Encrypted Chat Developer Detained, Interrogated at US Border

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/101174/claim-encrypted-chat-developer-detained-interrogated-at-us-border/

by mindstab • 14 years ago

248 144 14 years ago

mindstab2• 14 years ago

I love the inherent schizophrenia in the US political system. They are so in love with anti censorship technologies when employed against countries they don't like, like in China or Arab Spring, even going so far as to help develop the tech (tor) or ask the maintainers for special considerations (the US gov asked twitter to alter its maintenance schedule for Arab spring). But when the software could be used closer to home, they target developers like they are one step away from terrorists. The hypocrisy is... challenging

excuse-me9• 14 years ago

Quite right too. If somebody had managed to detect the subversive writings of that terrorist leader Benjamin Franklin in time, the whole revolution business could have been avoided.

endlessvoid943• 14 years ago

I see your point. It's not a great analogy though. He was a revolutionary, but he was not a terrorist.

panarky2• 14 years ago

Thank you for your comment.

It has been added to your profile and your thoughtcrime score has been updated.

We look forward to interviewing you the next time you attempt to cross the border.

gavinlynch14• 14 years ago

"But when the software could be used closer to home, they target developers like they are one step away from terrorists. The hypocrisy is... challenging"

So you see this border interrogation as part of a systematic policy to intimidate developers entering the United States with expertise in cryptographic dev? Gotta be honest, that seems like a wild and illogical extrapolation to me based on this anecdotal story. So the end game of the United States government is what exactly, in this effort? To keep people with cryptographic talent outside of the US?

1) Why? I presume your point is that the government is attempting in a very, very, very round-about way to stifle free speech? Please inform me if this is not your point, I don't want to put words in your mouth.

2) What would that accomplish. We live in an era of instant communication and transportation of software. Developers can work on products from anywhere in the globe. If this man was denied entry to the United States, what is stopping him from simply working for his company from abroad? The answer: nothing.

It would serve pretty much zero purpose to run a campaign of intimidation against an incredibly small subset of the developer population... Programmers with cryptographic expertise who frequently travel in and outside of the United States... I don't get it. What about all of those with crypto experience who are already in the US and don't travel. Aren't they a threat? Are they being targeted? Where are their stories?

Doesn't the government, when they are looking to either break or make these same crypto software, draw from the same talent pool as private industry here in America? Why would they run that talent out of town?

If the US government wanted to suppress cryptographic research or otherwise circumvent it in an effort to subvert Free Speech, don't you think there are more precise and non-haphazard-and-idiotic ways of doing it?

This goes against the general sentiment of comments I've seen in this article, but I just have to say it. I think the idea is ridiculous and above all, completely inefficient for the goals everyone is ascribing to the border agents and the government here.

Logic doesn't really back this up. I can't imagine the point of this. I am not naive enough to think the government doesn't do some shady stuff, but I simply don't see the point and don't see this as an effective tool in whatever their war on developers is supposed to be.

ScottBurson• 14 years ago

Everything you say makes sense, but alas, the government is not always observed to be strong on logic.

But okay, given your argument, what do you think happened here, and why? Do you think this report is a complete fabrication?

untog2• 14 years ago

Agreed. This is simply a case of border control agents going overboard. I'm not defending it for a second (as a US visa holder, I despise the process I have to go through every time I enter the country) but these agents aren't technically inclined in any way.

When you arrive at their desk, they ask "what do you do for a living and what does your company do?". If you answer "The company makes chat software", you'd walk straight through. If you say "The company makes encrypted, secure chat software" then they are going to ask further questions. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a watchlist of words to listen out for, and "encryption" is one of them. Encryption is subject to export controls:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_in_the_U...

halvsjur• 14 years ago

From the Wikipedia page on Jacob Appelbaum:

> He has worked for Greenpeace and has volunteered for the Ruckus Society and the Rainforest Action Network

> Appelbaum is known for representing Wikileaks at the 2010 Hope conference.

The US government has a long and well documented history of systematically harassing political dissidents.

Edit: my bad, skimmed the article and thought it was Appelbaum who was detained.

joe_the_user• 14 years ago

See the many other similar stories of detentions on this thread.

