7 ms·

> Docker should have been a neat tool made by one enthusiast, just like curl is. I have nothing but mad respect for Daniel Stenberg. 25 years of development of

by voytec 4y ago

> Docker should have been a neat tool made by one enthusiast, just like curl is. I have nothing but mad respect for Daniel Stenberg. 25 years of development of great software, for which he had been threatened[1] and had ridiculous US travel visa obtaining issues[2]. [1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/19/i-will-slaughter-you/ https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/19/i-will-slaughter-you/ [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26192025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26192025 [2] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2020/11/09/a-us-visa-in-937-days/ https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2020/11/09/a-us-visa-in-937-days...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
elbigbad 4y ago
I read the travel issues post you linked, but am not seeing the causal link you’re drawing between development of software and visa issues. Was there more to the story?
- voytec 4y ago
  I may have remembered incorrectly, which post was it. Here[1], in the paragraph titled "Why they deny me?" (unlinkable), Daniel hints at the possibility that this may have been due to development of (lib)curl which is used for malware creation by 3rd parties. There was no proof though. [1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/07/28/administrative-purgatory/ https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/07/28/administrative-purgat...
  - elbigbad 4y ago
    Ah, that makes sense. I have no dog in the fight and am far from the emotion of having a visa delayed in this circumstance. I would say that it was much more likely to be some level of incompetence than malice, having dealt with large government bureaucracies myself.
  - kzrdude 4y ago
    The most superficial (and likely) reason to me seems to be that he uses haxx.se. I really wonder what kind of investigation they do. If they just start with Google, this one might come up immediately.
shubb 4y ago
Replying to child I can't reply to? There was a period where the US was treating public key encryption like arms exports, and involved in spreading the technology outside the US as tools were in us.govs sht list
- Clubber 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Zimmermann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Zimmermann After a report from RSA Security, who were in a licensing dispute with regard to the use of the RSA algorithm in PGP, the United States Customs Service started a criminal investigation of Zimmermann, for allegedly violating the Arms Export Control Act.[5] The United States Government had long regarded cryptographic software as a munition, and thus subject to arms trafficking export controls. At that time, PGP was considered to be impermissible ("high-strength") for export from the United States. The maximum strength allowed for legal export has since been raised and now allows PGP to be exported. The investigation lasted three years, but was finally dropped without filing charges after MIT Press published the source code of PGP They tried to ruin the man.
  - ncphil 4y ago
    Because he was competing with a private military contractor, and the US government is a wholly owned subsidiary of the MIC: or often acts like it is. Customs should have told RSA "no", "this is a private contract dispute", "hire a lawyer and file suit". Of course it was much more than that. Zimmerman put real privacy protecting encryption in the hands of the public, and the Many Eyes (that included state allies and adversaries) couldn't have that. But they needn't have worried: decades on the public is still ignorant about encryption, except as a marketing term, and most have no idea what a key pair is or what to do with it. Fraud around unauthorized access to government and commercial accounts is rampant (you _have_ set up and secured your online identity on your government's social security and revenue collection sites, haven't you?). That could have been prevented by early adoption and distribution of key pairs, alongside a serious public education campaign. Problem is, that would be at cross purposes with the goal of keeping the public uneducatable. Better for them to while away their time watching cable TV or delving into the latest conspiracy theory (pro or con).
comprev 4y ago
I consider him equally important to people like Tim Berners-Lee for building the foundation of the web.
t344344 4y ago
> ridiculous US travel visa obtaining issues Ridiculous? This is pretty common issue for anyone who travels to US. Visa may be denied for whatever reason and tough luck on appeal. I am EU citizen and had similar experience just for visiting Iran on tourist trip. Do not even ask about guys from India, Pakistan or less fortunate countries. And it got even worse with pandemic. US required vaccination for very long time, long long after it was relevant. Maybe they still do, frankly I do not care to look at this point! I think biggest WTF here is why international organization like Mozilla is organizing company wide meetup in US, and not in country with liberal visa entry policy such as Mexico!
- voytec 4y ago
  I applied for US travel visa as a citizen of Poland in 2012 and was denied travel due to "wrong type of visa". I was planning to visit my employer and spend 1-2 weeks traveling across the country. Apparently both business and travel visas were inappropriate for these purposes. To add, I was questioned in a US consulate/embassy (can't remember) in Warsaw by a person who repeatedly refused to speak in English, insisted on Polish and I, as a native Polish speaker, had issues understanding them. Poor experience. This was not a case for Swedish citizens, which is mentioned at the beginning of Daniel's linked post. Sweden is a member of ESTA[1] and Daniel traveled to the US multiple times before being denied travel (with still valid ESTA) and only then applied for a visa. [1] https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/
  - pshirshov 4y ago
    I believe that B1/B2 should work just fine for these purposes. Probably you answered an officer (or airline worker) that you were gonna "work" there, not just visit your employer for an event?
    - voytec 4y ago
      Absolutely not. I had, and still have, my own small business in Poland and I was clear (in writing) that I am planning to visit my main client.
darkwater 4y ago
> [1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/19/i-will-slaughter-you/ https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/19/i-will-slaughter-you/ Wow that's clearly someone with serious mental issues :( I hope he could find some help for his condition.
- nine_k 4y ago
  Maybe it's a good thing that the guy affected hasn't been awarded the defense contract as a result.
  - voytec 4y ago
    People suffering from psychosis can create "facts" supporting their ideas and believe in them. Usually it's the stuff like "someone follows me", "someone wants to hurt me". Psychosis is the entry point to schizophrenia which is more or less, an illness in which brain makes stuff up and the ill person cannot differentiate facts from hallucinations. Possibly there was no defense contract at all.
    - IncRnd 4y ago
      That sounds very much how chatgpt acts.
      - yreg 4y ago
        Is it? GPT just halucinates the next words in a given text.
        IncRnd 4y ago
        Of course it is. What in the parent's post is different from that? The parent post's first sentence is, "People suffering from psychosis can create 'facts' supporting their ideas and believe in them."
        yreg 4y ago
citizenpaul 4y ago
There are lots of high functioning but harmless crazy people out there . I used to work for a government job and I found one of the most common tells was exactly what this "slaughter" person did. They love to list dozens of agencies to you for no reason. They have no authority so they hope they can borrow it from your fear of a random place. I cannot tell you how many emails/calls I have had left that fit this pattern, dozens at least. >I have talked to now: FBI FBI Regional, VA, VA OIG, FCC, SEC, NSA, DOH, GSA, DOI, CIA, CFPB, HUD, MS, Convercent Bonus Tell: They also love to say they are a doctor or PHD of something or often say PHD in multiple subjects.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  I remember someone abusing a ticketing system I had to work with for reporting technical issues with a vast computer network, raising a ticket with an attachment from some absolute nutcase in multicolored manyunderlined .RTF format which was like as you described as "hate mail" in the subject line and the ticket being closed as "not hate mail", still makes me chuckle every time I think about that

