Konto erstellenAnmelden

Frühere Suchanfragen

Keine früheren Suchanfragen

Suchoptionen

Nur verfügbar, wenn angemeldet.
bildung.social ist einer von vielen unabhängigen Mastodon-Servern, mit dem du dich im Fediverse beteiligen kannst.
Bildung unter den Bedingungen der digitalen Transformation.

Verwaltet von:

Serverstatistik:

848
aktive Profile

bildung.social: ÜberProfilverzeichnisDatenschutzerklärung

Mastodon: ÜberApp herunterladenTastenkombinationenQuellcode anzeigenv4.3.7

#IndianaUniversity

1 Beitrag1 Beteiligte*r0 Beiträge heute
Öffentlich
Tino Eberl

Das Verschwinden des renommierten IT-Sicherheitsforschers Xiaofeng Wang in den #USA sorgt in der #Wissenschaftscommunity für Unruhe.

Nach Hausdurchsuchungen durch das #FBI ist Wang seit Wochen nicht erreichbar, auch sein Uni-Profil wurde gelöscht. Offizielle Stellen schweigen – mögliche Gründe reichen von internen Ermittlungen bis hin zu Vorwürfen im Bereich der #nationalenSicherheit.

derstandard.at/story/300000026

DER STANDARD · Xiaofeng Wang: Das beunruhigende Verschwinden eines IT-WissenschaftersDas FBI vollzog Hausdurchsuchungen, US-Behörden und die Indiana University schweigen sich aus. Unter anderen Forschern sorgt das Vorgehen für wachsende Befremdung
#Netzpolitik#XiaofengWang#Forschung
Öffentlich *
Yet another Josh :donor:

@pluralistic

Thank you for delivering MULTIPLE talks here in #bloomingtonIN and for signing our books!

As you signed @pluralistic , "Disenshittify or die!"

So, a story about how I #disenshittify ... by force!

This story starts when I was working at #IndianaUniversity for #UITS in IT Client Services. My job was "Special Projects". I worked for a director and basically made magic happen.

Early November 2014, someone from a human interface robotics lab handed me a new piece of #hardware called the #ThalmicMyo . It was an upper armband with 8 myoelectric sensors that could measure electrical muscle function, and do stuff on a computer with that data! The base idea was that you could do the following: hand wave outward, inward, spread out, fist, and thumbs up.

So, being CrankyLinuxUser, I wanted a #FLOSS toolchain to get and do my own thing with it. Whoops, only worked for #MSWindows .

Forum requests were met with silence. "Sorry you cant get the data", was the refrain. Lies.

So I used my #IU account and requested academic access. They IMMEDIATELY chimed up and said that access could easily be granted at $5000/year . UH huh.

So, I made them a target.

Took a few weeks. BUT I eventually got a shitty BUT working toolchain on Linux to use really basic machine learning. This is just a linear regression k-nearest-neighbors. No LLM fuckery. Theirs could do 5 gestures. Mine could do 10.

I initially released it on #HackerNews or YCombinator, not realizing that Thalmic Myo was VC funded by YC. And holy shit that was a #MartinHench moment where I fell into a WHOLE LOT OF SHIT. My article was auto-killed. My account on HN was shadowbanned. Ruh roh.

I had some contacts at @hackaday and I sent them my findings, my responses from HN, and my repo... and a really hostile Youtube video (one of my gestures was a middle finger to Thalmic).

On Nov 18, 2014, at 730am eastern, my phone blew up, figuratively speaking. Ping. Ping ping. PIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG until 12pm.

The page is still up on HaD, by the way. hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmi

At 12pm or thereabouts, Thalmic Myo announced that they made an official decision to "allow raw data access"! I was not only successful for my hardware, but hardware freedom for EVERYONE with this platform.

Normally, the story would stop. I handed back the borrowed hardware to the lab that loaned it to me. I know they were able to do some cool prosthetic automation with it. But that's not my specialty. I made it so they could. My director permitted me to buy a few for our office to continue and loan them out as well.

...... 3 months later

I get a call on my office phone doing a customer survey. Told them that the hardware was great. "What about our API?" I told them that I made my own, and I was the one that forced your company to open source 3 months back. Ive never heard silence so LOUD. She asked me to stand by.

She transferred me to the CTO. We had a spirited conversation. I basically told him that I think ignoring the FLOSS and hacker community was your first and fatal mistake. You were a hardware business. You can do the VC thing and gatekeep, but that just angers people. And what you were in was a MASSIVE awesome piece of unique hardware nobody else had. He told me that their original idea was a powerpoint slide advance. I gave him perhaps 6 different major ideas to jump off on.

Nothing else happened, for a while.

3 more months later.......

