Indiana U. fired cybersecurity professor XiaoFeng Wang on day FBI searched his homes: Union

[LiberalArkie]

MAR 31 2025 1:49 PM EDT

KEY POINTS
--- Indiana University fired computer science professor XiaoFeng Wang on the same day FBI agents executed search warrants at two homes owned by Wang and his wife, his union revealed.
--- The university removed the online profiles of both Wang, who has researched cryptography, privacy and cybersecurity, and Nianli Ma, an IU library systems analyst.
--- Wang’s work at the university’s Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering has been funded by multiple federal government agencies.
--- A criminal defense lawyer who worked on the federal criminal investigation of then-President Bill Clinton was at the couple’s Carmel home when FBI agents searched it.

Indiana University fired computer science professor XiaoFeng Wang on the same day that FBI agents executed search warrants at two homes owned by Wang and his wife, his union revealed Monday as it asked the school to revoke his termination.

The Bloomington chapter of the American Association of University Professors in a letter to Indiana U. on Monday protested Wang’s firing, which it said occurred without the “highest level of scrutiny and process” required by university policy.

The letter came as both the FBI and the university declined to reveal what led to the search of Wang’s home and the termination of the tenured professor after two decades at the university.

Indiana U. spokesman Mark Bode, in an email to CNBC, said, “Indiana University was recently made aware of a federal investigation of an Indiana University faculty member.”

Snip

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/31/fbi-searches-xiaofeng-wang-homes-indiana-university-cyrptography-computer.html


Comment: “Dr. Wang’s research focuses on system security and data privacy with a specialization on security and privacy issues in mobile and cloud computing, and privacy issues in dissemination and computation of human genomic data,” notes a Luddy School page that was still online as of Monday.

Just what did the couple discover?