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Comment by daseiner1 | Hacker News Reader

not a good time to be a foreign tech worker in the US

> not a good time to be a foreign tech worker in the US

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Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen - was accused of accessing the personal information of more than 6,000 Twitter accounts in 2015 on behalf of Saudi Arabia.

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Well if they plan on spying for their government, don’t think we’d want them to have a great time? Don’t think that is too controversial.

Maybe. But, that doesn't address the parent comment's meaning. I interpret it as saying that both spying and non-spying foreign tech workers might be affected by the same brush tar.

I imagine most of the tech spying/IP theft doesn’t even happen on US soil. Let employees in e.g., China access your internal network — what could possibly go wrong?

For many BigCos, it is explicitly forbidden to access the network in certain countries, or bring any company devices into those countries.

I don't think it's fair to generalize on a sensitive topic like this. People are already scrutinized enough when it comes to getting a working visa.

Rather they might be sympathizing because it might be inevitable for others to generalize like that.

my point is innocent people are going to be unduly scrutinized further. plus our current admin as-is doesn’t exactly love foreign workers (a massive understatement)

I don’t doubt that this will happen, but it’s perfectly within the rights of the United States to apply more scrutiny to e.g. Chinese nationals seeking employment at tech companies. We’re in a trade war with them and a de facto state of cyberwar. It’s not at all unreasonable to expect the US Government to look a little more closely at people coming here to work in tech, especially for roles in sensitive positions.

Nobody said it wasn't reasonable. They're saying this will make your life suck more if you're a foreign worker regardless of whether or not you're a spy. Even if you view it as a necessary evil, it can still suck for people doing nothing wrong.

My concern is that companies and people will laser-focus on the "foreign tech worker" part as if they are the sole threat vector. That presents an unacceptable blind spot, not to mention getting people to think that foreigners are likely to be spies.

In practice, it's not really much more difficult to find a US citizen tech worker who'd be willing to take a few hundred thousand to do the same thing (and it's something that happens routinely), and completely ignores the fact that US intelligence agencies also have a long-running habit of getting their spies hired by US companies too.

The difference of course is that when the US intelligence agencies get US workers to spy at US companies they do so for the US government - oh and the countries we see fit to spy on already have fairly severe employment restrictions such that it’s not easy for an American to get a job in one of their companies. There’s an asymmetry that exists here.

> oh and the countries we see fit to spy on already have fairly severe employment restrictions such that it’s not easy for an American to get a job in one of their companies

I'm not sure who you think America spies on, but the real list is much bigger than you probably think, and includes countries considered American allies (for instance, the UK and Germany.)

I guess I’m not sure how that is relative. Israel also spies on the US. My point is the asymmetry here in job opportunities between countries who are our, at least ostensible, geopolitical adversaries.

My point was that the quoted characterization of targets of American intelligence agencies was grossly inaccurate.

> The difference of course is that when the US intelligence agencies get US workers to spy at US companies they do so for the US government

From a security point of view, that's a distinction without a difference.

not from a national security point of view. well, more accurately it kicks the can further down the line to the security of wherever and whoever the government is using for that data.

> In practice, it's not really much more difficult to find a US citizen tech worker who'd be willing to take a few hundred thousand to do the same thing (and it's something that happens routinely)

Where do you get this information?

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