I think it's part overreaction from security folks, part bureaucratic overcomplexity.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
To people outside the Internet bubble, saying you're an ethical, white-hat hacker must sound a bit like saying you're an ethical, white-hat thief.
"During this year I missed out on a Mozilla all-hands, I’ve been invited to the US several times to talk at conferences that I had to decline and a friend is getting married there this summer and I can’t go."<p>Wouldn't all these things be covered by an esta?<p><a href="https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/" rel="nofollow">https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/</a><p>Edit: nevermind he talks about it in the other linked article <a href="https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/07/28/administrative-purgatory/" rel="nofollow">https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2018/07/28/administrative-purgat...</a>
At this point, wouldn't contacting an immigration lawyer be beneficial? As he says in his other article (see lm28469's comment), he wants to visit the US and not give up hope. See <a href="https://www.ailawoffice.com/immigration/visa-denial" rel="nofollow">https://www.ailawoffice.com/immigration/visa-denial</a> for example.
I fail to understand why he sounds so bitter about all this. He, nor anyone in fact, is in any way _entitled_ to a visa and any government is well within their rights to reject for any reason.<p>Besides, his counter page and his list of events he's missed is laughable. Such whining!<p>I've only ever encountered the _very_ privileged (and Mr. Stenberg with a Danish passport firmly falls in this category) who are outraged when there are complications with this sort of thing.<p>A Singaporean once lamented to me about getting a Ukranian visa for a friend of theirs as if it's some kind of terrible tragedy failing to realize that most of the world needs visas whenever they travel.<p>E: His other article, "administrative purgatory" is an even bigger whinefest that it crossed over into the funny, complaining about literally any and all things that literally everyone who doesn't qualify for ESTA has to go through...