But also, just following the question of what's "wildly implausible", assuming the event happened, what's more plausible, that this was a sanctioned action based on US policy or that low-level airport security people have the ability to detain whoever they want based on criteria they make up and that they just happened to choose a crypt expert based on their personal interests in the subject?

bigiain• 14 years ago

"So you see this border interrogation as part of a systematic policy to intimidate developers entering the United States with expertise in cryptographic dev? Gotta be honest, that seems like a wild and illogical extrapolation to me based on this anecdotal story. So the end game of the United States government is what exactly, in this effort? To keep people with cryptographic talent outside of the US?"

I could probably mount a plausible argument that the end-game is to discourage talented developers/cryptographers from contributing to the sorts of projects that could be seen as "sticking it to the man". Especially since this isn't a singular isolated anecdotal story (and I know the plural of "anecdote" isn't "data", but still…)

If making that argument (and I'm not yet sure I'm convinced of it's "rightness"), I'd probably also point out it doesn't need to be on the scale of "the United States government" to exist or to be effective - it could be emergent behaviour of law enforcement agencies without being publicly chosen or acknowledged policy. A diligent "national security" agent might very well think it's entirely within their remit to "investigate" software like CryptoCat, and the Chinese Whispers propagation of that "I wonder what algorithms CryptoCat uses?" curiosity could easily end up with the observed "The NSA needs to know about your software" interrogation/intimidation behaviour by the minimum wage airport security staff.

And as a long term play - putting even a little pressure on young up-and-coming developers when they're deciding what projects to start or contribute too would "work". "Should I contribute to this borderline subversive open source crypto project? But what if I get a startup off the ground later that requires a lot of travel? Maybe I should work on my commercial mobile app idea instead…"

javajosh• 14 years ago

>So you see this border interrogation as part of a systematic policy to intimidate developers entering the United States with expertise in cryptographic dev? Gotta be honest, that seems like a wild and illogical extrapolation to me based on this anecdotal story.

This is not the only inference you can make. Something that I've noticed about domestic law-enforcement, which I think successfully extrapolates and pertains to the DHS and TSA, is that outlying behavior is discouraged, especially outlying behavior associated with volatile keywords. How many times have I done something unusual, and stopped when the police come by because I just don't know if it's legal or not, and I don't want to get hassled?!

The law is so extensive and arcane that enforcement relies almost entirely on precedent and patterns rather than direct application, especially when dealing with rarer violations.

The result is systematic harassment with no end-game required. It's a policy that kind of sneaks up on institutions as big as the US Govt: discourage interesting, dissenting behavior; encourage boring, mainstream behavior. It doesn't require passing a law - it's an emergent behavior that only requires extra scrutiny of behavior that is outside the experience of the enforcer. This will tend to get worse with scale and the application of technology because a) more people are scrutinized and b) more of their life will be scrutinized, increasing the risk of finding outlying behavioral points.

kmfrk• 14 years ago

This is a minor derail, but please don't use the term "schizophrenia" to be equal to dissociative identity disorder.

"Cognitive dissonance" is better and doesn't use other people's actual conditions as pejoratives.

Just a pet peeve I have, don't mean to call you out or anything. :)

mst• 14 years ago

And in any case, many DID systems are perfectly co-operative so that wouldn't really apply either.

"Hypocrisy" or "self contradiction" would IMO be even better.

chaostheory• 14 years ago

What's even more sad is the repercussions that I see for the startup and technology scene. I believe our freedoms and our rights are what gives the US a huge edge in terms of creativity compared to countries like China and Singapore. Our intellectual freedoms are what leads to huge innovations, that tends to surprise a lot of people still. Without these freedoms I feel that we'll slowly lose one of our major advantages in the coming decades.

Spoom2• 14 years ago

I'm guessing what happened was something like the following:

- They asked him what he did for work (as they pretty much always do at a border crossing, in my experience). - He said he developed software. - They asked what kind of software. - He said CryptoCat. - The officer, knowing that there are export restrictions on cryptography, gave him a longer secondary interview.

I don't think they're targeting anyone here, though I wonder just how much knowledge the interviewer had about cryptography specifically.

horsehead2• 14 years ago

Agreed. I think this incident has been blown way out of proportion. I am disappointed it has received so much attention ... the news article doesn't even give voice or opportunity to comment to anyone other than the complainer in the story. ....

darklajid2• 14 years ago

I'll bite.

Disclaimer: Never been to the US, don't plan to do it, limited insight into the laws over there.