by voytec 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

elbigbad 4y ago

I read the travel issues post you linked, but am not seeing the causal link you’re drawing between development of software and visa issues. Was there more to the story?

voytec 4y ago
I may have remembered incorrectly, which post was it. Here[1], in the paragraph titled "Why they deny me?" (unlinkable), Daniel hints at the possibility that this may have been due to development of (lib)curl which is used for malware creation by 3rd parties. There was no proof though. [1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/07/28/administrative-purgatory/ https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/07/28/administrative-purgat...
- elbigbad 4y ago
  Ah, that makes sense. I have no dog in the fight and am far from the emotion of having a visa delayed in this circumstance. I would say that it was much more likely to be some level of incompetence than malice, having dealt with large government bureaucracies myself.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  The most superficial (and likely) reason to me seems to be that he uses haxx.se. I really wonder what kind of investigation they do. If they just start with Google, this one might come up immediately.

shubb 4y ago

Replying to child I can't reply to? There was a period where the US was treating public key encryption like arms exports, and involved in spreading the technology outside the US as tools were in us.govs sht list

Clubber 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Zimmermann https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Zimmermann After a report from RSA Security, who were in a licensing dispute with regard to the use of the RSA algorithm in PGP, the United States Customs Service started a criminal investigation of Zimmermann, for allegedly violating the Arms Export Control Act.[5] The United States Government had long regarded cryptographic software as a munition, and thus subject to arms trafficking export controls. At that time, PGP was considered to be impermissible ("high-strength") for export from the United States. The maximum strength allowed for legal export has since been raised and now allows PGP to be exported. The investigation lasted three years, but was finally dropped without filing charges after MIT Press published the source code of PGP They tried to ruin the man.
- ncphil 4y ago
  Because he was competing with a private military contractor, and the US government is a wholly owned subsidiary of the MIC: or often acts like it is. Customs should have told RSA "no", "this is a private contract dispute", "hire a lawyer and file suit". Of course it was much more than that. Zimmerman put real privacy protecting encryption in the hands of the public, and the Many Eyes (that included state allies and adversaries) couldn't have that. But they needn't have worried: decades on the public is still ignorant about encryption, except as a marketing term, and most have no idea what a key pair is or what to do with it. Fraud around unauthorized access to government and commercial accounts is rampant (you _have_ set up and secured your online identity on your government's social security and revenue collection sites, haven't you?). That could have been prevented by early adoption and distribution of key pairs, alongside a serious public education campaign. Problem is, that would be at cross purposes with the goal of keeping the public uneducatable. Better for them to while away their time watching cable TV or delving into the latest conspiracy theory (pro or con).

