8 ms·

This. And also people not having devices on their person means they can't quickly text friends/family if they get detained/mistreated/etc. It seems like we're

by GuiA 10y ago

This. And also people not having devices on their person means they can't quickly text friends/family if they get detained/mistreated/etc. It seems like we're getting closer and closer to being in a situation where people who can should avoid going to the US at all, and make their reasoning known. Ie, refuse to give talks, attend conferences, etc. in the US.

hanspragt 10y ago
Cell phones are excluded from the ban, according to the article.
- virtuabhi 10y ago
  For now. According to the article.
  - PietdeVries 10y ago
    interestingly, you see airlines moving away from in-flight entertainment screens in the seat in front of you, in favor of BYOD. A logical move: let the clients bring their equipment (they bring it anyway) so you don't have to (install, maintain, spend fuel on, etc.). Now with airlines actually removing in flight entertainment, flying from the Middle East to New York can be quite a long trip: no laptop to watch a movie, no screen in front of you. I guess the US will stop banning as soon as one of these policy-makers is on the same flight as a few bored kids ;-)
    - joshgel 10y ago
      Maybe people will have to read books?!
      - madengr 10y ago
        True, it some like myself can't read on a plane due to motion sickness. Watching a video is fine, but not focusing on text.
        theandrewbailey 10y ago
        I've never finished reading more than a page in a moving car without feeling nauseous.
        deckiedan 10y ago
        My mum noticed that if she sets her kindle to 2 or so sizes larger text, she doesn't get motion sick any more.
      - brogrammernot 10y ago
        Yes. I love to read books on a 17 hour flight instead of being able to watch TV shows, work on programming problems offline or the countless other productive things that a laptop can provide.
    - ihsw2 10y ago
      That would be great if airlines provided standard power outlets and/or USB ports.
      - freeone3000 10y ago
        Canada Air does! It's great.
      - freeone3000 10y ago
        Canada Air does! It's great.
  - BrailleHunting 10y ago
    Trump will flip-flop on this mercurially 7x before breakfast while watching the "PDB" on TV (aka Fox and Friends).
KirinDave 10y ago
They already confiscate devices. I'm not sure that there is much to be gained by banning phones. The absence of a report coupled with the publicly available info of landing is probably enough to signal trouble.
saiya-jin 10y ago
no conferences, never ever will feel the need to work in US since there are simply better places with true freedom out there (nordic countries, switzerland and so on) but we will vote with our wallets - unless political climate changes drastically, no vacation in US. couple of thousands of bucks spent in local US economy over couple of weeks is a drop in the ocean, but hey, ocean is made of drops anyway.
akie 10y ago
This is already happening. I'm in Europe and I've heard quite a few friends (mostly academics) state that they're actively avoiding traveling to the US.
- chronicx0 10y ago
  This is not a problem considering most worldwide science and research advancements come from USA, China, Japan, or Korea. The academics can stay in Europe. The US companies will acquire them anyway.
- emanreus 10y ago
  I have to admit some border crossing incidents[1] are what I would imagine entering North Korea would be like, not the US. [1][10min audio] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDYMw1p8s9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDYMw1p8s9M
  - mgbmtl 10y ago
    As someone from Canada, that guy was being a total dick, very aggressive, mansplaining the agent, which isn't surprising that it would trigger the customs agent. He would have had the same response from an agent at the border in Canada. Ex: "what shops are you planning to go to". It's fine to answer "I don't know yet". They're just testing behaviour. If you start being defensive or aggressive, pretend to know their jobs better than they, etc, it's suspicious. Although yes, in general, the US agents are really bad at doing behaviour testing. Anecdotal: Last year, I crossed the border a few times by car, visiting a friend I met on Tinder. I completely got away with it, giving honest answers at the border. Recently met someone else (a girl) who was stopped and accused of prostitution for doing the exact same thing. :/
    - tonyarkles 10y ago
      No doubt! My general strategy for crossing borders is to expect to be hassled a little bit, and to accordingly make sure that I have a good amount of patience stored up ahead of time. It took him about 3 seconds to get irritated.
wowsig 10y ago
The report said that cellphones are allowed. Agree with the avoiding US part. I'm currently reading a book on the state of physics under the third reich and the parallels on the state looking inwardly are chilling.
- GuiA 10y ago
  What's the book?
mgbmtl 10y ago
I cancelled my participation in a free software conference this year, but I doubt it will be much noticed except by the core team (I help with internationalization). I also didn't make too much noise about it, not to harm the event/community. Most of our European partners already do not bother going to the US and organise their own conference. You may notice is less and less diversity, but it's already pretty low, and we're often not very good at noticing that.
bzbarsky 10y ago
Cell phones are excluded from the ban, according to this article. That makes it highly unlikely that prevention of ability to text is the goal. I know very few people who text on their tablet, laptop, or camera.
- KirinDave 10y ago
  Cell phones are most likely excluded because they're so obnoxiously hard to compromise compared to laptops. Cell phones, you need per-hardware exploits and the vendors patch aggressively. When was the last time your laptop's USB controllers had a firmware upgrade for security hardening?
  - bzbarsky 10y ago
    That's a reasonable argument if the goal is being able to examine the devices. Nothing to do with texting, though. ;)
hysan 10y ago
Closer and closer? How about it's already happened. I just visited some of my friends in Japan, many of whom wanted to visit me in the US once their children got a bit older, and they all said they are straight up frightened of simply trying to enter the US. These are some of the most upstanding people you can meet with jobs like being teachers, government employees, etc. They are the last people who should be afraid of being found as suspicious persons, yet the reality is that based on what they see in the news, I can't blame them.
- samirillian 10y ago
  Here's the thing about leaving Japan: it's always way more dangerous than staying in Japan. US homicide rate is like 10x higher. I'd bet your "upstanding" friends have layers of reservations about visiting.
  - GuiA 10y ago
    Japanese crime rates are underreported, and in reality most likely very similar to northern European countries in term of safety (and many other things, such as birth rate, another oft repeated misconception). Popular culture likes to portray Japan as a weird outlier country- but that's only if you compare it to the US. If you include the aforementioned European countries in the comparison, the US is the weird country.
    - ConceptJunkie 10y ago
      And the U.S. violence rates are really skewed. If you remove about half a dozen large cities, the U.S. rate for homicides, etc., is much more in line with the rest of the first world.
    - Karlozkiller 10y ago
      I dno about comparable to northern Europe. Stockholm, Sweden has recently had a huge burst in deadly shootings, and a Swedish official got caught in trying to lie to the BBC saying that rape is decreasing in Sweden. Official statistics show an increase between the last two data points, the last one being from 2015 or 2016 if I recall correctly. I have bit heard anything of the like in Japan, but as you say it could be because they don't have the same measures/report rate we have, or that I don't check Japanese statistics as much.
noir_lord 10y ago
> It seems like we're getting closer and closer to being in a situation where people who can should avoid going to the US at all. For me already well past that point, no way would I travel to the US for any reason, work or pleasure. I'm from the UK and I'm seriously contemplating getting out of here while the going is good as well.

