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FBI Raids Home of Prominent Computer Scientist Who Has Gone Incommunicado (arstechnica.com) 95

Posted by msmash from the breaking-news dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer, Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why.

Xiaofeng Wang has a long list of prestigious titles. He was the associate dean for research at Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a tenured professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. According to his employer, he has served as principal investigator on research projects totaling nearly $23 million over his 21 years there.

He has also co-authored scores of academic papers on a diverse range of research fields, including cryptography, systems security, and data privacy, including the protection of human genomic data.

FBI Raids Home of Prominent Computer Scientist Who Has Gone Incommunicado More | Reply

FBI Raids Home of Prominent Computer Scientist Who Has Gone Incommunicado

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  • Indiana? (Score:2, Funny)

    by VampireByte ( 447578 )

    Has anyone checked if they are in the Upside Down? Get out the Christmas lights!

  • Only one of them was on encryption. Most of it was white-hat hacker stuff, preventing hacks and detecting malware type of stuff.

    • Well, don't hack for reporters in Trump businesses in Panama and uncover money laundering for Russians... Not that it'll stop investigations, the threat of invasion is going to punish them for that and if they continue the investigators will be the first that are bombed. Just as USAID was destroyed before they could complete auditing Musk ripping off the US Gov paying him to be an ISP... I remembered the news and it's clearly an admission of guilt by the immediate action taken. Screwing up the SEC was als

  • That is one creepy article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Monday March 31, 2025 @10:23AM (#65271499)

    I recommend reading the article - I know, I know, but in this case there's important info which doesn't appear in TFS.

    The story sounds like it has the potential to become a movie - pick a genre from among spy, mystery, suspense, thriller, or dystopian. If Slashdot stories came in installments, I would be eagerly awaiting the next one.

  • Chinese Spy? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Monday March 31, 2025 @10:32AM (#65271515) Homepage Journal
    So...maybe the found him to be a Chinese spy?

    His cover got blown...and he was either arrested or he is on the run by to china?

  • "Xiaofeng Wang" No one knows why.. (Shatner voice) (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pierre Pants ( 6554598 ) on Monday March 31, 2025 @10:35AM (#65271523)
    A mystery if there ever was one.

  • With a response like that it must undoubtedly be a national security issue. Too many serious things have happened in short succession for it to be anything else. With his position he'd be perfectly positioned to intercept knowledge, secrets, suggest protocol weaknesses or even bundle government software with backdoors.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by ClickOnThis ( 137803 )

      With a response like that it must undoubtedly be a national security issue. Too many serious things have happened in short succession for it to be anything else. With his position he'd be perfectly positioned to intercept knowledge, secrets, suggest protocol weaknesses or even bundle government software with backdoors.

      It's also possible that he found out something that will embarrass the current administration. It's too early to ascribe malicious intent to him. Let's wait for the details. Let's hope we get some details.

  • Really? You don't know why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Monday March 31, 2025 @10:38AM (#65271543) Journal

    and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why....

    ...Xiaofeng Wang

    That's why.

    With the repeated history of Chinese academics arrested for spying for the regime in Beijing [google.com], is anyone with a whit of sense actually shocked?

    • An academic in a public university who publishes their work is a spy? That school do any significant research grants for the DoD? not likely. What? he educate his students poorly so they can't competently defend the USA at those security jobs that Trump has eliminated?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      Honestly at this point you don't need to be a spy to be arrested in America, just a foreign sounding name will do it, especially if you said something like "Israel bad". It's okay guys I'm white and have a normal name, I'm safe when I say it.

  • Lazy writing (Score:2, Informative)

    by computer_tot ( 5285731 )
    "No one knows why."

    This is so lazy on the part of the writer. Of course some people know why. The FBI knows why. They just aren't saying. The missing guy didn't vanish into another dimension, he was abducted and the people who abducted him know why they did it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      True, but also troll. "Nobody knows" is just slang for "there's no public information."

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by schwit1 ( 797399 )

      What is your proof that he was abducted? Maybe he's fled the country. Maybe he's in hiding in the US.

      Maybe this is a show by the FBI and he's in FBI custody but they want to give the impression they don't have him.

      Lots of possibilities.

    • More like ICE has him and didn't tell the FBI yet so they are looking.
      Perhaps he posted some anti Trump comment on facebook so ICE got him? Or he was failing a student caught cheating and they made up something and reported him?

