wikipedia and expect people to be able to recite it. The question's what happened as he said he was too exhausted, does he get flagged for secondary screening? The travel ban is suspended AFAIK. We are witnessing self-division at sad levels. We had a flare up of xenophobic attacks in South Africa last week. In an earlier incarnation of such attacks in 2008, mostly Zulu people would ask you what certain things are in Zulu, and if they perceived that you don't know what they are, they would accuse you of being a foreigner, and anything could happen to you. An example that became popular was "what is an elbow or knee in Zulu?". I'm not making this up, and this happened in a country with 11 official languages. The point I'm getting at is that this lawlessness started because a populist president and other leaders started shooting from the hip, making inflammatory statement and playing political football with our lives. Trump is worse IMHO as he signs an Executive Order and things go crazy until the courts can act. You should worry when your first citizen is not well-acquainted with your Constitution like our dear Jacob Zuma and your Donald Trump are. The country ends up being run through the courts, and the courts don't act expediently.
- umanwizard 10y agoIs there any evidence that this guy was specifically singled out for being non-white, or that this has anything to do with Trump at all? Border guards are allowed to ask you questions to see how you react and to corroborate your story. If someone (from any country) entered claiming to be a physicist, would it be reasonable to ask him to try to solve some integrals?
- bobwaycott 10y agoHow would a border agent even prove they possess the necessary skills and knowledge to even verify the veracity of an answer? As a tech consultant who spends inordinate amounts of time explaining to clients various kinds of plausible-sounding bullshit from others, I seriously doubt border agents can fare better.
- xtreme 10y agoIf you are not a citizen, the CBP can deny you entry for pretty much any reason. If you are a citizen, they can detain you but not deny you entry indefinitely.
- umanwizard 10y ago> I assume that CBP cannot deny you entry because you didn't brush up on your algorithms and data-structures during your flight. Sure they can, if you're not a citizen or permanent resident.
- wruza 10y agoI read half the thread and still didn't see a point, so I'm doing that. They do not try to see you fail at balancing bst. They see your reactions on irrational things. They know it is irrational and ridiculous. Anyone who talked to police/immigration/security officer knows that they are always the same — because if discussion is easy and rational, you can't tell if someone lies. All those "look for body signs" methods are bullshit.
- tete 10y agoI'd get suspicious and ask why he'd not stay in IT and whether he isn't actually trying to infiltrate the TSA.
- ankurdhama 10y agoPotential answer: "Call the balance method on the BST object"
- John23832 10y agoWhile cheeky, that answer gets you at least 3 hours in the cage.
- bradgalina4eva 10y agoCheck SO...
- gk1 10y agoSomething similar happened to me around 5 years ago. I'm a white 20-something male and was returning from Colombia on my own, with no bags except a small backpack. I guess that seemed suspicious enough that I was asked specific, quiz-like questions about my profession, and then sent to secondary screening. In other words, this does not seem to me like anything new.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- oh_sigh 10y agoAnyone want to take odds on this story being fabricated?
- umanwizard 10y agoIt sounds plausible. Guy claims to be working as a programmer, border guard googles "basic programmer interview questions" or similar and asks them to see how the guy reacts. If he is totally lost, the probability that he's lying about his profession increases.
- oh_sigh 10y agoSomething being plausible doesn't have any bearing on whether something is true or not. The pawn shop in my town getting robbed last night sounds plausible. But it didn't get robbed. And we don't even have a pawn shop in my town. Also, about 50% of the comments in this thread are some how relating this persons supposed treatment by border patrol to Trump. It kind of feels like people will just take any dubious, unsourced(and perhaps unsourecable) claims when they can even tangentially link them to the big bad man they hate, but can't stop thinking about.
- flukus 10y agoIt's quickly turning into the new "Thanks Obama!".
- SmellyGeekBoy 10y agoAre you suggesting that the people opposed to Trump should just stop thinking about him?
- bigiain 10y agoExperienced devs and dev managers (me included) fuck up consistently in recruiting - employing people who "interview well" but drag the team down, or overlooking or excluding great potential team members 'cause they don't perform well "programming a whiteboard" - and now we expect some minimum wage rent-a-bully to accurately assess a "programmer's" skills based on reading wikipedia entries? I'm _reasonably_ certain my best front end dev probably doesn't even know what a binary search tree is. Same with half of my mobile devs, they probably vaguely recall them from college, but have never used them in 5 or 6 year mobile app dev careers. Should _they_ be denied entry at a border because they can't regurgitate some wikipedia page completely unrelated and mostly irrelevant to their specialisations?