by GuiA 10y ago

hanspragt 10y ago

Cell phones are excluded from the ban, according to the article.

virtuabhi 10y ago
For now. According to the article.
- PietdeVries 10y ago
  interestingly, you see airlines moving away from in-flight entertainment screens in the seat in front of you, in favor of BYOD. A logical move: let the clients bring their equipment (they bring it anyway) so you don't have to (install, maintain, spend fuel on, etc.). Now with airlines actually removing in flight entertainment, flying from the Middle East to New York can be quite a long trip: no laptop to watch a movie, no screen in front of you. I guess the US will stop banning as soon as one of these policy-makers is on the same flight as a few bored kids ;-)
  - joshgel 10y ago
    Maybe people will have to read books?!
    - madengr 10y ago
      True, it some like myself can't read on a plane due to motion sickness. Watching a video is fine, but not focusing on text.
      - theandrewbailey 10y ago
        I've never finished reading more than a page in a moving car without feeling nauseous.
      - deckiedan 10y ago
        My mum noticed that if she sets her kindle to 2 or so sizes larger text, she doesn't get motion sick any more.
    - brogrammernot 10y ago
      Yes. I love to read books on a 17 hour flight instead of being able to watch TV shows, work on programming problems offline or the countless other productive things that a laptop can provide.
  - ihsw2 10y ago
    That would be great if airlines provided standard power outlets and/or USB ports.
    - freeone3000 10y ago
      Canada Air does! It's great.
    - freeone3000 10y ago
      Canada Air does! It's great.
- BrailleHunting 10y ago
  Trump will flip-flop on this mercurially 7x before breakfast while watching the "PDB" on TV (aka Fox and Friends).