How are export restrictions relevant for people entering the country? Aren't US export restrictions only affecting US citizens or corporations? According to his twitter page that guys from Montreal / Beirut? And how does the whole idea of export restrictions for decentralized internet projects work?

I do believe this might've been blown out of proportions, but your answer seems a little too naive/easy, from this armchair here.

seanc722• 14 years ago

Agree. I took my mother to the airport last year(we live in Csnada drove her across border to detroit). We ended up in immigration for two hours. She has visited the states many times before but this time they decided to give a hard time. They ask EVERYTHING. So it wouldnt suprise me if it playe out just how you described.

narrator• 14 years ago

You really think that the government even cares about behaving consistently at all any more? They just ask the PR people to whip up whatever they think will move the situation in the direction they want and they craft the message and the media plays along. The people in operations operate independently from the PR people so their actions are rarely consistent with the message the PR people are feeding to the public.

mtgx2• 14 years ago

This is not the first time I'm noticing how US is checking every passenger against some database with everything he said online. This makes me a lot less likely to ever visit the US, and if awareness about cases like these grows, I'm sure others will think the same way.

rdtsc2• 14 years ago

This makes me more scared living in the US. I am approaching the level of fear of the government that is close to what I remember having from the older Soviet Union (note: I never living the harsher political times there, mostly during the mid 80s when stuff was thawing out).

It is not a fear that legally I can't talk or do things. It is fear again irrationality and against bureaucratic mistakes. You pissed off one police officer or one border patrol agent and now you are on some kind of secret database or black list for life.

mtgx2• 14 years ago

Someone who has lived in communist countries understands the danger of this trend a lot better than Americans do, it seems. There is Reddit in other sites that raise awareness about situations like these, but I don't think there's a critical mass yet to turn things around. The vast majority of Americans is probably still more afraid about terrorists than they are of this trend in Government, therefore the trend will continue.

greeneggs• 14 years ago

There is no evidence that they checked him against some database with everything he said online. It sounds to me like a completely routine check.

This is standard procedure, and it is not a bad thing. If you are a border control agent and you want to assess if a businessman coming through is a security threat, you don't ask him, "Are you a security threat?" No, you ask about his work and get into his conversation. If he's honest and straightforward, you move on. If you catch a discrepancy in his story or he is oddly defensive (as it sounds was the case here), you ask some more questions to figure out what is going on.

Personally, I enjoy talking about my work. I cross a lot of borders and it can be a pleasure to converse with an agent who is honestly interested. Yes, 45 minutes to an hour would be annoying, but it isn't that terrible and in this case he may have brought it on himself, we can't know.

eli• 14 years ago

I see no evidence of that.

Paul_S• 14 years ago

It's like someone going for a stroll at night in a shady part of town and then complaining they got mugged. What the hell did they expect would happen? Same goes for the US. Start paying attention to the news. It's been widely reported for the past decade, yet people still go there.

milesskorpen• 14 years ago

While I think the US has some absurd border policies, this sounds overblown -- only 1 hour?

I regularly hear about people detained for far more than that, and it wouldn't be difficult for Border Control to hold him far long than that.

illamint• 14 years ago

Link is blocked via Websense at work. Is there an alternate source?

cldrope3• 14 years ago

You can find the story without useless "journalistic context" on his twitter feed, where it came from: https://twitter.com/kaepora/status/210366514442932224

Or I pastebin'd the article for you or anyone else curious:

http://pastebin.com/hKkLBMFp

phene• 14 years ago

If it's open source, why would the agents be asking what algorithms it uses? I'm calling bullshit on this article and the tweets.

sashahart2• 14 years ago

If it is like the interrogation I have gotten from developed countries outside the US, they are asking questions about what you do and what brings you to their country, and the questioning can be somewhat adversarial. Which nobody likes.

soupboy• 14 years ago

I know this is almost impossible, but can it be that the interrogator with 22 years of computer experience asked him those questions out of professional curiosity. Again, even I think it highly unlikely to have been the case. But were I to end up in some other profession after 22 years of computer experience, even I would be interested in knowing which algorithms were used and what the philosophical implications are for such a program.

jcoder• 14 years ago

The claim is that they detained him and confiscated his passport.

aggronn2• 14 years ago

that alone is not something worth fussing over. it happens a lot, and to people much less and more interesting than this guy.

rst• 14 years ago

If anything, that would make it worse --- it's anything but proper for law enforcement officers to detain people on a whim to satisfy "professional curiosity".