I get a reddit DM out of the blue. Saw my name, and connected the dots. (S)He was an engineer at Thalmic during the time I released my Linux FLOSS code. They told me that I basically flip-turned the whole company upside down. I broke their business model of #Extraction and #enshittification and forced #FLOSS on them without a choice. They thanked me for my contribution.

Later n, the company got acquired or died. I'm not sure. I moved on and no longer had any of the hardware. Although, the basic idea is actually pretty cheap to construct these days. The only hard part is the AgCl electrode plating.

So when people ask what they can do, there's a LOT we can do. And a SINGLE PERSON can change the course of history. Sure, sometimes being in the right place at the right time is a big part, but there's so many of these moments.

Just wanted to contribute back @pluralistic to the movement you've founded.

Cory Doctorow signed my copy of "Radicalized" book. Signed with "For CrankyLinuxUser Disenshittify or die!"
Öffentlich
Noelle :verified:

This story is really worrying and concerning.

"Xiaofeng Wang, a longtime computer science professor at Indiana University, has disappeared along with his wife, and their profiles on the school's website were wiped ahead of recent FBI raids."

#news #tech #press #computer #professor #university #IndianaUniversity #usa #USnews

wired.com/story/cybersecurity-

WIRED · Cybersecurity Professor Mysteriously Disappears as FBI Raids His HomesVon Dan Goodin, Ars Technica
Öffentlich
Miguel Afonso Caetano

"A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on cryptography, privacy, and cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer, Indiana University, and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why.

Xiaofeng Wang has a long list of prestigious titles. He was the associate dean for research at Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering, a fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a tenured professor at Indiana University at Bloomington. According to his employer, he has served as principal investigator on research projects totaling nearly $23 million over his 21 years there.

He has also co-authored scores of academic papers on a diverse range of research fields, including cryptography, systems security, and data privacy, including the protection of human genomic data. I have personally spoken to him on three occasions for articles here, here, and here."

arstechnica.com/security/2025/

Ars Technica · FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicadoVon Dan Goodin
#USA#Universities#HighedEd
Öffentlich
PrivacyDigest

#FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone #incommunicado

A prominent computer scientist who has spent 20 years publishing academic papers on #cryptography , #privacy , and #cybersecurity has gone incommunicado, had his professor profile, email account, and phone number removed by his employer #IndianaUniversity , and had his homes raided by the FBI. No one knows why.

arstechnica.com/security/2025/

Ars Technica · FBI raids home of prominent computer scientist who has gone incommunicadoVon Dan Goodin
Öffentlich
Ben Fulton

Bike chain popped off outside of Briscoe Quad. I knew there are a bunch of bike stands scattered around campus for repairs, so I spent a few minutes searching for the closest one. Between bad outdoor wifi and the list being hidden deep in a web page, I eventually gave up. But I did look it up again when I got home and found that the closest one was at...

Briscoe Quad. Naturally.

Here's the list so I don't lose it again.

#IndianaUniversity #biketooter

transportation.indiana.edu/bic

Transportation Demand ManagementMaintenance: Bicycles: Transportation Demand Management: Indiana UniversityBicycle resources for the IU campus
Öffentlich *
Ryan Randall

Just sent an email to #IndianaUniversity's Alumni Association letting them know that they'll never receive another donation from me until:

- all criminal & academic disciplinary charges are dismissed against students, faculty, & staff;

- there is a thorough & independent investigation of the admin's decision making processes that led to the recent violence against the campus community

(I consulted this story for guidance on what to include: idsnews.com/article/2024/04/st )

I also asked for specifics of what the Alumni Association is doing to correct the egregious actions of IU's administration.

An email like this is not much, but it's something I can do, and something I can trust that the bean counters will count.

If you have campus ties to an institution experiencing #StudentSpring, maybe consider writing a similar email? #StudentProtests

Student, advocacy groups condemn encampment arrests, policy change - Indiana Daily StudentStudent, advocacy groups condemn encampment arrests, policy changePolice arrested 56 protesters on April 25 and 27 in Dunn Meadow.
Öffentlich
Ben Fulton

Students, faculty feel 'walled off' from Indiana University climate plan, sustainability projects

"IU tackles possibly the most ambitious sustainability project ever — its climate action plan. Though the university held at least one public forum at each campus, the planning committee meetings weren’t open to the public. And at least for now, implementation committee meetings aren’t either."

#IndianaUniversity #environment

indianapublicmedia.org/news/st

News - Indiana Public MediaStudents, faculty feel 'walled off' from Indiana University climate plan, sustainability projectsHow IU chooses to move forward could determine whether students, faculty and staff have a role in helping the university reach its climate goals.
EntdeckenLive-Feeds
Über