  • More detail at "Talking Points Memo" (Score:5, Informative)

    by alanw ( 1822 ) <alan@wylie.me.uk> on Monday March 31, 2025 @11:46AM (#65271697) Homepage

    Recently updated news at Talking Points Memo [talkingpointsmemo.com]

    March 29th: Sketchy First Reports [talkingpointsmemo.com]

    March 30th: More Details on Situation at Indiana University [talkingpointsmemo.com]

    March 31st: Another Update on the Situation at Indiana University [talkingpointsmemo.com]

    I wanted to provide a quick update on the case of Professor Xiaofeng Wang at Indiana University. For overview details, see the posts below. The latest is the IU chapter of a faculty organization (the American Association of University Professors) has sent a letter to the university challenging Professor Wang’s termination. You can see that letter here. The letter itself is the best evidence we as yet have that Wang was in fact fired by the university. The university itself has not confirmed that or publicly commented at all. And at least no one who is talking appears to be in contact with Wang. So we don’t have any confirmation from him or anyone speaking on his behalf.

    It’s important to note that all of this is unfolding in the context of people having pretty little information about what’s happening. It appears that Professor Wang is the target of a federal investigation of some sort. ...

  • This one is weird (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Monday March 31, 2025 @12:08PM (#65271785)
    The US has a bit of a history with Chinese-born academics. This has happened multiple times: some idiot in the CIA gets suspicious of an individual Chinese-born professor in a sensitive field. They don't bother to do a real investigation first, they jump the gun and get a sympathetic judge to approve an indictment, raid his offices, the university suspends him, and the government parades him around in front of the media in handcuffs like he's already guilty.

    8 months later, the government quietly drops all charges without even saying "whoopsie" or "sorry" and tries to pretend like the whole thing never happened. The professor's life gets put through the blender. Usually, they get a multimillion dollar payout, but that's several years later after suing.

    IIRC, this has happened under both Republican and Democrat presidents.

    There's a few details about this one that are a bit different, but this administration especially doesn't give a rats ass about things like "due process" or "due diligence". Maybe the guy is innocent, or maybe he's a Chinese spy, but I have zero faith that this administration put in the investigative work beforehand.

    • If that were the case, he'd probably be in custody by now, and the Feds would be parading him around in front of the media.

    • One big problem is that if you take the available capacity for due diligence and divide it by 10 million illegals, then you get a very small fraction of a rats ass. That is just the reality of it.

      • Re: This one is weird (Score:4, Insightful)

        by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Monday March 31, 2025 @03:49PM (#65272479)
        This is not some random housepainter. He appears to be a near-top-notch researcher in a field that's currently extremely important. This is a case that deserves a full rats ass to be given. China would looooovvveeee to get their hands on him. Most Chinese-born academics that go through this ultimately decide to stay in the US, even after the mistreatment, because China has a history of being really good to their STEM workers, right up to the point that the revolutionary guards beat them to death.

        But there are a few cases of key Chinese scientists who got abused by the US, went back to China, and we were really, really, reeeeallllyyy sorry. Check out the case of Qian Xeusen.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Like I said, we have a bit of a history of doing this, so I'm not gonna lay ALL the blame on the current administration. It's more of a comment on our general stupidity. I sure hope that the CIA did their due diligence beforehand, but their track record isn't good when it comes to charging academics with espionage.

      • One big problem is that if you take the available capacity for due diligence and divide it by 10 million illegals, then you get a very small fraction of a rats ass. That is just the reality of it.

        Here's another reality: the overwhelming majority of those 10 or 11 million undocumented immigrants just want to live and work in the USA, and stay out of trouble.

        Of course, the government has limited resources for catching and deporting undocumented immigrants. That's why it should concentrate on the bad ones. The demonstrably bad ones -- not just the ones with tattoos. And by "demonstrably" I mean having received due process to decide whether to deport them.

    • We see this all the time in law enforcement all over the world and I think it is getting worse. No one ever gets in trouble for escalating a situation. This could have been a minor suspicion that someone could have quietly checked and decide there is nothing here but instead they escalate it a little and someone else sees it and it escalates a bit more and pretty soon a joke on a private chat results in fighters escorting a plane back. https://www.news.com.au/travel... [news.com.au]

  • Better Headline (Score:4, Funny)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Monday March 31, 2025 @12:37PM (#65271881)
    "Many FBI Officials Can't Find Wang"

  • "None of this is in any way normal," Matthew Green, a professor specializing in cryptography at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Mastodon. He continued: "Has anyone been in contact? I hear he’s been missing for two weeks and his students can’t reach him. How does this not get noticed for two weeks???"

    I have seen faculty seemingly disappear, incommunicado, for weeks at a time. Incommunicado to me, anyway... and I assume the FBI aren't typically involved.

  • Not being transgender I did not do anything.

    Then they came for the immigrants. Not being an immigrant I did not do anything.

    Then they came for the Asians and Hispanics. Not being an Asian or Hispanic I did not anything.

    The they came for the atheists. Not being an atheists I did not anything.

    Then they came for me. And there was no one left to do anything for me.

    • First they came for the transgenders and I applauded. Because I don't like being lied to about something I can see with my own two eyes, and I like even less being told to endorse and repeat the lie.

