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FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

arstechnica.com

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

#351

Post by kelnos »

weard_beard wrote: post #331
easterncalculus wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the government "disappearing" people (which they have objectively been doing lately) If you know where someone is being held (like Louisiana, for example) they weren't 'disappeared'.

If they were abducted by plainclothes agents and moved across state lines (countermanding a judges lawful order) to a facility where their legal representation has no access they were, without a doubt, disappeared.

Those actions are shitty, but irrelevant to the argument. If you know where someone is, then they haven't been disappeared.

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

#352

Post by galaxyLogic »

lolinder wrote: post #135
slg wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first comment was not speculation. I only speculated in my second comment to highlight how your rather definitive "they haven't been "disappearing" people in the manner that would have to be happening here" was also in fact speculation.

Point taken. Better said: We have no evidence that they have been disappearing people in this manner. We also, clearly, have a large body of people who are on guard for any such possible evidence, so I would reasonably expect that if it were happening with any kind of regularity we would have seen it by now. There's a possibility that this is instance #1 and we see repeats. If we do see repeats, I will happily engage…

> We have no evidence that they have been disappearing people in this manner

Isn't it evidence of "disappearings" that we know many people were transported to a prison in El Salvador but nobody knows who those people in fact are?

As far as I've seen from the press the government hasn't released any documentation about who they flew to El Salvador. Or have they?

If that is true then isn't it also true that this scientist in question might as well be in that Salvadorean prison, as far as we know?

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

#353

Post by nosmokewhereiam »

greenavocado wrote: post #281
dathinab wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

...then there's the tattoos of rsa lines that were non-exportable (ITAR)

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

#355

Post by userbinator »

Lerc wrote: post #315
loeg wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any reason to believe this brand new github account is the same person?

I think it was the bit that said Dr. XiaoFeng Wang is the Associate Dean for Research and a James H. Rudy Professor of Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, Indiana University at Bloomington and an ACM, IEEE and AAAS Fellow. At IU, he is also a Co-Director of Center for Security and Privacy in Informatics, Computing and Engineering, and was the Director of the Master of Science in Secure Computing (…

His original page on the university's site (since taken down, archive links in a different comment here) also uses the "7" suffix.

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

#356

Post by lucubratory »

Andrex wrote: post #207
lucubratory wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand the PRC tries pretty hard to provide a lot of incentives to academic returnees. I do wonder if they have a tenure match program, where if you have tenure at an American university of a given calibre you are automatically granted tenure at a Chinese university of a similar calibre if you return to China. They probably should.

If that's true, then that seems to be the simplest explanation for what happened here? (Honestly asking.)

Oh, no. I'm not talking about alleged espionage, I'm talking about people moving universities. Moving university doesn't mean disappearing off the face of the Earth.

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

#357

Post by lucubratory »

dcrazy wrote: post #210
lucubratory wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great! Can you provide a link to the court order so we can see?

The article author attempted to get the court order but could not find one. This is common when the order is made as part of an ongoing investigation, or else criminals could just watch for their names in PACER to know when to fire up the shredders.

So how do we know there is a court order?

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

#358

Post by bee_rider »

more_corn wrote: post #334
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?

Isn’t it more likely that he was out when they raided his house, heard of the raid (perhaps from the woman on the phone when she emerged from the house on the phone) and fled to avoid arrest?

It sounds like he was “out” for weeks possibly, though? Seems like an overall very strange situation.

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

#359

Post by trod1234 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #350
trod1234 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm really not seeing much similarity between that period of history and this period. Unemployment ~30%, inflation/stagflation, and German industry being co-opted by multinational corporations laying people off. > Then US Unemployment 1 in 4 out of work, co-opted by corporations, laying people off and price fixing basic goods and services. Reichstag Fire Attack blamed on the Communists. > January 6th followed by As…

Where in the world did you get that unemployment rate? And some of the things you're listing are similar in scale while others are orders of magnitude different. A giant list like that is a mess.

> Where in the world did you get that unemployment rate?

SGS, Shadow Government Stats.

Their estimates include the "long-term discouraged worker" which was officially defined out of existence in 1994, which was coupled with the short-term discouraged worker (U6) from BLS to get a real unemployment rate.

https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-char...

Its followed reality far closer than the watered down stats and methodology the politician's have been using over the last two decades. Especially during 2008, and they don't break it down by industry. Tech right now and going back two years is being displaced massively with no metrics for optics.

I agree, lists are horrible on HN.

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

#360

Post by runjake »

People here keep claiming he was disappeared but what evidence is there?

In the absence of evidence and since the FBI is handling it, and with the secrecy, it seems more likely espionage-related.

Xaiofeng could had fled to China for all we know. It’s certainly important to question our government though.

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