KirinDave 10y ago

They already confiscate devices. I'm not sure that there is much to be gained by banning phones. The absence of a report coupled with the publicly available info of landing is probably enough to signal trouble.

saiya-jin 10y ago

no conferences, never ever will feel the need to work in US since there are simply better places with true freedom out there (nordic countries, switzerland and so on) but we will vote with our wallets - unless political climate changes drastically, no vacation in US. couple of thousands of bucks spent in local US economy over couple of weeks is a drop in the ocean, but hey, ocean is made of drops anyway.

akie 10y ago

This is already happening. I'm in Europe and I've heard quite a few friends (mostly academics) state that they're actively avoiding traveling to the US.

chronicx0 10y ago
This is not a problem considering most worldwide science and research advancements come from USA, China, Japan, or Korea. The academics can stay in Europe. The US companies will acquire them anyway.
emanreus 10y ago
I have to admit some border crossing incidents[1] are what I would imagine entering North Korea would be like, not the US. [1][10min audio] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDYMw1p8s9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDYMw1p8s9M
- mgbmtl 10y ago
  As someone from Canada, that guy was being a total dick, very aggressive, mansplaining the agent, which isn't surprising that it would trigger the customs agent. He would have had the same response from an agent at the border in Canada. Ex: "what shops are you planning to go to". It's fine to answer "I don't know yet". They're just testing behaviour. If you start being defensive or aggressive, pretend to know their jobs better than they, etc, it's suspicious. Although yes, in general, the US agents are really bad at doing behaviour testing. Anecdotal: Last year, I crossed the border a few times by car, visiting a friend I met on Tinder. I completely got away with it, giving honest answers at the border. Recently met someone else (a girl) who was stopped and accused of prostitution for doing the exact same thing. :/
  - tonyarkles 10y ago
    No doubt! My general strategy for crossing borders is to expect to be hassled a little bit, and to accordingly make sure that I have a good amount of patience stored up ahead of time. It took him about 3 seconds to get irritated.

wowsig 10y ago

The report said that cellphones are allowed. Agree with the avoiding US part. I'm currently reading a book on the state of physics under the third reich and the parallels on the state looking inwardly are chilling.

GuiA 10y ago
What's the book?

mgbmtl 10y ago

I cancelled my participation in a free software conference this year, but I doubt it will be much noticed except by the core team (I help with internationalization). I also didn't make too much noise about it, not to harm the event/community. Most of our European partners already do not bother going to the US and organise their own conference. You may notice is less and less diversity, but it's already pretty low, and we're often not very good at noticing that.

bzbarsky 10y ago

Cell phones are excluded from the ban, according to this article. That makes it highly unlikely that prevention of ability to text is the goal. I know very few people who text on their tablet, laptop, or camera.

KirinDave 10y ago
Cell phones are most likely excluded because they're so obnoxiously hard to compromise compared to laptops. Cell phones, you need per-hardware exploits and the vendors patch aggressively. When was the last time your laptop's USB controllers had a firmware upgrade for security hardening?
- bzbarsky 10y ago
  That's a reasonable argument if the goal is being able to examine the devices. Nothing to do with texting, though. ;)

hysan 10y ago

Closer and closer? How about it's already happened. I just visited some of my friends in Japan, many of whom wanted to visit me in the US once their children got a bit older, and they all said they are straight up frightened of simply trying to enter the US. These are some of the most upstanding people you can meet with jobs like being teachers, government employees, etc. They are the last people who should be afraid of being found as suspicious persons, yet the reality is that based on what they see in the news, I can't blame them.

samirillian 10y ago
Here's the thing about leaving Japan: it's always way more dangerous than staying in Japan. US homicide rate is like 10x higher. I'd bet your "upstanding" friends have layers of reservations about visiting.
- GuiA 10y ago
  Japanese crime rates are underreported, and in reality most likely very similar to northern European countries in term of safety (and many other things, such as birth rate, another oft repeated misconception). Popular culture likes to portray Japan as a weird outlier country- but that's only if you compare it to the US. If you include the aforementioned European countries in the comparison, the US is the weird country.
  - ConceptJunkie 10y ago
    And the U.S. violence rates are really skewed. If you remove about half a dozen large cities, the U.S. rate for homicides, etc., is much more in line with the rest of the first world.
  - Karlozkiller 10y ago
    I dno about comparable to northern Europe. Stockholm, Sweden has recently had a huge burst in deadly shootings, and a Swedish official got caught in trying to lie to the BBC saying that rape is decreasing in Sweden. Official statistics show an increase between the last two data points, the last one being from 2015 or 2016 if I recall correctly. I have bit heard anything of the like in Japan, but as you say it could be because they don't have the same measures/report rate we have, or that I don't check Japanese statistics as much.

noir_lord 10y ago

> It seems like we're getting closer and closer to being in a situation where people who can should avoid going to the US at all. For me already well past that point, no way would I travel to the US for any reason, work or pleasure. I'm from the UK and I'm seriously contemplating getting out of here while the going is good as well.