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FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

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

#281

Post by greenavocado »

dathinab wrote: post #193
mimsee wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if AI research is dual-use tech, would an AI research er be dual-use human, and get travel restricted because of weapons export controls. Dude is a weapon!

you might try to make a joke but US courts had done rulings which where basically like that

A popular T-shirt among computer scientists featured the RSA algorithm, along with the label "WARNING: This shirt is classified as a munition and may not be exported from the United States, or shown to a foreign national."

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

#282

Post by tejohnso »

slg wrote: post #99
lolinder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have no evidence that Wang "was" disappeared. We know that he's nowhere to be found, that the university put him on leave weeks ago [0], and that the FBI recently searched his home. Notably, the university put him on leave weeks before the FBI searched his home. That sequence is better explained by the hypothesis that Wang vanished himself suddenly and the university called in the FBI to investigate things that th…

On the long list of problems caused by the government "disappearing" people (which they have objectively been doing lately) is that it destroys trust and therefore makes even valid legal proceedings seem more shady than they would in a world in which due process was a universal guarantee in practice. I don't fault anyone for jumping to conclusions implicating the government is in the wrong here rather than Wang.

Is there a site that keeps track of these government abductions? Are you talking about American citizens? Can you name five occurrences within the last 18 months, or whatever you mean by "lately"?

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

#283

Post by DamnInteresting »

lurk2 wrote: post #139
perihelions wrote: post #24

- "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???" Prof. Green also posted about the vanishing of Prof. Wang here on HN the other day, https://news.ycombinator.com/…

> But HN is an increasingly difficult place to discover such stories, what with the systematic flagging brigades. What stories are getting flagged?

Check out https://news.ycombinator.com/active

It's like an alternate HN front page that sorts based on activity, and unlike the default front page, it does not suppress submissions that have been flagged. At this moment I see these flagged-but-very-active submissions:

[flagged] Trump says he is not joking about third presidential term https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43525860

[flagged] It's the hottest car company. You can't buy one in America https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43523797

[flagged] [dead] Trump suggests Tesla vandals should face 20 years jail, be sent to El Salvador https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43520632

[flagged] ICE Revoking Students' Immigration Statuses Without Their or the Uni's Knowledge https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43528356

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

#284

Post by mikeyouse »

mmooss wrote: post #255
throwaway48476 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Documentation is hard to do accurately when someone illegally immigrates with no documents.

The Department of Homeland Security is not an undocumented immigrant, nor is the court system. They are required to document what they do.

And many of the disappeared people were here either with valid asylum claims or temporary protected status and were following the laws to get their day in court -- at which time it would have been completely legal and appropriate to deport them if their claims were denied. Instead, we have secret police grabbing them off the street, immediately transferring them out of the jurisdiction they were picked up in and flying them out of the country to a notoriously violent prison in an unrelated country less than 48 hours after they were picked up... it's an absolute travesty and anyone who defends it should be deeply ashamed.

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

#286

Post by SpaceNoodled »

billy99k wrote: post #246
slg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even the most egregious cases, which are very bad, have left a paper trail for lawyers and journalists to follow. How can you be confident in this? Is it possible that you are saying this because the only cases we know about are when they have happened to leave "a paper trail for lawyers and journalists to follow"?

With all the speculation, how do we know the US government 'disappeared' him. He's originally from China. How do we know that the Chinese government didn't do this (which is known to happen) and now the FBI is involved to find out what happened?

Why would they tacitly admit to performing warrantless searches?

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

#287

Post by KennyBlanken »

lolinder wrote: post #172
bediger4000 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That sequence is better explained by the hypothesis that Wang vanished himself That probably isn't correct given that IU has scrubbed him from their web pages. That alone makes this look like disappearing him and his wife. The feds unconstitutionally "disappearing" this couple doesn't exactly fit either, but based on the article, that's what fits best.

> That probably isn't correct given that IU has scrubbed him from their web pages. That alone makes this look like disappearing him and his wife. Why? As a possible explanation: Wang disappears suddenly and without warning. The university investigates and in the course of the investigation discovers that he was working as a spy for the PRC for the past 20 years while employed with them. They freak out, knowing that t…

[flagged]

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

#288

Post by 1659447091 »

ranger_danger wrote: post #224
slg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even the most egregious cases, which are very bad, have left a paper trail for lawyers and journalists to follow. How can you be confident in this? Is it possible that you are saying this because the only cases we know about are when they have happened to leave "a paper trail for lawyers and journalists to follow"?

Someone else raised a similar point in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43524589 Can you name any cases in recent history where someone was "disappeared" or similar by the government (the only part of this we can objectively prove afaik) and then no evidence or other proof of the person's wrongdoing ever came about, and people just forgot about it? I could be mistaken (and please correct me if I'm…

In what now seems like test runs, we can look back to the summer of 2020 in the Northwest US where there were armed people in camouflage and armor putting people into unmarked vans and taking them somewhere else for a non-zero amount of time. (not charged with anything nor the masked people's government identities revealed.)

I am not saying there is a conspiracy going on, simply pointing out a case that appears to have been forgotten and perpetrated by the 1.0 version of the current administration.

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

#289

Post by neuroelectron »

Lerc wrote: post #194

So what's going on here then? https://github.com/wangxiaofeng7/wangxiaofeng7.github.io Someone making a homepage in the last few days, but to what purpose?

Either Xiaofeng Wang is a common Chinese name or there is a lot of well poisoning going on.

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

#290

Post by kadushka »

SpaceNoodled wrote: post #286
billy99k wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all the speculation, how do we know the US government 'disappeared' him. He's originally from China. How do we know that the Chinese government didn't do this (which is known to happen) and now the FBI is involved to find out what happened?

Why would they tacitly admit to performing warrantless searches?

Did you read the article?

A bureau spokesperson issued a statement: “I can confirm we conducted court-authorized activity at the address in Carmel today.

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