sneak• 14 years ago

If they NSL his Gmail, now they have the email addresses and frequency graphs of everyone with whom he communicates.

fijal• 14 years ago

Ok. Maybe people leaving in the US don't know about that, but spending time with US border officials is absolutely normal on the entry to the US. I travel to the US about once a year, and my times spent on the border look roughly like this (sorted, in hours) - 0, 0, 1, 1, 3.

sashahart2• 14 years ago

If you travel frequently across borders, you will often be taken aside and asked questions. It is mind-numbingly common, it has happened to me in Schiphol (EU) several times. Very annoying, but not at all the same as people being beaten and censored and put into gulags for mild civil forms of political dissent.

Let's not trivialize real totalitarianism in our haste to condemn stupid airport security theatre.

panarky2• 14 years ago

This is different from routine security nonsense. This developer was specifically questioned about his open-source projects.

If DHS is targeting people when they travel just because they work on information security, that's pretty chilling.

aggronn2• 14 years ago

We don't really know what questions he asked. For all we know, the developer has a bone to pick and is grossly exaggerating his claims.

Guard: "What do you do for a living?" Dev: "Software developer on a secure chat app"

Dev later claims he was interrogated about his work.

In regards to the specific question about the algorithm and the interrogator knowing something about computers, isn't it possible that he was personally interested in and asked while he had the chance to talk to someone who was familiar with that stuff?

tedunangst• 14 years ago

I've been rather thoroughly questioned about just what exactly openbsd is and what it's good for and why I'd be silly enough to work on it for free just about every time I visit Canada. It's annoying, but doesn't feel nefarious. Maybe I should start blogging about so the Internet will throw me a pity party.

X-Istence2• 14 years ago

I wonder if I will subjected to the same sort of questioning ... I am developing crypto software for my day job.

mfer• 14 years ago

Crypto software is subject to export controls for many countries. If you are going to distribute it as open source (or across borders from where it was developed) you should become familiar with the laws and regulations for your circumstance.

For the US there is a wikipedia post at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_in_the_...

Nrsolis• 14 years ago

I've worked in INFOSEC (of a sort) before and now I generally work on routing platforms. One thing that I've been schooled in pretty carefully is the law as is pertains to import/export of cryptographic technology.

Some folks here might not be familiar with the plight of Phil Zimmerman, who had the bright idea to invent PGP when there was a real chance that ALL crypto in the US would be fiercely regulated by the federal government.

For his trouble, he was under indictment for something like 3 years while the federales were deciding if he had broken any laws or not. His supposed crime: someone managed to get PGP out of the US. Not him...someone else. I guess they thought he helped them.

SO this sort of thing isn't new; it's been going on for a while and there are lots of stories around about folks who decided to write books about secret crypto-loving agencies in the US and almost got arrested for doing so.

To ignore the reality of the government's position/actions on this is to invite trouble. Your best answers to an agent of the government are always the ones that provide a true but ultimately useless answer. Never lie.

I'm an US citizen, served in the military, and middle aged. On my last trip back from Toronto, I got flack from the border agent because my flight out was from LaGuardia but I was connecting through Philadelphia on my return. Border agent gets all inquisitive and asks how I'm supposed to get from PHL to LGA as if I'm trying to be subversive about it. I roll my eyes and show him my ticket from PHL to LGA and all of a sudden he realizes he's an idiot. Bear in mind, NONE OF THIS MATTERS. I'm a goddamn US citizen and I can enter anywhere I damn where please. Of course, I didn't ARGUE with him, I just showed him and went along my way.

The less upset/indignant you act when being questioned, the less suspicious you look. That goes even if you've done nothing wrong and are completely within your rights.

X-Istence2• 14 years ago

Nope. Not open source, and is currently being developed for the US gov't... either way, as a foreign national that likes to travel home to The Netherlands it is something I am worried about (not exporting crypto, but being held at the border due to my current work).

thatusertwo• 14 years ago

I'm curious as to how they know he is a developer on the project? Is he vocal about his participation?

liamondrop• 14 years ago

a perhaps over-embellished encounter as a means to get publicity for his app.

horsehead2• 14 years ago

Where in the hell in that article is there any attempt to get the border agents' side of the story? For all we know, this is entirely fabricated.

While it very well may be true, this is shoddy journalism at its finest. Take this sentence, for example: "Apparently, a trip to the US now allegedly features a frightening round of intense interrogation by American border guards."

Apparently? Apparently!?! Are you kidding me.

Do some real journalism and stop quoting twitter.

melvinmt• 14 years ago

> If what you develop online or what you say online as it relates to Internet freedom could impact how you are treated at the Canada, US border, it certainly would make me think twice about coming in to the US.

Come on, don't be so naive. Everybody knows that the border guards google your name when you're taken aside. That's probably how the guy with an "Arabic sounding name" ended up on the first page of results with his encrypted chat pet project and therefore got "interrogated" by border patrol by asking one question.

The 1-hour extended interview with border patrol is not detaining someone, it's just common practice. Happened to me several times.

xxiao• 14 years ago

we do live in a hypocrisy world, esp in US, just embrace that to make life easier.

I am wondering, they have a database that connects your name with the OSS project you're on(or any projects for that matter)? and it pops out once they input your passport number? quite surprised.

ChuckMcM3• 14 years ago

To use the vernacular, this story doesn't 'scan'.

The comment "It’s an open source encrypted, private alternative to other services such as Facebook chat." and then the comment from an alleged interrogator, “The interrogator (who claimed 22 years of computer experience) asked me which algorithms Cryptocat used and about its censorship resistance.” really set off some bells.

If it's open source, then git/svn/cvs pull a copy of the repo and read the code. No need to interrogate the guy. And second the DHS doesn't have any history of going after folks simply because they write some open source software.

Now could the guy be detained for other reasons? Sure. But this feels more like a troll to generate buzz for his app which seems to be on a few warez sites. My quick look at Github and Sourceforge didn't find it there.

tlack• 14 years ago

I agree that some elements of the story don't make sense. How many DHS/Immigration employees even know what a cryptographic algorithm is? Did the guy just happen to be sitting around when this guy attempted to cross the border? If the US was up to something, why would they randomly interview a person like this? Why not pull whatever they need to know from their massive surveillance databases - surely that would be more accurate than whatever this guy would say under duress.

joshz• 14 years ago

The interrogator can claim whatever he wants, he may as well have 22 years of computer experience and be absolutely incompetent.

From cryptocat front page: "Messages are encrypted inside your own browser using AES-256"

Link to source on top right: https://project.crypto.cat/

albertsun• 14 years ago

https://github.com/kaepora/cryptocat

That's the second Google search result for Cryptocat.

ChuckMcM3• 14 years ago

Wow, I went back in my browsing history here to figure out what I did and I had typed 'CryptocHat' rather than 'Cryptocat' (guess my eyes/fingers are just installing the H without my approval).

CodeMage• 14 years ago

If it's open source, then git/svn/cvs pull a copy of the repo and read the code. No need to interrogate the guy.

While I understand what you're saying here, I can't help but think of how many times my co-workers asked me something they could have easily looked up via Google. I can easily extrapolate that to a border guard, especially if there's an added benefit of harassing a guy you don't like.

ChuckMcM3• 14 years ago

Oh I definitely get that. I've got a friend whose french daughter is often harassed coming into the US by immigration thinking she is an undercover nanny or something. I have no love whatsoever for the TSA (and the DHS for that matter)

My BS detector was pinging though that they even knew this guy had an open source project. If they were hassling him because of that, they had pre-knowledge of it and would know the answer to that question. If on the other hand they just pulled him out of the line and started giving him the 3rd degree because he 'looked like the type' and then got this 'crypto thing' and then tried to exploit that for some other reason, well that would be more like typical TSA protocol.

evilbit• 14 years ago

interrogators will routinely ask questions to which they already know answers so that they can establish a baseline for "truthfulness" (sort of a human lie detector).

they also need to engage the subject in a conversation and may ask most banal/unrelated questions, as well as keep asking the same question in a different way.

also, http://lmgtfy.com/?q=cryptocat

lloeki• 14 years ago

> who claimed 22 years of computer experience

Whatever that means, it could just as well be 22 years including VB, Fortran, C, in areas unrelated to crypto, or for what it's worth, Solitaire and Excel. If he's an old-timer he may not even have heard of version control or that opensource means that code is public for anyone to read.

jayro• 14 years ago

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.

