[lordnacho]

I think it's part overreaction from security folks, part bureaucratic overcomplexity.

Someone I know got denied a visa to the US. She went to the embassy to get interviewed, and got told no, and no reason. Just an intimidating guy telling her no, you're not welcome. This lady had nothing to do with anything computer related, or crime, or anything remotely odious.

Someone else I know got stuck getting her docs because she passed her citizenship test in one state, then moved to another before the ceremony. She phones up about it, at the person on the other end literally says "wait a few minutes while I fuck this up, I have no idea how this system works". Somehow after a few weeks of desperation they managed to solve it.

I can imagine the curl guy's application getting 10 seconds of time, most of which will be taken up by the fact he's going to kick up a lot of hits on google and he has "haxx" on his homepage.

[A2017U1]

The amount of damage it does is huge to the foreign psyche. Already numerous conferences plan to move to anywhere but the US.

I'm entirely sure Russia and China cheer on this level of pettiness.

If he had actually done something wrong they'd have welcomed him in with open arms and arrested him on US soil a la Marcus Hutchins.

Hopefully it's only a few years before the pencil pushers realise how self defeating this strategy is. Resting on laurels and foreigners keen for large paychecks will only go so far for the US. The world can and will move on, decent wages only goes so far, there's definitely decent wages to be found in China too and many reject it.