Detroit crackdown blocks security professional's entry into the U.S.
It was random, but out of several foreign researchers planning to attend the annual Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas this week, Thomas Dullien (better known as "Halvar Flake") was denied access at the border. Dullien happened to enter the United States amid heightened security among airport screeners at the Detroit airport. Dullien reportedly told Black Hat officials that as he was boarding the plane back to Germany, a screener mentioned Detroit was experiencing a crackdown following an episode earlier at that airport. That's the speculation on the day after Dullien's security class for the annual Black Hat Training in Las Vegas was canceled. Dullien remains in Berlin, trying to get a three-day business visa back to the United States in the hopes he can attend the latter half of the conference.
Meanwhile, Black Hat officials worked swiftly on Sunday to relocate the 20 students left without an instructor. Black Hat Director Jeff Moss said they contacted everyone registered for Dullien 's class via e-mail and reassigned them into existing classes. Still, on Monday morning, there were a handful of students who didn't know about the class cancellation, or still hadn't decided on a replacement class.
Moss said that the original agreement between Black Hat and Dullien was not between his company but with him as an individual. That fact that Black Hat, a U.S. company, would pay Dullien directly apparently violated the visa waiver he'd signed. Moss said Black Hat drew up a new contact Sunday afternoon, but by then Dullien was on a plane back to Germany.
As CNET's resident security expert, Robert Vamosi has been interviewed on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and other outlets to share his knowledge about the latest online threats and to offer advice on personal and corporate security. Listen to his podcast at securitybites.cnet.com or e-mail Robert with your questions and comments. 
- Security in action
- by n3td3v July 30, 2007 6:29 PM PDT
- he didn't have the right visa, peddle on people.
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- You've got it wrong.
- by Marcus Westrup July 31, 2007 5:04 PM PDT
- This has little to do with having the right Visa, and everything to do with border officials who make up their own rules.
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- How did it go right?
- by The_Decider August 2, 2007 9:02 AM PDT
- Was he a terrorist bent on causing havoc?
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(5 Comments)folks only moan when security doesn't work, but security is proved to work then we moan like silly old moany bastards.
this isn't even news, although the conspiracy theorists would love to think he was banned just because he was heading for the blackhat conference.
we should take our hats off to the custom officials for doing a good job and a grand job in respect of national security.
we love to bash the homeland security folks when things go wrong, we never hear when things go right.
love the media,
kiss kiss
You DO know how this works don't you? Security people have the right to deny anybody for any silly reason they can think of. There are many cases of diplomatic immunity being violated by officials who just didn't care.
And yes, being denied because of the blackhat conference is exactly the kind of thing that happens.
No? So stopping a non-threat is the definition of working security in your eyes?