- belltaco 10y agoI wonder if P = NP would end up being proven by someone who didn't want to be sent back after 23 hours of traveling.
- tajen 10y agoI hope not, or the TSA will show off how The Question is useful for the nation's science.
- thr0waway1239 10y agoNo no no! Why did you have to do that? Don't you know they scan HN for easy to memorize one-liner questions to add to their question bank? Now those who enter the US are really doomed! :-)
- dwringer 10y agoI can see it now. In 100 years we will learn about how a TSA clerk who had failed mathematics back in grade school went on to prove P = NP and become synonymous with "genius" for generations.
- samirm 10y agoI think he meant by a traveler who is stopped by a TSA agent.
- advisedwang 10y agoSure, but they gave the TSA Agent a copy of their proof...
- coleifer 10y agoWaaaa, our liberty... I come to HN to get a break from crap like this.
- lazyasciiart 10y agoSo exercise some liberty and don't click on them. It's not like the title was unclear.
- beedogs 10y agoThen maybe you should leave.
- noobermin 10y agoSounds like grounds for a suit of some kind.
- umanwizard 10y agoWhy?
- dpark 10y agoBecause in the US, frivolous lawsuits are as expected as frightening border control overreaches.
- peterkelly 10y agoThis happened to an Australian guy recently. Was asked to code up some stuff in Python. http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/travellers-stories/aussies-weird-immigration-interview-in-the-us/news-story/8222c65d2f12e6691ef27c9b1753e821 http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-advice/travellers-stori...
- selimthegrim 10y agorepost: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13656319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13656319
- John23832 10y agoI'm sorry, but after the stress of traveling though an airport, I'm not coding anything until after I get home (or to a hotel) and rest.
- xiphias 10y agoYou are always allowed to get home if you prefer that as long as it's outside U.S.
- pfarnsworth 10y agoI'm going to wait for more information before believing this. There have been so many cases of fake twitter outrage that it makes sense to wait a day or two before taking out the pitchforks. What's sad is that in this climate it's not completely unbelievable that something like this could happen.
- idlewords 10y agoThis is by far the sanest reaction in the thread.
- max_ 10y agoI personally know Celestine. There are no jokes here.
- beedogs 10y agoConsidering this is at least the second case where it's happened, why do you need to "wait for more information"?
- username223 10y agoI'm not sure it would be cause for pitchforks if true. Immigration officers in general tend to act aggressive and ask weird questions as some sort of attempt at behavioral screening. Canada only cares that tourists have enough money to leave and don't plan to work, but the last time I went, I got asked why there was mud on my car. Seriously.
- IshKebab 10y agoThis is totally believable. A friend who went to a conference with me in the US maybe 4 years ago was asked to solve an integral equation. It makes sense really - I don't know why this would cause outrage.
- gentlehammer 10y agoThis authors of this article claim that his employers were contacted to verify his identity. It doesn't necessarily prove that he was asked technical questions, but it was enough for me to believe the tweet http://www.recode.net/2017/2/28/14764064/nigerian-software-engineer-detained-by-us-customs http://www.recode.net/2017/2/28/14764064/nigerian-software-e...
- oh_sigh 10y agoI think it's better if we don't determine the veracity of the account, and we just jump to blaming Donald Trump instead. That is what a reasonable, non-racist person would do.
- colemickens 10y agoAh there we go, the anti-racists are the REAL intolerant ones.
- googlryas 10y agoWhat about misguided anti-racists who are so sure in their belief and understanding of the world, that they see racism in things which are not racist?
- 35bge57dtjku 10y agoIs your name Hugh?
- EliRivers 10y agoIntolerance isn't inherently a bad thing.
- dang 10y agoAll: please don't comment like this here. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13741949 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13741949 and marked it off-topic.
- rjtobin 10y agoOnce (also in JFK) I was quizzed a bit by the CBP officer. I told him I was a math grad student, he said "well, then tell me about the Euler problem". I explained that Euler was a fairly prolific guy, and asked if he could be more specific. He didn't relent, apparently he had seen some documentary that was all about the "Euler problem". Eventually, we moved on to my background, and I mentioned I had done a masters in computational neuroscience. He said something like "oh neuroscience, my great aunt had that", I think he thought it was an illness? Was sort of expecting the reality TV cameras to be busted out at that point... He let me through though! Usually I clear immigration in Ireland (one of the few places you can do the immigration before you leave), and those folks are always much more pleasant.
