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Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

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Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#71

Post by random873161763 »

Use a throwaway account. I graduated from a top university in China and then came to US to get my PhD and now work in bay area.

-Why people like Song would lie / conceal their identity to come to US?

Lot of Chinese people, esp among these with colleague education, and not brain-washed by government, actually think very high of US and their education system. It's not surprise a few of them would lie to get Visa. There are many online forum providing tips on how to "pass" Visa interviews.

BTW, inside China mainland, not speaking truth to government officials is not a big deal in the eye of many Chinese. In fact, being 100% truth with government officials is rare. Unfortunately, US visa officials sometimes are treated the same way as to Chinese government officials.

-Does Song have any concealed goal in US?

I do not think so. It's laughable to think Song trying to "steal" US research. Basic science research is all open. You can read Science / Nature / Cell / ... journals to know the latest research. And you can ask the authors on how to perform the experiments to reproduce their published results.

The goal of Song is almost surely personal: to get something good on her resume so she can have better career.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#72

Post by thaumasiotes »

renewiltord wrote: post #70
thaumasiotes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit, I wonder why she needs to submit documentation to the consulate specifying that Beijing Xi Diaoyutai Hospital is a front for PLA-employed doctors. Shouldn't they know?

Considering I've definitely been part of businesses which self information about some company back to them, I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't.

Well, there are several scenarios:

- The consulate has no need for the information about an expat's employer, and never reads it.

- The consulate checks up on the employer information for some reason best known to them. Maybe they call the employer and ask "does this person work for you?" Or maybe they look up the employer in some kind of database. Or maybe they already know the employer and automatically recognize the name.

But there's no case where the expat needs to submit secondary documentation saying how her official employment is a false front. No matter what happens, that information should be delivered to the consulate, if they need it, by some other means. They could answer the phone at Beijing Xi Diaoyutai and say "yes, she works here". Or they could have a special diplomatic database entry. Or the consulate staff might deal with them all the time and recognize the Beijing Xi Diaoyutai name. What purpose is served by sending the information through the expat?

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#73

Post by thaumasiotes »

zapita wrote: post #62
refenestrator wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What nefarious goal could there be for this medical research? Are we at the point of zero-sum where a successful treatment in China is a loss for us? Sure, deport her if she lied, but I'd stop way short of 'nefarious' myself.

That doesn’t answer the question of why she attempted to conceal her identity. There’s also the question of why the PLA would bother to assign an active duty soldier, with instructions to break US law, if there wasn’t some purpose which the US government would consider nefarious. If this is just harmless scientific collaboration, then why is the military involved?

> There’s also the question of why the PLA would bother to assign an active duty soldier

This is a real reach; her non-fictitious employer was the Air Force General Hospital. Being employed by the military doesn't make you a soldier.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#74

Post by yongjik »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #43
renewiltord wrote: post #34

Haha, their spies are undone by their bureaucrats. Amazing.

I have to admit, I wonder why she needs to submit documentation to the consulate specifying that Beijing Xi Diaoyutai Hospital is a front for PLA-employed doctors. Shouldn't they know?

Bureaucracy. Recently I had to submit some document to the Korean court, and they demanded an official document certifying that I'm residing in the US (and hence cannot present myself in person), so I had to go to the consulate's office, fill out a form asking the government to verify that I'm in the US, wait a few days until the form is mailed to my house, and then go to USPS to send it back to the Korean court.

And this is just regular run-of-the-mill yes-I'm-really-here documentation with nothing like secret front hospitals.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#75

Post by gruez »

Judgmentality wrote: post #67
Godel_unicode wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From 2020 (it's about drive savers): https://youtu.be/v0QkafslnrM https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-services/d...

I wonder if they can recover the HD the other video says is impossible.

If you actually watched the video that you've linked, you'll see that the platters in the drive has shattered. That's completely different from your initial claim of "You can’t transplant a (unshattered] platter into another reader"

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#76

Post by gruez »

noir_lord wrote: post #17
desine wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The file is still there. A regular delete just tells the disk that the segments of memory are available to be overwritten. Zeroing out (or /dev/urandom) the memory is an option, but even that is not 100% safe, especially when it comes to forensic labs with the ability to read and analyze platters removed from a complete, sealed disk. Really safe deleters will overwrite the segments of memory multiple times to scrambl…

The world has moved on. You can’t transplant a platter into another reader, the old days of Guttman method don’t really apply anymore, density is so high that outside of research settings it’s just not practical. That said I still put a drill through mine before disposing of them, because close to zero isn’t zero.