"The filmmaker: Laura Poitras is an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker, whose recent films include “My Country, My Country,” about the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and “The Oath,” which was filmed in Yemen. Since 2006, Poitras has been detained and questioned at airports at least 40 times. She has had her computer and reporter’s notebooks confiscated and presumably copied, without a warrant. The most recent time, April 5, she took notes during her detention. The agents told her to stop, as they considered her pen a weapon."

...

"He [Jacob Appelbaum - a computer security researcher for the nonprofit organization the Tor Project (torproject.org)] has been detained at least a dozen times at airports: “I was put into a special room, where they frisked me, put me up against the wall. ... Another one held my wrists. ... They implied that if I didn’t make a deal with them, that I’d be sexually assaulted in prison. ... They took my cellphones, they took my laptop. They wanted, essentially, to ask me questions about the Iraq War, the Afghan War, what I thought politically.”

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/4/26/the_nsa_is_watchi...

* Detained in the U.S.: Filmmaker Laura Poitras Held, Questioned Some 40 Times at U.S. Airports [Video w/ Transcript] http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/detained_in_the_us_fil...

* "We Don’t Live in a Free Country": Jacob Appelbaum on Being Target of Widespread Gov’t Surveillance [Video w/ Transcript] http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/we_do_not_live_in_a

* Whistleblower: The NSA is Lying–U.S. Government Has Copies of Most of Your Emails [Video w/ Transcript] http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/whistleblower_the_nsa_...

vparat• 14 years ago

I'm wondering after reading the article if I should be worried with the app I wrote, http://www.selinked.com to learn nodejs and mongodb. It's a dead drop sort of thing with chatting, all encrypted on the frontend so nothing get's transmitted in the clear. It's not open source per se but all of the magic happens on the front end so you can see the code. Backend just manages sockets and stores encrypted data. When writing it it did cross mind that governments could have an issue with it but after seeing that I was not the first one to do this I figured I was ok. Now I'm starting to reconsider this position, I already get enough shit at the airports due to the fact I'm a green card holder and treated as a third rate citizen, don't need more.

planetguy2• 14 years ago

The impression I get is that if the US actually wants to ask you about something then they'll do it for more than an hour. They'll fly in someone from the NSA to meet you at the border, he'll probably make you comfortable and have a nice little chat with you and it will become a big deal.

Getting stuck at the border for an hour is a sufficiently short time, in the bureaucratic system, that we can assume they didn't really care. In all probability it was just some random border guard who really did have a CS background and was excited to get a chance to use it.

eridius• 14 years ago

Someone with "22 years of computer experience" and knows about encryption algorithms doesn't become a border guard.

planetguy2• 14 years ago

But if they do, they're bitter enough to want to interrogate every programmer who comes through their station.

rdl• 14 years ago

Why not?

Work in the military for 20 years (ok, 22) in a communications or IT capacity, retire, collect pension. 20 years of military computer experience doesn't necessarily make you an expert or even employable, sadly.

You then get preferential hiring for other positions in the government, especially law enforcement. Working for ICE/CBP wouldn't be a horrible job (if you could do it for a few days a month, I think it would be fun -- you're basically the first contact a visitor has with the US, and you get to meet lots of interesting people from around the world. In most countries, this is a particularly well respected job, a whole lot better than being deep in the bowels of government bureaucracy.)

sebsauvage• 14 years ago

With my client-side encrypted pastebin & discussion board, I'm not going to the USA anytime soon. ( http://sebsauvage.net/wiki/doku.php?id=php:zerobin )

drone3• 14 years ago

Given that we'll only ever get one side of the story, and that side of the story being interpreted a certain way would certainly bring favor to the author, how can we actually presume that the few tweets he made really gives us the whole picture?

I mean, this is a guy who is, by what appears to be his own admissions on twitter, a "internet freedom activitist," who just got done talking at a conference about his software. This would be a great PR icing on the cake. I'm not saying it's manufactured, but I have just as much evidence for that as I do to the contrary based on the information presented.

rorrr• 14 years ago

He needs to sue the government.

tnash• 14 years ago

Could it be related to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_in_the_U...

I remember in my college security class our prof recommended that if we left the country we didn't bring any sort of cryptography work with us. I'm not a lawyer so I don't quite understand the legal ramifications.

bobowzki• 14 years ago

Which algorithm it's using... why don't they just read the code?

antidoh• 14 years ago

How long until foreign businesses and governments prohibit key people from visiting or transiting the US?

Encrypted Chat Developer Detained, Interrogated at US Border

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