Cybersecurity Professor Faced China Funding Inquiry Before Disappearing (wired.com)
(Wednesday April 02, 2025 @05:41PM (msmash)
from the stranger-things dept.)
- Reference: 0176905471
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/02/1846224/cybersecurity-professor-faced-china-funding-inquiry-before-disappearing
- Source link: https://www.wired.com/story/xiaofeng-wang-indiana-university-research-probe-china/
The FBI [1]searched two homes of Indiana University Bloomington data privacy professor Xiaofeng Wang last week, following [2]months of university inquiries into whether he received unreported research funding from China, WIRED reported Wednesday.
Wang, who leads the Center for Distributed Confidential Computing established with a $3 million National Science Foundation grant, was terminated on March 28 via email from the university provost. The university had contacted Wang in December regarding a 2017-2018 grant in China that listed him as a researcher, questioning whether he properly disclosed the funding to IU and in applications for U.S. federal research grants.
Jason Covert, Wang's attorney, said Wang and his wife Nianli Ma, whose employee profile was also removed, are "safe" and neither has been arrested. The couple's legal team has viewed a search warrant but received no affidavit establishing probable cause.
[1] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/149248/fbi-raids-home-of-prominent-computer-scientist-who-has-gone-incommunicado
[2] https://www.wired.com/story/xiaofeng-wang-indiana-university-research-probe-china/
Wang, who leads the Center for Distributed Confidential Computing established with a $3 million National Science Foundation grant, was terminated on March 28 via email from the university provost. The university had contacted Wang in December regarding a 2017-2018 grant in China that listed him as a researcher, questioning whether he properly disclosed the funding to IU and in applications for U.S. federal research grants.
Jason Covert, Wang's attorney, said Wang and his wife Nianli Ma, whose employee profile was also removed, are "safe" and neither has been arrested. The couple's legal team has viewed a search warrant but received no affidavit establishing probable cause.
[1] https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/03/31/149248/fbi-raids-home-of-prominent-computer-scientist-who-has-gone-incommunicado
[2] https://www.wired.com/story/xiaofeng-wang-indiana-university-research-probe-china/
I'm having trouble with newfangled slang terms (Score:2)
by hyades1 ( 1149581 )
This story has exposed my failure to keep up with some of the expressions being used by kids these days. The story is about Wang disappearing. In my day, we called it "hide the sausage".
More intelligence lost.. (Score:1)
by SuperDre ( 982372 )
By going after this guy, the US is actually loosing more know-how, better to have shared it with China, then loosing it completely now.. how stupid can you get..
Re:If he received funds, that's one thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be making some major assumptions. One from the looks of it due process is being followed. Warrants are being obtained. No one is being detained with out cause, legal representation is happening..
You are the only one theorizing here.
Re:If he received funds, that's one thing. (Score:5, Informative)
Warrants are being obtained. No one is being detained with out cause, legal representation is happening..
Unike the legal resident who was protected from deportation by court order, [1] but was sent out of the country [nbcnews.com] because of an "administrative" error and the U.S. is not working to bring him back.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-was-sent-el-salvador-due-administrative-error-protected-legal-stat-rcna199010
Re: (Score:2)
> You seem to be making some major assumptions. One from the looks of it due process is being followed. Warrants are being obtained. No one is being detained with out cause, legal representation is happening..
> You are the only one theorizing here.
Sorry. I forgot that we gave up on that innocent until proven guilty thing. I'll see myself out.
Re: (Score:2)
That he AND his wife have been scrubbed from the university website is a little more than theorizing.
Meanwhile, the investigation has already gone past the point where it is in itself punishment with no affidavit establishing probable cause in sight.
Re: (Score:1)
It sounds like it's going through proper legal channels.
I worked with a number of Chinese people in the 90's at various companies and most of them stole as much data and material as they could before disappearing. Though there was one at a military contractor who was a PhD and was really good and should have been the only one allowed access to stuff but he was the one they blocked from having any access to anything. I used to talk to him every day. I think he ended up quitting but did not ever leave back to
Re: (Score:3)
This guy seems guilty as can be, but I'm a little bit confused at what he did wrong. Clearly, he knows he did something illegal because he fled the country when people started asking him about it. From the linked article, it sounds like he might have taken DARPA money, while also secretly taking money from China. There's probably some amount of fraud going on, but it's likely the intersection with defense money that has the FBI involved.
Not too sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Clearly, he knows he did something illegal because he fled the country
A nonwhite, non-native person looking at [1]what's going on [dailymail.co.uk] in "the land of the free" could easily decide it is a very good time to be somewhere else even if they're completely innocent.
[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14562387/Gay-makeup-artist-deported-El-Salvador-Trump-tattoos-Venezuela-gang.html
Re: (Score:3)
> But if all it takes is for another country to list your name on a research form somewhere for our country to go balls-out fuck you on your life, we're in some real murky territory ethically and morally.
This is not just "another country"...this is china, an antagonistic enemy of the US, that we very well might be a war with within a decade.
China has been actively stealing IP from the US, and they do it through university research quite often.
It is appropriate to see if someone here is spying or working f