Academics locked out by tight visa controls

R. A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Mon Sep 20 08:33:02 EDT 2004


<http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/9710963.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp>

Posted on Mon, Sep. 20, 2004

Academics locked out by tight visa controls
U.S. SECURITY BLOCKS FREE EXCHANGE OF IDEAS
By Bruce Schneier


Cryptography is the science of secret codes, and it is a primary Internet
security tool to fight hackers, cyber crime, and cyber terrorism. CRYPTO is
the world's premier cryptography conference. It's held every August in
Santa Barbara.

This year, 400 people from 30 countries came to listen to dozens of talks.
Lu Yi was not one of them. Her paper was accepted at the conference. But
because she is a Chinese Ph.D. student in Switzerland, she was not able to
get a visa in time to attend the conference.

In the three years since 9/11, the U.S. government has instituted a series
of security measures at our borders, all designed to keep terrorists out.
One of those measures was to tighten up the rules for foreign visas.
Certainly this has hurt the tourism industry in the U.S., but the damage
done to academic research is more profound and longer-lasting.

According to a survey by the Association of American Universities, many
universities reported a drop of more than 10 percent in foreign student
applications from last year. During the 2003 academic year, student visas
were down 9 percent. Foreign applications to graduate schools were down 32
percent, according to another study by the Council of Graduate Schools.

There is an increasing trend for academic conferences, meetings and
seminars to move outside of the United States simply to avoid visa hassles.

This affects all of high-tech, but ironically it particularly affects the
very technologies that are critical in our fight against terrorism.

Also in August, on the other side of the country, the University of
Connecticut held the second International Conference on Advanced
Technologies for Homeland Security. The attendees came from a variety of
disciplines -- chemical trace detection, communications compatibility,
X-ray scanning, sensors of various types, data mining, HAZMAT clothing,
network intrusion detection, bomb diffusion, remote-controlled drones --
and illustrate the enormous breadth of scientific know-how that can
usefully be applied to counterterrorism.

It's wrong to believe that the U.S. can conduct the research we need alone.
At the Connecticut conference, the researchers presenting results included
many foreigners studying at U.S. universities. Only 30 percent of the
papers at CRYPTO had only U.S. authors. The most important discovery of the
conference, a weakness in a mathematical function that protects the
integrity of much of the critical information on the Internet, was made by
four researchers from China.

Every time a foreign scientist can't attend a U.S. technology conference,
our security suffers. Every time we turn away a qualified technology
graduate student, our security suffers. Technology is one of our most
potent weapons in the war on terrorism, and we're not fostering the
international cooperation and development that is crucial for U.S. security.

Security is always a trade-off, and specific security countermeasures
affect everyone, both the bad guys and the good guys. The new U.S.
immigration rules may affect the few terrorists trying to enter the United
States on visas, but they also affect honest people trying to do the same.

All scientific disciplines are international, and free and open information
exchange -- both in conferences and in academic programs at universities --
will result in the maximum advance in the technologies vital to homeland
security. The Soviet Union tried to restrict academic freedom along
national lines, and it didn't do the country any good. We should try not to
follow in those footsteps.

BRUCE SCHNEIER is a security technologist and chief technology officer of
Counterpane Internet Security, Inc., in Mountain View. He wrote this for
the Mercury News.

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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