I just heard that a cryptography professor at Indiana University had his house raided and was fired. Don’t know much more. heraldtimesonline.com/story/ne…
FBI, Homeland Security agents search house on Xavier Court in Bloomington
FBI, Homeland Security provide no details about Friday's raid at Bloomington home involving at least a dozen agents, The Herald-Times (The Herald-Times)
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ljean
in reply to Matthew Green • • •He has always been a hard-working play by the rules colleague. I do not know what he is charged with. I am not confident that he is being provided full due process for a named chair by the University. I may be wrong, but I do not have the information that would provide that confidence right now.
He has been an excellent colleague for 20+ years. Being under investigation is not a crime. I have been asking for information. I do not have it. Unless he is found guilty in a court of law or I get significantly more information, I would like to say I am standing with him. But I do not know how to. So right now, I will say that I have been proud to have been his colleague for two decades. I do not even know if he is still my colleague? He is on administrative leave.
I can not say he is not getting due process - clearly there was a warrant issued. I do not know what is happening.
There is nothing more patriotic in America than demanding transparency in justice and due process, except possibly the notion of innocence until proven guilty.
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noplasticshower, Ian Brown 👨🏻💻, diana 🏳️⚧️🦋🌱, MarvinFreeman and The Doctor reshared this.
Matthew Green
in reply to Matthew Green • • •reshared this
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Adam Shostack
in reply to Matthew Green • • •ljean
in reply to Adam Shostack • • •Adam Shostack
in reply to ljean • • •Fullmetal Manager 🌈💖🔥
in reply to Adam Shostack • • •@adamshostack @ljean
infosec.exchange/@ljean/114246…
ljean
2025-03-29 14:35:15
@adamshostack @ljean
infosec.exchange/@ljean/114246…
ljean
2025-03-29 14:35:15
doctorlaura
in reply to ljean • • •ljean
in reply to doctorlaura • • •@doctorlaura @adamshostack
infosec.exchange/@ljean/114246…
ljean
2025-03-2
@doctorlaura @adamshostack
infosec.exchange/@ljean/114246…
ljean
2025-03-29 14:35:15
Matthew Green
in reply to ljean • • •Matthew Green
in reply to Matthew Green • • •XiaoFeng Wang
scholar.google.comreshared this
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Adam Shostack
in reply to Matthew Green • • •lj·rk reshared this.
Matt Blaze
in reply to Adam Shostack • • •@adamshostack This is the part that's especially concerning. We don't know what the arrest was about (and whether it was even for a crime or an immigration matter), but it's hard to imagine what reason there could be for the university to scrub its website as if he never worked there.
Either the government put pressure on them or the university was involved in whatever it was about.
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Adam Shostack, Paul Cantrell, Christo. London, England, salix sericea (@Ripple13216), Marv Clowder, The Doctor, Christy Marx Rambling Writer, Flowers, Elyse M Grasso and mau 🏳️🌈#EndFossilFuels reshared this.
Matt Blaze
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •Adam Shostack reshared this.
Quinn Norton
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •@mattblaze @adamshostack
looking through his publications... he's so... *normal* academia soc dude.
though normal in sec looks like crazy spy movie to people who don't know anything about it.
if this keeps going we'll need a disappeared database.
טליה (לשון את) 🎗️ reshared this.
Dadbod AntiFa
in reply to Quinn Norton • • •reshared this
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bituur esztreym
in reply to Dadbod AntiFa • • •The Retired J.P. Morgan Executive Tracking Trump’s Deportation Flights
Nick Miroff (The Atlantic)Dadbod AntiFa
in reply to bituur esztreym • • •bituur esztreym
in reply to Dadbod AntiFa • • •@beckett
and voilà!: United States Disappeared Tracker cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog…
@quinn @mattblaze @adamshostack @matthew_d_green
Kevin Beaumont
2025-03-30 19:34:22
Dadbod AntiFa
in reply to bituur esztreym • • •Jen
in reply to Dadbod AntiFa • • •@beckett @quinn @mattblaze @adamshostack there is this: public.tableau.com/app/profile…
It currently lists 246 disappearances.
Adam Shostack
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •@mattblaze
If only they had a literature department, something like this might come to mind:
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Gary McGraw
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •The Doctor reshared this.
Gary McGraw
in reply to Gary McGraw • • •Steve Bellovin
in reply to Gary McGraw • • •Gary McGraw
in reply to Steve Bellovin • • •Matt Blaze
in reply to Steve Bellovin • • •noplasticshower
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •Adam Shostack
in reply to noplasticshower • • •FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado | Joan Feigenbaum
Joan Feigenbaum (www.linkedin.com)noplasticshower reshared this.
Matt Blaze
in reply to Adam Shostack • • •@adamshostack @noplasticshower @SteveBellovin @cigitalgem @spaf
If there's a criminal case associated with any of this, I can't find it in the docket for the Southern District of Indiana (or the DC or Eastern VA Districts, either, which are also venues for this sort of case).
It's possible that I missed something (damn you, PACER search), that it's not yet listed, or that it's still under seal. Or that there's no case filed.
