Cybersecurity Professor Faced China Funding Inquiry Before Disappearing

The FBI searched two homes of Indiana University Bloomington data privacy professor Xiaofeng Wang last week, following months of university inquiries into whether he received unreported research funding from China, WIRED reported Wednesday.

Wang, who leads the Center for Distributed Confidential Computing established with a $3 million National Science Foundation grant, was terminated on March 28 via email from the university provost. The university had contacted Wang in December regarding a 2017-2018 grant in China that listed him as a researcher, questioning whether he properly disclosed the funding to IU and in applications for U.S. federal research grants.

Jason Covert, Wang's attorney, said Wang and his wife Nianli Ma, whose employee profile was also removed, are 'safe' and neither has been arrested. The couple's legal team has viewed a search warrant but received no affidavit establishing probable cause.

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