Of course Halvar is a serious genius who should be invited with open arms into the united states. Hopefully he will still come to Canada for CanSecWest. But unfortunately there is no easy work permit for genius like Halvar (the special abilities Visa stuff is expensive and not appropriate for training at a conference).

A little known fact is that foreign security researches who come to the United States to work on projects frequently get paid by American companies for work they do in the US without a work permit. Sometimes their companies get paid by the US firm, but the employees rarely get the proper work visas, even in that situation. I think this practice greatly helps the state of US computer security, but it probably is technically in violation. If this wasn't such a small time deal (a few people a month nationally) I would say congress should create a Visa category...but as it is I think we rely on the benign neglect of custom s agents to ensure helpful people get through to help keep the worlds computers secure.

Only Canadian and Mexican citizens qualify for the really easy TN visas, and so they are the only security people who consistently get the right work permits.

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