4 ms·
From the accompanying (and linked) Daily Dot article[1]: > On the list were several notable figures, including the recently freed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bo
by mananaysiempre 4y ago
From the accompanying (and linked) Daily Dot article[1]:
> On the list were several notable figures, including the recently freed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, alongside over 16 potential aliases for him.
> [...]
> Numerous names included aliases that were common misspellings or slightly altered versions of their names.
For non-natively-Latin names, the US government is thorough to the point of hilarity in including every possible romanization and misspelling of one, and they list full names not their individual parts so combinatorics ahoy, as well. For example, if you know a bit of any Slavic language written in Cyrillic, browse the Russian sanction lists, it’s going to give you a chuckle.
In all seriousness, this actually makes perfect sense given the prospective consumers of the lists may not have any clue about the languages the targeted people speak. It’s just that the article makes 16 aliases sound vaguely sinister, whereas if you’re a Russian—or, for that matter, a Ukrainian or a Belarusian—that’s just a reasonably low estimate for how many romanizations of your name people may think up. (Not that Bout isn’t sinister as hell.)
[1] https://www.dailydot.com/debug/no-fly-list-us-tsa-unprotected-server-commuteair/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/no-fly-list-us-tsa-unprotecte...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Scoundreller 4y agoIt’s bad in Canada too, where they don’t even use dates of birth, so small children end up caught on a no-fly-list: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/no-fly-child-redress-1.5791568 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/no-fly-child-redress-1...
- interestica 4y ago"On Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said in the coming days, certain travellers, like Sebastian Khan, will be able to apply for a Canadian Travel Number, a unique number they will be able to use when they book a flight to distinguish them from people on the list." Soon they'll give everyone a number so they can travel. And print it out in physical form too. And call it a passport. That "solution" seems a bit backwards.
- l0b0 4y agoShouldn't take much for this to overflow beyond 2**whatever names, which is probably going to be all sorts of fun for the 1970s software probably involved in processing this data.
- WrtCdEvrydy 4y ago... nah, it has error catching, it just won't process beyond that much.