Ethical Hacking News
A top computer security professor and his wife have vanished after a federal raid on their homes in Indiana. The FBI and local police were involved in the search, but no further details have been released about what led to their disappearance.
Iain Thomson, a tenured computer security professor at Indiana University, and his wife Nianli Ma have mysteriously disappeared. The FBI raided their homes on March 28th, leaving behind boxes of evidence and photographs of the scene. Thomson had been working with high-profile funding and was a respected member of the IT security community. His termination from Indiana University has raised eyebrows among colleagues and the academic community. The FBI is investigating a "federal matter" related to Thomson's employment history and personal life.
The world of academia has been left reeling by the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Iain Thomson, a tenured computer security professor at Indiana University, along with his wife Nianli Ma. The FBI, in collaboration with local law enforcement, raided their homes on March 28th, leaving behind boxes of evidence and photographs of the scene.
Thomson, who had been with the university for over two decades, has a reputation as a well-respected member of the IT security community, having published extensively on topics such as Apple security, e-commerce fraud, and adversarial machine learning. He is also no stranger to controversy, having previously worked on high-profile projects with funding exceeding $20 million.
However, it was not the professor's work that drew attention this time around, but rather his personal life. The university has removed Thomson's profile from its website, citing a federal investigation, and sources close to the matter suggest that the professor had been terminated by his US employer, allegedly due to taking a job at a university in Singapore.
Ma, who is also employed by Indiana University, was recently paid $85,000, while Thomson pocketed more than $380,000 in salaries last year. The sudden termination of both professors has raised eyebrows among colleagues and the academic community at large.
But what exactly led to this mysterious turn of events? According to sources, the FBI launched an investigation into a "federal matter," which appears to be linked to Thomson's employment history and personal life. The university, in its statement, declined to comment further on the matter, citing the ongoing investigation.
It is worth noting that this incident echoes a similar event from over two decades ago during Trump's first term as President, when the Department of Justice launched the so-called "China Initiative," aimed at uncovering economic espionage and IP theft by researchers linked to China. This effort was widely seen as counterproductive, prompting an exodus of Chinese researchers from the US and pushing some American-based scientists to relocate to the Chinese mainland.
While there is no clear indication that this incident has any direct connection to the "China Initiative," many experts are pointing out the similarities between the two events. Matt Blaze, Tor Project board member and the McDevitt Chair of Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University, pointed out that the sudden disappearance of a tenured professor from the university's records is "especially concerning."
"It's hard to imagine what reason there could be for the university to scrub its website as if he never worked there," Blaze said on Mastodon. "While there's a process for removing tenured faculty, it takes more than an afternoon to do it."
The incident has sparked concerns among academics and experts, who are urging caution and transparency in the handling of this situation. As the investigation continues, one thing is clear: Iain Thomson and his wife Nianli Ma's disappearance has left the academic community reeling, with many questions yet to be answered.
Related Information:
https://www.ethicalhackingnews.com/articles/Vanishing-Act-The-Mysterious-Disappearance-of-a-Tenured-Computer-Security-Professor-and-His-Wife-ehn.shtml
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2025/03/31/indiana_cybersecurity_professor_fbi/
Published: Mon Mar 31 18:47:02 2025 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