- minipci1321 10y agoI was going to SV and landed at SFO. The flight was long and I was tired, and raised additional suspicion of the security guy. He asked me about the purpose of my (two-week-long) visit. I replied "software integration". He asked then, "what sort of software integration can be done in only 2 weeks?" I must say, this question remained unanswered. He let me in, it was 2006.
- meddlepal 10y ago"None, but don't tell management that please."
- tn13 10y agoI would advise strongly against that kind of snarky or funny responses. It is a no-no. Give a standard answers the lawyer might have presented you.
- Declanomous 10y agoI dunno, when I was coming back from Europe a while back the homeland security guy in the airport asked me if I wanted a full cavity search. I was like "no?..." And he was like, ah, you don't fit the profile anyways. I've found American Border Patrol and Customs to be fairly relaxed though. I am a white American guy from the Midwest, so that may have something to do with it. I find the TSA to be more of a pain.
- everybodyknows 10y agoReturning from Canada back in the 90's, I was asked what I had been doing there. "Attending a conference on computational geometry." "What's that?" Pause for thought -- several seconds. "Applying computers to solving problems in geometry." This got me waved in. Co-workers told of the encounter later on proposed an alternative reply: "You wouldn't understand." Given the tone of the agent, those might have been very costly words.
- cperciva 10y agoCould have been worse. If you had been at a conference on algebraic geometry, you might have been the mathematician who started talking about blowing up points on the plane while in the security line up...
- Frogolocalypse 10y agoAnd algebra is an arabic word after all. No good can come of that.
- pjc50 10y agoYou can do algebra on a plane, but don't do algebra on an aircraft: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/ivy-league-economist-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/iv... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/07/italian-mathematician-taken-off-flight-after-fellow-passenger-al/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/07/italian-mathemati...
- petee 10y agoAfter watching too many episodes of border patrol-like shows, I agree that it would be a very bad route to take: If you are demeaning, they'll only dig deeper; if they "don't understand" they _will_ find someone who does, or take your phone and call your boss to find out.
- dorfsmay 10y agoThe best CS subject to talk about in such context would be "race conditions"!
- bbcbasic 10y agoDeadlock holiday
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- zwischenzug 10y agoNot even close, but similarly: travelling to Israel for work some years ago I was asked what I did for a job. Software engineer, I said. 'Where is your laptop?' I explained I didn't have one, that I worked only on desktops. It took some persuading the guy that you could be a software engineer without a laptop.
- jpalomaki 10y agoIn a away this actually makes sense. Instead of relying on automatic systems and algorithms, you rely on people, namely the agent performing the interview. A short chat about selected topics might be actually quite revealing. Point not being if you know the exact right answer for the BST question but more how you react and if there are inconsistencies in your story (most people are pretty bad at lying). All of this could be backed by the personal data has been collected before hand. The old (and often linked?) article about airport security in Israel[1] describes how the actually rely a lot on people being able to spot strange behavior. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-wagner/what-israeli-airport-secu_b_4978149.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-wagner/what-israeli-air...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cperciva 10y agoThis is exactly correct. When I returned from a weekend vacation in New York a few years ago, Canadian customs asked me about the tourist sites I visited. It's not that they thought attending a musical and visiting the 9/11 memorial was suspicious; it was just a convenient topic of conversation while they watched to see if I seemed nervous or otherwise suspicious.
- madeofpalk 10y agoI don't know about 'Correct'. When you enter Australia you never even talk to anyone anymore - immigration is all done via self-serve kiosks.
- tajen 10y agoI went to Australia and there are still passport officers. The last one told me she liked the joke on my tshirt. But again, in Australia when there's a terrorist attack, they create an #illridewithyou trend on Twitter... Not everything is pink, but they at least have a good go at trying.
- 10y ago
- Grue3 10y agoThat's pretty impressive that the immigration officer knew what a binary tree is. People who can't code a FizzBuzz but faked their way through an interview should be concerned.
- thomasahle 10y agoIt seems they just had a sheet of questions to which you had to give the exact answer they had written down.
- bbcbasic 10y agoLike a real interview then.
- khazhou 10y agoGoogle's recruiting tactics are getting ridiculous!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- elif 10y agoI wonder if they are that insistent on people whose occupation is porn actor. I imagine so many lines of questioning there could be legally considered sexual harassment that the interviewer would decide to let you go out of self-interest.