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Matt Blaze
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •I should also note that there seems to be essentially no confirmation of anything, and the rapid pace at which this is moving suggests quite a bit that's yet to be explained.
- Accepting a tenured job elsewhere, failure to disclose grants, etc, all can be grounds for involuntary revocation of tenure, but that process is lengthy.
- A professor voluntarily resigning to go elsewhere isn't usually kept secret.
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Matt Blaze
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •@adamshostack @noplasticshower @SteveBellovin @cigitalgem @spaf And while accepting foreign research grants can, under some circumstances, constitute fraud (e.g., against funding agencies), that's complicated, and criminal charges would generally be accompanied by press releases, etc.
In short, while it's possible to speculate, none of the speculation matches the currently known facts particularly well.
noplasticshower reshared this.
Matt Blaze
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •@adamshostack @noplasticshower @SteveBellovin @cigitalgem @spaf Once again, there is absolutely no publicly available information sufficient to support any conclusions here. And some of the speculation is of the form "Oh, he's of Chinese origin? I know what it must be!". In other words, racist.
Maybe he's a spy. Maybe he's a serial killer. Maybe he's suffering amnesia and wandering around in some desert. We just don't know yet.
Matt Blaze reshared this.
lnmnkatz
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •Adam Shostack
in reply to noplasticshower • • •Gary McGraw
in reply to Adam Shostack • • •@adamshostack @noplasticshower @mattblaze @SteveBellovin @violetblue good timeline story here indianapublicmedia.org/news/fi…
And the wired story is also helpful. wired.com/story/xiaofeng-wang-…
Fired prof accused of research misconduct, FBI involvement unclear
News - Indiana Public Medianoplasticshower
in reply to Gary McGraw • • •Tony Yarusso
in reply to Matt Blaze • • •Matthew Green
in reply to Adam Shostack • • •Lucy Weir reshared this.
VessOnSecurity
in reply to Adam Shostack • • •LightlySearedOnTheRealityGrill
in reply to Adam Shostack • • •Mycotropic
in reply to Adam Shostack • • •I think that this illustrates that tenure actually means nothing at university anymore. The memory hole-ing I mean, not whatever activity (or misunderstanding) generated the raid.
Matthew Green
in reply to Matthew Green • • •Asta [AMP] likes this.
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Nonya Bidniss
in reply to Matthew Green • • •FBI searches two homes belonging to IU Luddy professor and library analyst
Andrew Miller (FBI searches two homes belonging to IU Luddy professor and library analyst - Indiana Daily Student)Andreas reshared this.
dexter
in reply to Nonya Bidniss • • •Matthew Green
in reply to Matthew Green • • •Sketchy First Reports
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Stefan More
in reply to Matthew Green • • •More Details on Situation at Indiana University
Josh Marshall (TPM - Talking Points Memo)zl2tod
in reply to Matthew Green • • •alliance.iu.edu/members/member…
archive.is/UyV3P
Xiaofeng Wang: IU Alliance: Indiana University
IU Alliance of Distinguished and Titled Professorstroy_friz_zell
in reply to Matthew Green • • •I don't know these people, but I do know that fascists run the FBI and the Homeland Gestapo, so I tend to believe this is regular fascist racism and not a legitimate legal action.
Sorry, but I see no reason to believe anything this administration says.
Jonathan Reiter (张飞)
in reply to Matthew Green • • •Hovav Shacham
in reply to Jonathan Reiter (张飞) • • •Jonathan Reiter (张飞)
in reply to Hovav Shacham • • •@hovav So I say sensitive and it definitely understates Wang's contributions to computer science - his h-index alone puts him within the 80th percentile of researchers. It's hard to be influential and prolific without some of your work being sensitive
In 2023-2024 alone, he specialized in confidential computing, info leaks, and exploitation. There isn't a singular answer which sticks out.
Some of his research (e.g. Wang et al 2024) is with coauthors based at China Academy of Science institutions which have been subject to some major scrutiny. I don't think this alone has been cause for concern in the past, but who knows these days.
It's possible he was considering changing employment, perhaps to a PRC university, and that alone is enough to trigger a major investigation. I consider this a chilling effect that will cause more brain drain. I don't blame anyone for getting perturbed by that level of suspicion.
Or it's possible that some more precedented kind of misappropriation or breach occurred. That would be a shame.
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Hovav Shacham
in reply to Jonathan Reiter (张飞) • • •@bees
Color me confused. Those are mainstream topics in systems security research, published at the mainstream academic security conferences. I work on many of the same topics and publish at the same venues [cs.utexas.edu/~hovav/publicati…]; is my research "sensitive"?
Eric the Cerise
in reply to Matthew Green • • •Hey @matthew_d_green
Read this.
There is now an ArsTechnica article about this, and the article quotes you, @matthew_d_green , from right here, from this thread on the Fediverse. Direct link to your toot.
Just fyi.
Edit: from the article...
"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???"
arstechnica.com/security/2025/…
FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado
Dan Goodin (Ars Technica)S38
in reply to Matthew Green • • •arstechnica.com/security/2025/…
Nothing not said in this thread.
FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado
Dan Goodin (Ars Technica)