Live data from Hacker News

FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicado

arstechnica.com

381–390 of 517 posts

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

#381
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, there was no public evidence of the Nazi death camps up until they decided to turn the prison camps into that at the Wannsee Conference either. It was only in retrospect that we learned the true horror of the Holocaust. Given that period of history, and how it brought the world to the brink, any patterning closely similar to that (which we are seeing today) these things should be considered happening unt…

There'd be a fair bit of noise if the Holocaust was happening today. It'd be more like Guantanamo Bay or the US's international program of black-bag kidnappings. You don't expect to know exactly what is going on but there is a wiki page [0] and regular leaks [1] even if only a relatively small number of people involved. Something like the holocaust couldn't fly under the radar in the age of the internet; there'd be l…

I disagree.

There is this design process called the separation of objectionable concerns, where the task roles are designed to promote complacency through information control, the Stasi perfected it, and its used everywhere today in sensitive positions.

The most objectionable and risk related roles and tasks will be assigned to the fewest number of people with no one else being the wiser.

All other roles involved are narrowly tailored towards specific parts supporting the whole without any knowledge of doing so.

A murky transfer to a foreign prison makes for a very plausible disappearance. This is how these things are done historically, and social media is heavily controlled.

It could easily happen given what happened with regards to China and the Uyghur population.

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

#382
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 compan…

Interesting, I had never seen this view before. All but one of those submissions, however, appear to be off-topic; they are being flagged because they are not pertinent to the forum’s subject.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

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

#383
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?

> How do we know that the Chinese government didn't do this (which is known to happen)

Source?

> How do we know it was the US government

We don't but its 100000x easier for the US government to disappear someone on US soil than it is for China to disappear someone on US soil.

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

#384
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, there was no public evidence of the Nazi death camps up until they decided to turn the prison camps into that at the Wannsee Conference either. It was only in retrospect that we learned the true horror of the Holocaust. Given that period of history, and how it brought the world to the brink, any patterning closely similar to that (which we are seeing today) these things should be considered happening unt…

There'd be a fair bit of noise if the Holocaust was happening today. It'd be more like Guantanamo Bay or the US's international program of black-bag kidnappings. You don't expect to know exactly what is going on but there is a wiki page [0] and regular leaks [1] even if only a relatively small number of people involved. Something like the holocaust couldn't fly under the radar in the age of the internet; there'd be l…

> There'd be a fair bit of noise if the Holocaust was happening today.

Why are we talking in hypotheticals when it literally is happening today?

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

#385
post #384
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There'd be a fair bit of noise if the Holocaust was happening today. It'd be more like Guantanamo Bay or the US's international program of black-bag kidnappings. You don't expect to know exactly what is going on but there is a wiki page [0] and regular leaks [1] even if only a relatively small number of people involved. Something like the holocaust couldn't fly under the radar in the age of the internet; there'd be l…

> There'd be a fair bit of noise if the Holocaust was happening today. Why are we talking in hypotheticals when it literally is happening today?

The Uyghur thing has been fairly well discussed and I assume people know everything they care to. Wikipedia is pretty comprehensive on the current state of knowledge.

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

#386
post #74

This hasn't hit mainstream media yet. It should have by now. Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Here's Xiaofeng Wang's bio on the Indiana University site.[1] Google Scholar.[2] Archived version of home page at Indiana University.[3] If anybody has a PACER account, please check there. [1] https://alliance.iu.edu/members/member/8580.html [2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?use…

> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do.

If a government was disappearing people they would not do it with police raids. The last thing they would want is to take responsibility for it.

I have lived in a country where journalists and others were being disappeared, and it was done by unidentifiable people in unmarked vans.

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

#387
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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'.

Wrong.

> For the purposes of this Convention, "enforced disappearance" is considered to be the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.

Arresting Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk is a violation of their first amendment rights, no one in the government has acknowledged this. In addition, moving people to another state in opposition to a judges orders because the judge in Louisiana is favorable to your cause is an attempt to place someone outside of the protection of the law.

Khalil was also denied his right to a phone call or legal council for (as far as I can tell) 4 days.

But also, the government is unambiguously disappearing people

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-ignored-or...

And can I add, trusting the government to tell you where the person they just kidnapped is, is a pretty naive way of looking at things. They're violating our first amendment rights and kidnapping people off the street while disguising their identities and refusing to identify themselves when asked directly. What happens if they also refused to tell you where they disappeared people to?

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

#388
post #383

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?

> How do we know that the Chinese government didn't do this (which is known to happen) Source? > How do we know it was the US government We don't but its 100000x easier for the US government to disappear someone on US soil than it is for China to disappear someone on US soil.

Yes moving him to a different house would be an incredibly difficult thing for the Chinese govt to do. And of course, this would be something that he couldnt possibly do himself without some sort of secret govt involvement.

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

#389
post #74

This hasn't hit mainstream media yet. It should have by now. Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. Here's Xiaofeng Wang's bio on the Indiana University site.[1] Google Scholar.[2] Archived version of home page at Indiana University.[3] If anybody has a PACER account, please check there. [1] https://alliance.iu.edu/members/member/8580.html [2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?use…

> Disappearing people is not something the US government is allowed to do. If a government was disappearing people they would not do it with police raids. The last thing they would want is to take responsibility for it. I have lived in a country where journalists and others were being disappeared, and it was done by unidentifiable people in unmarked vans.

> unidentifiable people in unmarked vans.

This literally happened 4 days ago to Rümeysa Öztürk

Or the "cops" who refuesed to identify themselves to Mahmood Khalil's wife?

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

#390
post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only urge you to provide one or more good primary sources if you are making such a claim. It should be a given...

people seem downvote you, but I think this is a good example of how discussions SHOULD work. > A: makes a strong claim, suggesting it to be well known > B: doubts > [100 people provide credible sources] Also congrats for being 1 of 10000 today i guess https://xkcd.com/1053/

I didn't downvote the comment, but I would have done so. If we want to talk about how discussions should work then the commenter should have first spent two minutes researching and/or explained why sources like the Associated Press (my first result when copying and pasting the comment in DuckDuckGo) aren't reliable.

"I don't understand" is a good way to foment discussion. "I don't believe you" usually isn't.

Post reply on HN