A drill is pointless because it only damages a tiny part of the platter. That might deter commercial recovery companies, but probably not the feds (depending on how big of a target you have on your back).

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#77

Post by Judgmentality »

gruez wrote: post #75
Judgmentality wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they can recover the HD the other video says is impossible.

If you actually watched the video that you've linked, you'll see that the platters in the drive has shattered. That's completely different from your initial claim of "You can’t transplant a (unshattered] platter into another reader"

...in that case, can't you just shatter an HD platter to make it unrecoverable? If the goal is to prevent discovery, that seems pretty trivial.

It's really unclear to me whether or not HDs are recoverable from the comments I'm seeing, and honestly I don't care that much so I'm going to stop commenting.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#78

Post by gruez »

Judgmentality wrote: post #77
gruez wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you actually watched the video that you've linked, you'll see that the platters in the drive has shattered. That's completely different from your initial claim of "You can’t transplant a (unshattered] platter into another reader"

...in that case, can't you just shatter an HD platter to make it unrecoverable? If the goal is to prevent discovery, that seems pretty trivial. It's really unclear to me whether or not HDs are recoverable from the comments I'm seeing, and honestly I don't care that much so I'm going to stop commenting.

> ...in that case, can't you just shatter an HD platter to make it unrecoverable? If the goal is to prevent discovery, that seems pretty trivial.

...only if the platters are glass. Many (most?) are made of metal.

>It's really unclear to me whether or not HDs are recoverable from the comments I'm seeing, and honestly I don't care that much so I'm going to stop commenting.

The same video also mentions him being able to salvage a hard drive that was in a multi-vehicle accident, because the platters haven't been shattered.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#79

Post by Judgmentality »

gruez wrote: post #78
Judgmentality wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...in that case, can't you just shatter an HD platter to make it unrecoverable? If the goal is to prevent discovery, that seems pretty trivial. It's really unclear to me whether or not HDs are recoverable from the comments I'm seeing, and honestly I don't care that much so I'm going to stop commenting.

> ...in that case, can't you just shatter an HD platter to make it unrecoverable? If the goal is to prevent discovery, that seems pretty trivial. ...only if the platters are glass. Many (most?) are made of metal. >It's really unclear to me whether or not HDs are recoverable from the comments I'm seeing, and honestly I don't care that much so I'm going to stop commenting. The same video also mentions him being able to…

Well there you go. Buy an HD with a glass platter, shatter it, and now nobody can recover your data. Security secured.

I was thinking of this from the forensics standpoint initially of erasing data from an HD (however many comments up it was about hiding data). I don't really care about the particulars of the method. If there's an easy way to store data and secure it, it sounds like it's impossible for that data to be recovered.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#80

Post by renewiltord »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #72
renewiltord wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering I've definitely been part of businesses which self information about some company back to them, I wouldn't be surprised if they just didn't.

Well, there are several scenarios: - The consulate has no need for the information about an expat's employer, and never reads it. - The consulate checks up on the employer information for some reason best known to them. Maybe they call the employer and ask "does this person work for you?" Or maybe they look up the employer in some kind of database. Or maybe they already know the employer and automatically recognize t…

Maybe there's no channel. Incompetent bureaucracies are usually like that. There is simply no way for someone in arm A to talk to arm B.

Maybe you haven't worked in a place like this, but I lived in one for a while. It would be completely normal for someone at the government office to claim that the bank-supplied identification you brought with you isn't real, both of them owned wholly by the state with the bank ID being intended for the purpose you're using it for.

Will they do the simple thing of calling the bank? No. They will just say you're SOL. "But I am a Very Important Person with Very Important Things". Yeah yeah, everyone is, we hear that all the time. Bring back a real bank ID next time, you faker. Next in line!

So then you go back to the highest authority you know, get a letter from them, and you walk it up there to the guy, who instantly panics and delivers on what he was supposed to do.

If you don't know what these bureaucracies are like, you are blessed.

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