Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 517 posts

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#41

Post by packetlost »

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #39
packetlost wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The university would likely not have scrubbed them from their site if they were merely being deported. There are either espionage concerns or this guy solved prime factorization.

Scrubbing someone from a website would gather too much attention if they were trying to keep a breakthrough hidden, plus you'd probably havr a dead mans switch for that type of thing.

The latter is tongue in cheek. There are any number of things that could be going on that aren't so fundamental to modern cryptography.

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#42

Post by avs733 »

tptacek wrote: post #30
userbinator wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NSA is probably involved. Edit: the voting pattern in this item is itself unusual.

NSA doesn't do criminal investigations.

And to further this point - the fbi is domestic counter intelligence agency who they would work with.

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#44

Post by hypeatei »

mvdtnz wrote: post #40
vessenes wrote: post #16

FBI + Client Attorney present + University's data scrub + nothing on the public docket likely means FISA court, which is in theory reserved for espionage and terrorism in the US. Most University cryptographic research happens in public these days, so I have a hard time imagining a sequence of events strictly bounded by cryptography research + chinese origin that yields FISA court motions. The real thing to say here i…

What's a FISA court?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...

> to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Secret courts that some say are unconstitutional[0].

[0]: https://www.aclu.org/documents/why-fisa-amendments-act-uncon...

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#45

Post by user3939382 »

vessenes wrote: post #16

FBI + Client Attorney present + University's data scrub + nothing on the public docket likely means FISA court, which is in theory reserved for espionage and terrorism in the US. Most University cryptographic research happens in public these days, so I have a hard time imagining a sequence of events strictly bounded by cryptography research + chinese origin that yields FISA court motions. The real thing to say here i…

FISA, our secret court with secret proceedings to deal with secret charges under secret laws with secret interpretations. What could go wrong?

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#46

Post by Ar-Curunir »

vessenes wrote: post #16

FBI + Client Attorney present + University's data scrub + nothing on the public docket likely means FISA court, which is in theory reserved for espionage and terrorism in the US. Most University cryptographic research happens in public these days, so I have a hard time imagining a sequence of events strictly bounded by cryptography research + chinese origin that yields FISA court motions. The real thing to say here i…

The person in question is not a cryptographer, but rather works more broadly in computer security. He has not contributed to NIST standards AFAICT

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#48

Post by sitkack »

sitkack wrote: post #11

https://www.idsnews.com/article/2025/03/iu-professor-bloomin... https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-details-on-situati... https://bsky.app/profile/ncweaver.skerry-tech.com/post/3lljl...

From bsky, he is the Chair of ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC)

https://www.sigsac.org/

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#49

Post by tptacek »

mvdtnz wrote: post #40
vessenes wrote: post #16

FBI + Client Attorney present + University's data scrub + nothing on the public docket likely means FISA court, which is in theory reserved for espionage and terrorism in the US. Most University cryptographic research happens in public these days, so I have a hard time imagining a sequence of events strictly bounded by cryptography research + chinese origin that yields FISA court motions. The real thing to say here i…

What's a FISA court?

FISA is a special process set up, partly by the Church Committee, in the last 1970s in order to oversee foreign signals intelligence. It's staffed by federal Article III judges, and its purpose is to handle paperwork applications for surveillance of communications pertaining to foreign nationals where any leg occurs on domestic soil.

Re: FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

#50

Post by [deleted] »

user3939382 wrote: post #45
vessenes wrote: post #16

FBI + Client Attorney present + University's data scrub + nothing on the public docket likely means FISA court, which is in theory reserved for espionage and terrorism in the US. Most University cryptographic research happens in public these days, so I have a hard time imagining a sequence of events strictly bounded by cryptography research + chinese origin that yields FISA court motions. The real thing to say here i…

FISA, our secret court with secret proceedings to deal with secret charges under secret laws with secret interpretations. What could go wrong?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN