What does Elon really want to know ?

1) Do you think outside the box ? - North Pole is the wrong answer.

2) Are you a math geek ? - North Pole is the wrong answer.

3) Are you the sort who recognizes that the lack of a unique answer and protests the fairness of the question? - North Pole is probably still the wrong answer

4) Will you embrace the KISS principle? - North Pole is the RIGHT answer.

The form of the teaser that I originally heard is ... "You're standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk one mile south, one mile west, and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started and you see a bear. What colour is the bear?"

Mark Rowley, the UK's national police lead for counter-terrorism, said, "[The acceleration of technology] can be set up in a way which is friendly to terrorists and helps them ... and creates challenges for law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Or it can be set up in a way which doesn't do that."

Rephrasing that and removing the "mealy-mouth" what he is saying is "Tech companies who don't actively support the expansion of the police state by any means necessary are friendly to terrorists." This is a patently ridiculous statement for which he would be burned in effigy if he stated it openly ... which is why he couches it in vagueness.