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posted by Fnord666 on Monday July 17 2017, @12:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the trumped-again dept.

El Reg reports

The Internet Engineering Task Force has taken the rare (and possibly costly) decision to relocate an upcoming meeting out of America.

IETF 102, scheduled for mid-2018, was booked for the San Francisco Hilton, but instead will be held in the Fairmont Hotel in Montreal.

The reason, as announced by IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) chair Leslie Daigle, is the President Donald Trump administration: American travel restrictions make attendance uncertain.

[...] travel restrictions have been bounced around between the US legal system and the White House, and the Oversight Committee hasn't seen anything to reduce that uncertainty.

[...] it is impossible to know or predict the extent of the restrictions placed on individuals attempting to attend IETF 102 twelve months from now, or the level of uncertainty that will exist, and the impact that will have on the ability for the IETF to hold a successful meeting in the United States at that time. However, the current orientation and actions of the US government provide no basis for expecting conditions at the US border to improve for non-citizens.

[...] if the IETF cannot stage something in San Francisco, it will likely lose any deposit paid to the venue.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday July 17 2017, @02:36PM (9 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Monday July 17 2017, @02:36PM (#540320)

    So, by your logic, we should have banned all travel from Northern Ireland, and possibly Ireland and the UK, for most of the 20th century. In fact, arguably we should still be banning it now because groups like the Real IRA are still out there trying to kill people with the goal of making Northern Ireland part of Ireland rather than part of the UK.

    Also, Sudan's war has been over for a couple of years.

    In general, though, fears of terrorism are thoroughly misplaced, because Americans are far more likely to be killed falling off a ladder than anything the terrorists have been able to do.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @03:00PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @03:00PM (#540333)

    Not just that,
    with that wording, as the US is currently involved in several civil wars with islamist extremists, you can ban all of the US to fly as well.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by gawdonblue on Monday July 17 2017, @10:03PM (2 children)

      by gawdonblue (412) on Monday July 17 2017, @10:03PM (#540603)

      It goes without saying that US citizens should be banned from travelling to other countries, for a whole raft of reasons.

      They're very loud, for one. Nice quiet suburban mom back home in (insert US city name here1) becomes a nasal foghorn that wakes up half the neighbourhood shouting out to her husband about how cute some feral animal is.

      1. Why do Americans always state exactly where they're from? Everyone else says their country name when you ask2, and all you really want to know is whether they're from Canada or the US3 but they insist on telling you the name of the town and state they live in. Only Americans do this.

      2. Actually, Americans usually tell you exactly where they're from within the first 5 seconds of meeting them. I've assumed this is just a nationwide misunderstanding of Dale Carnegie: "Oh, hiiiiii! I'm Susan and this is my husband Dave and we're from Sparrowfart, North Dakota. You know, right near the border with Seattle4. We have two children. Randy, our youngest, is in junior high, and [insert list of Randy's achievements here]. Tammy, our eldest, is in college and [insert list of Tammy's achievements here and usually includes who they've dated; I don't know why]. Dave works at [insert obscure business name here, which you're supposed to recognise; I never do] and he's just got 20 years of service5. Dave tell them about what happened last week with your boss...". Carnegie's point was to appear6 to be interested in the other person's home, family and work. Oh well.

      3. Don't know why, but Canadians sound more American than Americans. They should get get an accent of their own.

      4. North Dakota might be somewhere near a state called Seattle. I'd look it up but it probably doesn't matter.

      5. It always seems to be after 20 years service. I assume this is when Americans are allowed to take leave.

      6. I actually attended a Dale Carnegie course once. My work paid for it. Embarrassingly, I got kicked out for calling it "How to Win Friends and Manipulate People". After attending six sessions, I honestly thought that was the goal. They couldn't influence me otherwise.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:18AM (#540657)

        The explanation of number 3 is that Canadians watch a lot of American TV while holed up for the winter.

      • (Score: 2) by t-3 on Tuesday July 18 2017, @01:58PM

        by t-3 (4907) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @01:58PM (#540942)

        Americans state where they're from because US states/Canadian provinces are mostly as large or larger than your country, and despite that, there is a very large amount of movement within states and between them, and any random American has a decent chance of not only knowing where the hell Bumfuck, MiddleOfNowhere is, but probably their cousin lives there or they stopped through on a business trip last year.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @03:33PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @03:33PM (#540341)

    In general, though, fears of terrorism are thoroughly misplaced, because Americans are far more likely to be killed falling off a ladder than anything the terrorists have been able to do.

    If terrorists pose the same risk as an important occupational hazard, that is actually significant. I agree that the response to terrorism was bungled. But 9/11 was a major event, and the perpetrators would do us orders of magnitude more harm if they could.

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 17 2017, @03:43PM (2 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday July 17 2017, @03:43PM (#540348)

      Ladder accidents aren't very high up on the causes of death in the US. They aren't zero, but it's not like thousands of people are falling off ladders to their death every year. Occupational risks that are far more significant than ladders include getting murdered (especially if you work as a convenience store clerk), black lung disease (for miners), and getting hit by tree branches (for lumberjacks).

      My general view on the reason why the government is doing far more in the name of fighting terrorism than it is in the name of ladder safety is because fighting terrorism creates the "America! Fuck yeah!" vibe that so many people love.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @05:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @05:28PM (#540416)

        We don't have much potential for exponentially increasing ladder accidents. Terrorism does have that potential, since most of it comes from a small but rapidly growing segment of the population.

        Ladder accidents normally affect only the person who is most responsible. When others are affected, they are almost always at least partially responsible. One can generally prevent ladder accidents by avoiding ladders; this is not really an option with terrorism.

        There is no plausible military or border control response to ladder accidents, but there are many for terrorism. The fact that we can do something about thing X doesn't imply that nothing should be done about thing Y. If we could reduce ladder accidents with a bombing run or import ban, we sure as heck would. We probably would ban ladders if not for the fact that people would instead make wobbly stacks of chairs and buckets.

      • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:49AM

        by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:49AM (#540671)

        It's because there's money in war. Lots of it.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:03AM

      by isostatic (365) on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:03AM (#540766) Journal

      But 9/11 was a major event

      Over FIFTEEN years ago. Bin Laden is dead. Al-queadea did nothing of interest after that - there was no need for them to - they won.

      The biggest threat to normal americans is your crazy police force who shoot unarmed women in their pyjamas.