- beedogs 10y agoStill waiting on the impeachment proceedings. Any day now.
- ezoe 10y agoThis is a story I've read it somewhere. "At the airport, When I said I am Japanese, the officer handed me a Japanese newspaper and asked me to read it aloud. The newspaper had really rare name of the place I couldn't read it. The officer suspected me."
- misja111 10y agoNot as spectacular, but 4 years ago when I arrived at SF airport after a 11 hour trip the immigration officer asked why I was there. I told them I was visiting a software conference. To my surprise he then asked me to write 16 in hexadecimal. Luckily I didn't screw up. I asked him how come he knew about that stuff and he told me that in a former career he was working in IT as well. I thought it was funny.
- officelineback 10y agoI was just overcome with anxiety...the answer is 10, right?
- misja111 10y agoyes :)
- shostack 10y agoGoes to show you never know what someone knows from their previous life experiences, and that you should not judge a book by its cover. Given how poorly academics, research and other fields pay, I wouldn't be entirely surprised to find that there are highly educated people trying to make ends meet working for the TSA or Customs. And odds are they are eager to dust off that knowledge and put it to use when they can.
- ma-nu 10y agoif I wrote a program to draw a doughnut, will they be able to make out that I just pulled their leg :) ?
- orless 10y agoAround 2002 we (a group of Russians) were returning with friends from a ski trip in Austria back to Germany. There happend to be a police control in the train. Then I've realized I had no passport with me. The best ID I had was my business card (of course, no photo on it). So the policeman looks at it and says "Oh, the database department. Which databases do you guys use?" Basically I was able to identify myself with some Oracle and knowing who Scott Tiger was. The policeman appeared to be an IT drop-out who switched to police.
- crypto5 10y agoAnd looks like he didn't give answer: https://twitter.com/cyberomin/status/835997085916872704 https://twitter.com/cyberomin/status/835997085916872704
- jplayer01 10y ago... This is odd considering that a disproportionate amount of terrorists are engineers.
- jlebrech 10y ago"so you're an engineer? can you design me a bomb?"... either answer .. "haha, busted"
- lostboys67 10y agoNot so surprising given "engineering" is a highly desired degree in the middle east
- somberi 10y agoI have been asked something similar about 7 years ago, when I went to renew my Green Card, few days ahead of my scheduled appearance. The agent, a math major with a sense of humor, asked me to do 12 factorial and then he woulde accommodate me. I did, and he held his side. But I kindly doubt this guy's binary search claim.
- jlebrech 10y ago"i'm a CS phd", "prove it" .. non-story. but i think they should have asked him to spend a bit of time writing cool oss code (maybe before his flight)
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- egeozcan 10y agoMore I read about things like these, even more I love Germany (my new home). The officers in Frankfurt Airport are always nice and I never had any problems nor heard about one. I hear it's even better in Berlin. I don't understand why host countries don't try to make themselves the most favorite country in the world for their guests. I believe, "not allowing terrorists/drug dealers/illegal workers etc. etc. inside" is just the marketing as I seriously doubt people who slip through the cracks of a saner screening process would be a significant problem. Therefore, I wonder the real reason but can't think of any.
- ilovefood 10y agoSame here, I love Germany! <3
- amirbehzad 10y agoGermany loves you, too
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- cylinder 10y agoIn America we take our prosperity for granted. We assume we will always be rich and don't need to compete for tourism, open business and trade, general reputation etc, especially with "foreigners."
- Anderkent 10y ago> Therefore, I wonder the real reason but can't think of any. You shouldn't think of governments as agents with a singular, unified purpose. What you're observing is the effect of many agents with misaligned incentives, and a huge coordination problem. All this leads to a situation where large costs are incurred for no real purpose, because no agent is incentivised to put what you called 'marketing' in doubt. For example, it's a huge cost for a politician to argue that fear of terrorism is overblown. So pretty much none of them do that. TSA have no incentive to reduce their powers. Etc.
- 10y ago
- jwilk 10y agoFor those who wonder what the optimal algorithm is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day%E2%80%93Stout%E2%80%93Warren_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day%E2%80%93Stout%E2%80%93Warr...
- cousin_it 10y agoYeah. I learned about the Day-Stout-Warren algorithm today, after reading this discussion, and it's beautiful.
