Cybersecurity Professor Faced China Funding Inquiry Before Disappearing, Sources Say

Before the authoritative module profiles of renowned Indiana University, Bloomington (IU) information privateness prof Xiaofeng Wang and his woman disappeared and the FBI raided 2 of the couple’s homes past week, the schoolhouse is said to person been reviewing for months whether the prof received unreported probe backing from China, WIRED has learned.

Indiana University contacted Wang successful December to inquire astir a 2017-2018 assistance successful China that listed Wang arsenic a researcher, according to an unsigned connection that appears to beryllium written by a Purdue University prof and long-time collaborator of Wang seen by WIRED. The connection says that the writer believed IU was acrophobic that Wang allegedly failed to decently disclose the backing to the assemblage and successful applications for US national probe grants.

The connection has been circulating among cybersecurity and privateness scholars astatine universities astir the satellite successful caller days and was sent to WIRED by 3 abstracted sources. It claims that Wang had explained the backing concern to IU, past was told successful February that the schoolhouse would proceed looking into the matter.

Alex Tanford, a prof emeritus astatine Indiana University and the IU Bloomington Chapter president of the American Association of University Professors, says Wang reached retired to him and said that helium had been accused of alleged probe misconduct. Tanford says helium provided Wang guidance arsenic a subordinate of the module committee of review. IU did not reply WIRED’s questions regarding immoderate probes into Wang.

“The complaint seemed trivial—that helium had failed to decently disclose who was main researcher connected a assistance exertion and had not afloat listed each his coauthors connected an article,” Tanford tells WIRED of the allegations. He says Wang wanted to cognize if the assemblage had the close to fastener him retired of his bureau and computer, arsenic helium was successful the mediate of ongoing research.

Research papers Wang published betwixt 2017 and 2018 database backing from places similar the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the US Army Research Office, Google, and Samsung, according to a WIRED reappraisal of his publications from the clip period.

Wang regularly collaborated with researchers astatine the Institute of Information Engineering (IIE) astatine the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a government-funded cybersecurity probe lab. In papers, Wang and his coauthors disclosed that the IIE scholars received backing from sources specified arsenic the National Natural Science Foundation of China, but that Wang was being supported by US grants. It’s not uncommon for professors astatine US institutions to collaborate with researchers successful China, and there's nary nationalist grounds to suggest that the arrangements were improper.

According to the unsigned statement’s rubric and metadata, it appears to person been authored by Ninghui Li, a machine subject prof astatine Purdue who has collaborated connected probe with Wang since astatine slightest 2006. The brace besides service unneurotic connected committee of the ACM Special Interest Group connected Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC), which aims “to make the accusation information assemblage by sponsoring precocious prime probe conferences and workshops,” according to the Association for Computer Machinery’s website. Li did not respond to emailed requests for remark nor a voicemail near connected his bureau phone.