      Then they came for the illegal immigrants. And being a legal immigrant myself, I said, "Good. Either there's one set of rules that applies to everyone or there are no rules. And Mom and Dad didn't uproot their lives and move half way around the world so Little RightwingNutjob has to live in an anarchic jungle."

      T

      • ...
        Then they came for Indiana University's WANG and men everywhere winced in sympathetic horror.

      • Then they came for the illegal immigrants. And being a legal immigrant myself, I said, "Good. Either there's one set of rules that applies to everyone or there are no rules. And Mom and Dad didn't uproot their lives and move half way around the world so Little RightwingNutjob has to live in an anarchic jungle."

        Except that isn't what's happening. Surely you've been paying enough attention to recent events to know that. The government has been deporting huge numbers of legal immigrants. Often with zero due process. Sometimes in open defiance of judges who told them not to. Sometimes for no reason other than having publicly expressed views Trump doesn't like. Some of those people are now in foreign prisons where they're being tortured.

        I can provide references if you really need them, but if you've been paying

        • The government has been deporting huge numbers of legal immigrants. Often with zero due process.

          And toss in a little extraordinary rendition for good measure.

          Some of those people are now in foreign prisons where they're being tortured.

          This is itself also illegal under international law the US has ratified.

        • Okay dude. Back in the cave days of the 1990s, when I was a Little RightwingNutjob, I was helping my septugenarian grandparents practice their English so they could pass their US citizenship interviews.

          And you know what a standard question was? I remember it quite clearly:

          Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?

          You know what that was? It was ideological screening of legal permanent residents.

          I am decidedly unmoved by recent developments.

          • Okay dude. Back in the cave days of the 1990s, when I was a Little RightwingNutjob, I was helping my septugenarian grandparents practice their English so they could pass their US citizenship interviews.

            You know what that was? It was ideological screening of legal permanent residents.

            You are comparing two radically dissimilar things. If you are denied citizenship you don't lose your permanent resident status and get booted out of the country.

            The supreme court has consistently ruled green card holders have the same rights as everyone else including the same freedom of speech rights. While you can be deported it needs to be for cause such as commission of certain crimes or having made material misrepresentations when acquiring permanent residence.

            I am decidedly unmoved by recent developments.

            Do you really want to live in a multi-ti

            • No I don't want to live in a multi tier system of justice. I want to live in a country where citizens are free to exercise their right of free association with whomever they choose, to spend their hard-earned money on whatever lawful products or services they wish without extrajudicial shaming campaigns for or against any particular product or service, and where they can voice their honest opinion in a civil manner without having their career prospects tanked or the law coming down on them.

              That country exis

              • Government and politics is downstream of culture. The above was your culture. Still is, as far as I can tell.

                What the fuck you talking about? That is not my "culture" or anything remotely like it.

                I am annoyed by leftist obsession with identity, pronouns, universities marking huge lists of common words as harmful and hateful. Little pricks who tell me I can't say "you're retarded" because somehow this means I am insulting retards.

                While climate change is obviously real I've never seen a leftist policy to address it that is in any way coherent.

                I spent years shitting on all kinds of popular covid narratives includin

                • Okay. Not your version. Handles are just letters on a screen, not people.

                  But that version exists and msm braying to the contrary, nobody bats a thousand but most of what he's doing is targeted where I like.

                  • Okay. Not your version. Handles are just letters on a screen, not people.
                    But that version exists and msm braying to the contrary

                    So shit you disagree with exists, so what? Is this supposed to be some kind of excuse or justification? What is your point?

                    Nobody bats a thousand but most of what he's doing is targeted where I like.

                    Enjoy your stay @ CECOT the next time a radical leftist gets power, declared all rightwingnutjobs terrorists and renditions all your asses without any due process. Don't drop the soap.

              • I want to live in a country where citizens are free to exercise their right of free association with whomever they choose [...] and where they can voice their honest opinion in a civil manner without having their career prospects tanked or the law coming down on them.

                You mean like Mahmoud Khalil [apnews.com] who literally was arrested for no crime other than organizing lawful protests and expressing views Trump didn't like? No, I didn't think that was what you meant.

                as self-righteous leftist busybodies have spent the last two decades creating cultures of shame about

                What you call "creating cultures of shame" is more commonly referred to as, "exercising their freedom of speech." That's right, you are condemning them for doing exactly what you just said everyone should be able to do. You don't like the things they say? You feel they're criticizing you? You don't like it when peop

                • We have to deal with it but when it happens to one of yours who was literally cheerleading for Islamic terrorists in New York City it's a war crime.

                  Y'all spent the last decade or two proving your compassion stretches to the end of your aisle and no further.

                  I'm gonna sit this mess out.

                  • Who do you mean by "yours" and "y'all"? What group do you imagine I represent?

                    I disagree with everything you say, but I would be outraged if you were arrested for saying it. That's because I believe in freedom of speech. Why aren't you outraged when someone else is arrested for exercising the exact freedoms you claim to believe in?

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