- mstade 10y agoI flew to the USA late last year, through London. When going to the desk for my connecting flight at LHR, the gentleman there did some sort of pre-authorization and asked me a number CS question. Nothing as specific as the above, but things like what languages I used for work, specific tooling, who my clients were etc. It felt quite strange to be asked these things, it's never happened to me before when traveling anywhere including stateside. What's more, this was a person hired by American Airlines, not some CPB officer – or, at least, it seemed that way.
- umanwizard 10y agoIs it possible the person was just curious/interested?
- mstade 10y agoI thought so at first as well, he seemed curious but kind of prying, so I asked whether the questions were necessary. He answered politely but sternly that yes, yes they were. After that, it was a bit awkward and stiff but still quite polite. It all just seemed very strange, I've never been questioned like that before. Once I got to the states however, the only problem I had was that lines were long. The CBP officer handling me and letting me in to the country was very nice and polite, and after the usual "business/pleasure?" and "how long are you staying?" questions etc. I was let in to the country with no issue.
- DominikPeters 10y agoAirlines do a CBP-type interview before letting passengers board to make sure that they will actually be able to clear US immigration. If CBP decides not to let someone through, the airline has to pay a fine and the return ticket.
- rsynnott 10y agoAre they doing this for everyone? "Oh, you work in a slaugherhouse? Disembowel this cow." Absolutely absurd.
- lz400 10y agoIf you answer with your hourly rate they let you in?
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- throwaway_374 10y agoWhat is the point of CBP? Can't their jobs just be automated away by immigration kiosks? Surely there's no human value they actually add. What even is the effectiveness of these routine "randomly selected" checks beyond sniffer dogs for cocaine mules.
- vickychijwani 10y agoI have a theory on how CBP is trained to scan people, that seems more plausible without assuming malicious intent: they're not expecting you to know exactly how to balance a BST, but just enough to hold a conversation about it while they look for telltale signs. My guess is that even a reply like, "Look, I'm a self-taught web developer and I don't deal with algorithms day-to-day, sorry. But you can ask me web dev questions if you wish." would work.
- Main_ 10y agoAgent: "wrong answer,you are not allowed entry, good bye".
- umanwizard 10y agoWhat reason do you have to believe this would happen?
- deskamess 10y agoIn many government jobs, the criteria for moving a task forward is the ability to check off a tick box. So you do not admit you do not know the answer; you give a plausible answer that lets the officer check the box. That's the case for most govt questions. Very little depth is required in the answers as not everything can be validated in the timespan of an interview. So admit you know what a binary tree is and talk about it in high level terms. Unless the officer was a previous programmer, the checkbox gets checked. When you say you do not know or answer a different question, it makes it harder to check that box off. Most officials just want to check a box and move you (and themselves) on. Don't make it difficult for them.
- akamaozu 10y agoSounds like your assumption, not fact.
- rlpb 10y agoYou assume that the box says next to it "can answer questions about his career specialism correctly". It probably doesn't. More likely it says "does not appear nervous when asked about his career specialism, and appears to know topics he claims to know" or something more like that.
- wrasee 10y agoI think there's been quite a bit of overreaction here. Part of their job is simply to determine that you are who you say you are. They do this every day - within reason I expect they can ask you any arbitrary question related to you and your life to observe how you respond. They just want to catch those out that aren't, for whatever reason, being genuine about their story. I think there's a false assumption here that somehow @cyberomin's ability to actually _solve_ a BST was in some way tied to his likelihood of entry. That's obviously ridiculous. I imagine his response was still genuine enough that they believed him. Frankly as another commenter joked, I think they could have asked him to prove P=NP. It's when you reply confidently with an 'obvious' solution that they might raise an eyebrow. Yes it would be unreasonable if their ignorance actually lead to you being denied entry. But in not one of the experiences here, or with @cyberomin, was that actually the case. The thing is, of course, that they're aware of their ignorance and the absurdity of their questions. You see, they know that they're bluffing. That's kind of the point. It is, perhaps rather unfortunately, part of their job to make you feel uncomfortable, ask probing questions and weed out inconsistencies in your responses. Isn't that part of professional questioning? I can understand the frustration at the abruptness of the questioning, and it's hardly a friendly welcome. I've been angered leaving immigration before and I have to remind myself that ruffling my feathers is all part of the act. When first complaining to a friend she asked, "what did they insult you or something?" Actually, no. They just asked me lots of questions. Clearly I'd like to think some questions are off-limits - I know there have been justified concerns about this - especially recently. And I understand this is hot topic right now - precisely why I think we should be careful - more careful than ever - not to overreact. From what I observe: The guy arrived, he was asked questions about his profession, his answers were evidently sufficient and he was let in. It happens to thousands of people every day. Honestly? I don't think there's a story here.
