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Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

justice.gov

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Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#81

Post by refenestrator »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #73
zapita wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's splitting hairs a little, unless she's legitimately a civilian. A military doctor could be referred to as a 'soldier', it's inaccurate but not wrong.

My beef with the outrage on this is that she was studying 'treating brain disease' according to the justice department. This isn't a national security secret, and the occam's razor answer is she fudged the forms because she wanted to do the study sabbatical.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#82

Post by rsj_hn »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #47
kevinventullo wrote: post #3

The superseding indictment alleges that she then attempted to delete a digital folder of documents on an external hard drive that she possessed containing records relating to her military service and visa fraud, including: - A digital version of a letter from Song, written in Chinese and addressed to the People’s Republic of China consulate in New York, in which Song explained that her stated employer, “Beijing Xi Di…

What exactly do they have on the lady, except that she is an officer in the PLA? OK, she's wearing uniform and is employed at a military hospital, but members of the US Medical Corps are officers at military hospitals. It's easy to understand why a physician might wish to work in brain disease. What secrets were exfiltrated?

It doesn't matter whether the questions are important to you, they are important to the Federal agencies that hold in their hand life changing stuff: whether you are allowed to live in the US, whether your grant gets funded, whether you get employment at a US funded research department. These are high stakes disclosures to obtain much sought after benefits. Omit something that would instantly disqualify you from said benefits and expect to have a house fall on you that is the same order of magnitude as the benefits obtained.

Now what is the value of a given career, US residency, Stanford employment, or Federal grant? At least hundreds of thousands of dollars - easily in the millions.

That is the scale of fraud being committed here, as none of these would have been an option for her if the PLA ties were disclosed. She would not be at Stanford, nor even in the US, nor in her current employment if her status were known.

Now you may disagree with the policy of not giving Federal dollars to PLA members or not hiring them in US research departments, but just because you disagree with the policy doesn't make the stakes any lower.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#83

Post by thaumasiotes »

refenestrator wrote: post #81
thaumasiotes wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's splitting hairs a little, unless she's legitimately a civilian. A military doctor could be referred to as a 'soldier', it's inaccurate but not wrong. My beef with the outrage on this is that she was studying 'treating brain disease' according to the justice department. This isn't a national security secret, and the occam's razor answer is she fudged the forms because she wanted to do the study sabbatical.

If you think the category 'soldier' includes military doctors, the question "why would the military bother to assign an active duty soldier to a medical research project" makes absolutely no sense.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#84

Post by refenestrator »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #83
refenestrator wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's splitting hairs a little, unless she's legitimately a civilian. A military doctor could be referred to as a 'soldier', it's inaccurate but not wrong. My beef with the outrage on this is that she was studying 'treating brain disease' according to the justice department. This isn't a national security secret, and the occam's razor answer is she fudged the forms because she wanted to do the study sabbatical.

If you think the category 'soldier' includes military doctors, the question "why would the military bother to assign an active duty soldier to a medical research project" makes absolutely no sense.

Yeah, I think we agree on the shape of what happened here.

It's the new cold war, everything must be propagandized.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#85

Post by refurb »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #68
refurb wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing IP that rightfully belonged to Stanford, starting their own institute in China based on it and then owning the entire field?

The concept of "stealing IP that rightfully belonged to Stanford" does not obviously apply to a research university. There is no way for Stanford to claim ownership of research IP without publishing that IP. If the CCP wants to steal it, they can read Stanford's papers. Then, on a more fundamental level, the more people who know how to do neurology research, the better. There's no way for the world to be made worse t…

There is no way for Stanford to claim ownership of research IP without publishing that IP.

Have you heard of research getting scooped? Take research that isn’t complete, publish/patent first and now it’s yours. Now China can claim IP ownership so Stanford can’t use it.

So no, there is no benefit to research being freely disseminated especially to authoritarian countries that are politically opposed to the West.

And no, the point of the program is not to help transfer Stanford tech to China. It’s to train scientists who can hopefully independently develop their own science.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#86

Post by zapita »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #73
zapita wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank you for answering my question instead of grandstanding. I had missed that crucial piece of information.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#87

Post by thaumasiotes »

refurb wrote: post #85
thaumasiotes wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concept of "stealing IP that rightfully belonged to Stanford" does not obviously apply to a research university. There is no way for Stanford to claim ownership of research IP without publishing that IP. If the CCP wants to steal it, they can read Stanford's papers. Then, on a more fundamental level, the more people who know how to do neurology research, the better. There's no way for the world to be made worse t…

There is no way for Stanford to claim ownership of research IP without publishing that IP. Have you heard of research getting scooped? Take research that isn’t complete, publish/patent first and now it’s yours. Now China can claim IP ownership so Stanford can’t use it. So no, there is no benefit to research being freely disseminated especially to authoritarian countries that are politically opposed to the West. And n…

> Now China can claim IP ownership so Stanford can’t use it.

Hmm? How would that work? Please provide an example of what you have in mind.

Research getting scooped is about fighting over who gets official credit for the discovery.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#88

Post by thaumasiotes »

yongjik wrote: post #74
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?

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…

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

This would tend to suggest that it's less important for them to have the ability to handle it, not more.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#89

Post by dogma1138 »

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.

I’ve done this a few months ago on a 6TB drive.

You remove the cover, unscrew the platter, use sticky tape on the sides of the platters to remove them and place them in the donor drive...

With an identical drive you don’t even need to worry about anything else the data will be there as nothing has happened.

The “new” drive just worked it still does...

Unless the plates are completely shattered you can recover the data.

And I can guarantee you that the FBI has a data recovery lab that is much better than what I can do at home.

Re: Federal Charges Against Stanford University Researcher Expanded

#90

Post by dogma1138 »

syops wrote: post #53
HarryHirsch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly do they have on the lady, except that she is an officer in the PLA? OK, she's wearing uniform and is employed at a military hospital, but members of the US Medical Corps are officers at military hospitals. It's easy to understand why a physician might wish to work in brain disease. What secrets were exfiltrated?

From the article: "Members of the Chinese People's Liberation Army cannot lie on their visa applications and come to the United States to study without expecting the FBI and our partners to catch them." said Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr. of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division. "Time and again, the Chinese government prioritizes stealing U.S. research and taking advantage of our universities over obeying in…

This is what foreign nationals are prosecuted for when it comes to espionage - failure to declare yourself as a foreign agent.

Most espionage laws are only directly applicable to citizens of the state in question.

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