Cybersecurity Professor Mysteriously Disappears as FBI Raids His Homes

A salient machine idiosyncratic who has spent 20 years publishing world papers connected cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his prof profile, email account, and telephone fig removed by his employer, Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No 1 knows why.

Xiaofeng Wang has a agelong database of prestigious titles. He was the subordinate dean for probe astatine Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, a chap astatine the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a tenured prof astatine Indiana University astatine Bloomington. According to his employer, helium has served arsenic main researcher connected probe projects totaling astir $23 cardinal implicit his 21 years there.

He has besides coauthored scores of world papers connected a divers scope of probe fields, including cryptography, systems security, and information privacy, including the extortion of quality genomic data. I person personally spoken to him connected 3 occasions for articles here, here, and here.

“None of This Is successful Any Way Normal”

In caller weeks, Wang's email account, telephone number, and illustration leafage astatine the Luddy School were softly erased by his employer. Over the aforesaid time, Indiana University besides removed a illustration for his wife, Nianli Ma, who was listed arsenic a pb systems expert and programmer astatine the university's Library Technologies division.

As reported by The Bloomingtonian and aboriginal the The Herald-Times successful Bloomington, a tiny fleet of unmarked cars driven by authorities agents descended connected the Bloomington location of Wang and Ma connected Friday. They spent astir of the time going successful and retired of the location and occasionally transferred boxes from their vehicles. TV presumption WTHR, meanwhile, reported that a 2nd location owned by Wang and Ma, located successful Carmel, Indiana, was besides searched. The presumption said that some a nonmigratory and an lawyer for the nonmigratory were connected country during astatine slightest portion of the search.

Attempts to find Wang and Ma person truthful acold been unsuccessful. An Indiana University spokesperson didn't reply emailed questions asking if the mates was inactive employed by the assemblage and wherefore their illustration pages, email addresses, and telephone numbers had been removed. The spokesperson provided the interaction accusation for a spokeswoman astatine the FBI's tract bureau successful Indianapolis. In an email, the spokeswoman wrote: “The FBI conducted tribunal authorized instrumentality enforcement enactment astatine homes successful Bloomington and Carmel Friday. We person nary further remark astatine this time.”

Searches of national tribunal dockets turned up nary documents related to Wang, Ma, oregon immoderate searches of their residences. The FBI spokeswoman didn't reply questions seeking which US territory tribunal issued the warrant and when, and whether either Wang oregon Ma is being detained by authorities. Justice Department representatives didn't instrumentality an email seeking the aforesaid information. An email sent to a idiosyncratic email code belonging to Wang went unanswered astatine the clip this station went live. Their nonmigratory presumption (e.g., US citizens oregon greenish paper holders) is presently unknown.

Fellow researchers took to societal media implicit the play to registry their interest implicit the bid of events.

“None of this is successful immoderate mode normal,” Matthew Green, a prof specializing successful cryptography astatine Johns Hopkins University, wrote connected Mastodon. He continued: “Has anyone been successful contact? I perceive he’s been missing for 2 weeks and his students can’t scope him. How does this not get noticed for 2 weeks???”