- briane80 10y agoThat's a far too level-headed and reasoned response for the current climate, even in HN.
- joatmon-snoo 10y agoThe problem is that there are infinitely better questions to ask - like, "oh, what's your day-to-day like?" or "who do you work for? what do you work on?" - rather than terrible technical questions. ===== > I think there's a false assumption here that somehow @cyberomin's ability to actually _solve_ a BST was in some way tied to his likelihood of entry. That's obviously ridiculous. You just got off a plane. You've been in the air for the past 23 hours. The agencies in charge of border security at your arrival airport have a reputation, and a well-deserved one at that, for (1) harassing foreigners, (2) having unclear policies, and (3) more recently, having no idea what the actual law is (or actually outright disobeying it). Still think it's that ridiculous? ===== On top of that, there's a long history in our industry of people reading questions and answers off pre-prepared lists and saying "oh, your nuanced, correct answer doesn't match up with what I've got written down here - sorry, I'm trashing your application". While it would absolutely disgust me to see the TSA/CBP use something like that, I would also be completely unsurprised to see it happen - especially if it happened to a non-US citizen, since they have next to no legal standing in the U.S.
- sAbakumoff 10y agoDecember 2016, I arrive in JFK from Moscow and a border officer asks me about the purpose of my visit. I explain that I attend the business meeting in NC. She wants to help and informs me that I have to pick up my luggage in NYC and then check it in for my next flight. I smile and reply "fortunately I don't have any luggage". Immediately she becomes suspicious of me and asks "But you are here for a business meeting, where is your business suit?" I explain that I am IT and everyone in my company is OK with a casual style". She nods and let me go. "Thanks God IT does not really care about my clothes" I think and successfully enter the land of the free.
- baursak 10y agoPlot twist: she knew you didn't have any luggage all along. That information is available to her when she pulls your info up on her computer.
- sAbakumoff 10y agoIn JFK there 2 modes of going through the passport control : the old one involving an officer with a computer, fingerprints scanner and camera and the new, automated one that involves you interacting with a kiosk that prints some kind of voucher at the end. This voucher then is given to an officer who does not have a computer, but she usually asks a couple of extra questions. I used the new way, I like it. So perhaps she didn't know anything :-)
- nippples 10y agoinb4 turns out to be complete bullshit
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Corrado 10y agoAt first I thought this was a joke, but after reading some of the comments here I'm truly scared of traveling abroad. I've been programming computers for 25 years and I don't think I could build a binary search tree, let alone balance one. :O
- umanwizard 10y agoSo what? Neither could the guy who tweeted this, and he was still allowed into the country.
- BWStearns 10y agohttps://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&geo=US&q=binary%20search%20tree https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&geo=... Looks like people are studying up?
- remx 10y agoSome of the replies in the Twitter thread are hilarious whiteboarding, it's the new waterboarding? ️Furious /@AnnieTheObscure
- quiyile 10y agoI would say I had just got off a flight and I was tired and needed a shower and I was not in the mood to work as I was on vacation.
- daveheq 10y agoThankfully he didn't get shot. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/24/killing-of-indian-man-in-kansas-bar-investigated-possible-hate-crime https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/24/killing-of-i...
- samsonradu 10y agoCould be that they're hiring.
- thierrynyc 10y agoBorder agent : "You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?"
- kitsuac 10y agoI really don't see the problem here. They likely need an anchor for enough conversation to "vet" a person's story. If someone is utterly clueless about their stated career, it should be a red flag enough for some further questioning. Folks have a hair trigger about being offended by this sort of thing but it seems completely reasonable to me.
- arif_abdullah 10y agoIn 2004, when I came to US for the first time as a student, I was asked by an immigration officer at JFK to make the XOR gate using OR and AND gates on a paper.
- handedness 10y agoBack when the IRA was detonating bombs with regularity, one completely harmless redhead I know was detained and questioned for hours nearly every time she traveled from the US to London (which was often). On the one hand, it's definitely a serious problem that needs solving, on the other hand it's neither completely irrational, nor a new problem.
- aregsarkissian 10y agoObviously the correct answer is "you type the question how to balance a binary search tree in stack overflow and wait for an answer"
- relics443 10y agoI don't understand the problem with this. In Ben Gurion airport in Israel, if you look like a religious Jew you'll most likely get asked questions regarding the Torah portion of that week.