Awesome Chinese cryptographers didn't get US visas for tech conference

By at 4:17 am Thursday, Aug 18

Dan sez, "Wow. I am...mortified...apparently, our country wouldn't let Xiaoyun Wang -- the Chinese professor who finally took MD5 out back -- into the US. Wow. As someone who personally benefitted from her research...I don't know what to say."
Last year a Chinese mathematician, Xiaoyun Wang, shook up the insular world of code breakers by exposing a new vulnerability in a crucial American standard for data encryption. On Monday, she was scheduled to explain her discovery in a keynote address to an international group of researchers meeting in California.

But a stand-in had to take her place, because she was not able to enter the country. Indeed, only one of nine Chinese researchers who sought to enter the country for the conference received a visa in time to attend.

Although none of the scientists were officially denied visas by the United States Consulate, officials at the State Department and National Academy of Sciences said this week that the situation was not uncommon.

Link (Thanks, Dan!)

Cory Doctorow

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