comprev 4y ago

I consider him equally important to people like Tim Berners-Lee for building the foundation of the web.

t344344 4y ago

> ridiculous US travel visa obtaining issues Ridiculous? This is pretty common issue for anyone who travels to US. Visa may be denied for whatever reason and tough luck on appeal. I am EU citizen and had similar experience just for visiting Iran on tourist trip. Do not even ask about guys from India, Pakistan or less fortunate countries. And it got even worse with pandemic. US required vaccination for very long time, long long after it was relevant. Maybe they still do, frankly I do not care to look at this point! I think biggest WTF here is why international organization like Mozilla is organizing company wide meetup in US, and not in country with liberal visa entry policy such as Mexico!

voytec 4y ago
I applied for US travel visa as a citizen of Poland in 2012 and was denied travel due to "wrong type of visa". I was planning to visit my employer and spend 1-2 weeks traveling across the country. Apparently both business and travel visas were inappropriate for these purposes. To add, I was questioned in a US consulate/embassy (can't remember) in Warsaw by a person who repeatedly refused to speak in English, insisted on Polish and I, as a native Polish speaker, had issues understanding them. Poor experience. This was not a case for Swedish citizens, which is mentioned at the beginning of Daniel's linked post. Sweden is a member of ESTA[1] and Daniel traveled to the US multiple times before being denied travel (with still valid ESTA) and only then applied for a visa. [1] https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/
- pshirshov 4y ago
  I believe that B1/B2 should work just fine for these purposes. Probably you answered an officer (or airline worker) that you were gonna "work" there, not just visit your employer for an event?
  - voytec 4y ago
    Absolutely not. I had, and still have, my own small business in Poland and I was clear (in writing) that I am planning to visit my main client.

darkwater 4y ago

> [1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/19/i-will-slaughter-you/ https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/19/i-will-slaughter-you/ Wow that's clearly someone with serious mental issues :( I hope he could find some help for his condition.

nine_k 4y ago
Maybe it's a good thing that the guy affected hasn't been awarded the defense contract as a result.
- voytec 4y ago
  People suffering from psychosis can create "facts" supporting their ideas and believe in them. Usually it's the stuff like "someone follows me", "someone wants to hurt me". Psychosis is the entry point to schizophrenia which is more or less, an illness in which brain makes stuff up and the ill person cannot differentiate facts from hallucinations. Possibly there was no defense contract at all.
  - IncRnd 4y ago
    That sounds very much how chatgpt acts.
    - yreg 4y ago
      Is it? GPT just halucinates the next words in a given text.
      - IncRnd 4y ago
        Of course it is. What in the parent's post is different from that? The parent post's first sentence is, "People suffering from psychosis can create 'facts' supporting their ideas and believe in them."
        yreg 4y ago

citizenpaul 4y ago

There are lots of high functioning but harmless crazy people out there . I used to work for a government job and I found one of the most common tells was exactly what this "slaughter" person did. They love to list dozens of agencies to you for no reason. They have no authority so they hope they can borrow it from your fear of a random place. I cannot tell you how many emails/calls I have had left that fit this pattern, dozens at least. >I have talked to now: FBI FBI Regional, VA, VA OIG, FCC, SEC, NSA, DOH, GSA, DOI, CIA, CFPB, HUD, MS, Convercent Bonus Tell: They also love to say they are a doctor or PHD of something or often say PHD in multiple subjects.

jamal-kumar 4y ago
I remember someone abusing a ticketing system I had to work with for reporting technical issues with a vast computer network, raising a ticket with an attachment from some absolute nutcase in multicolored manyunderlined .RTF format which was like as you described as "hate mail" in the subject line and the ticket being closed as "not hate mail", still makes me chuckle every time I think about that