The biggest news this week is inarguably the Trump administration’s baffling tariffs, which have rattled the global economy, impacting everything from the US tech industry to literal penguins, leaving most of the world wondering what comes next. But if you’re looking for a mystery that doesn’t feel quite so, well, existential, look no further than Indiana University.
On March 18, the FBI raided the homes of Xiaofeng Wang, a data privacy professor and researcher who worked at the IU for more than 20 years. The same day, according to a termination email viewed by WIRED, Wang was fired from his job, and people soon noticed that he and his wife seemed to have disappeared.
A WIRED investigation found that the university was looking into whether Wang received unreported research funding from China prior to his position being terminated. IU also removed from its website Wang’s profile as well as the profile of his wife, Nianli Ma, who worked as a library systems analyst. An attorney for Wang and Ma say they are “safe,” and Wang has reportedly taken a position at a university in Singapore. As of earlier this week, the couple’s attorney was unaware of any charges against either of them.
The large language models behind generative AI tools may be black boxes, but one company’s leaky server has provided some accidental insight into how people are using these tools. The short answer? It’s not great. Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered an unsecured database with more than 95,000 records linked to South Korea-based image-generation tool GeNomis. The records contained prompts for creating images, as well as some images themselves, which included de-aged pictures of celebrities like Ariana Grande and Beyoncé made to look like children, and what appeared to be AI-generated child sexual abuse material. The GeNomis website went offline hours after WIRED reached out for comment.
And that’s not all. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories, and stay safe out there.
The Trump administration has reportedly fired the director of the National Security Agency at the urging of far-right activist Laura Loomer. According to multiple reports, Loomer brought to an Oval Office meeting on Wednesday a list of about a dozen officials she claimed were insufficiently loyal to President Donald Trump. Among them were General Timothy Haugh—who led both the NSA and US Cyber Command—and his civilian deputy, Wendy Noble, who has reportedly also been removed from her post.
According to CNN, Loomer specifically targeted Haugh, arguing for his removal because he had been selected by Mark Milley, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. Milley, who publicly clashed with Trump, was quoted in a book by journalist Bob Woodward calling the former president “fascist to the core.” In a post on X, Loomer claimed that Haugh and Noble “have been disloyal to President Trump. That is why they have been fired.”
Haugh’s and Noble’s reported dismissals came just hours after several National Security Council staffers were also forced out following the Oval Office meeting that included Loomer.
Speaking aboard Air Force One on Thursday, Trump confirmed the NSC dismissals and acknowledged Loomer’s role in advising him. “She makes recommendations … and sometimes I listen to those recommendations … I listen to everybody and then I make a decision,” he said.
Loomer, who has promoted conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks and espoused anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, has become an increasingly vocal presence within Trump’s political orbit. In recent weeks, she has publicly attacked members of Trump’s own team, accusing them of undermining his agenda. “Laura Loomer is a very good patriot,” Trump said on Thursday. “She is a very strong person.”
DOGE Operative Linked to Alleged Hacking Past
On Monday, Reuters reported that an operative from Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) assigned to the US Justice Department was previously a hacker who ran websites distributing pirated ebooks and software. According to a Reuters review of domain registration data and archived pages from the Wayback Machine, one such site, fkn-pwnd.com, featured the slogan “Fucking Up Servers!” alongside a crude sketch of a penis.
Christopher Stanley, a 33-year-old engineer who has worked at both Musk’s social media company X and space company SpaceX, is a senior adviser in the deputy attorney general’s office, according to a former Justice Department official and a staff directory listing reviewed by Reuters. Starting about 10 years before joining SpaceX, Stanley allegedly ran several online forums that covered software piracy, video game cheats, and hacking. Reuters reports that he used various pseudonyms on those sites, including eNkrypt and Reneg4d3. The fkn-pwnd.com site, launched in 2006, would have been created when Stanley was in high school.
The Reuters report follows inquiries into another DOGE technologist, Edward Coristine, who worked briefly for a firm known for hiring reformed hackers, a WIRED investigation found.
Waltz’s Team Allegedly Had at Least 20 Signal Group Chats
Last week, The Atlantic exposed a staggering operational security failure when it reported that someone using the Signal account belong to national security adviser Mike Waltz accidentally invited the publication’s editor-in-chief to a private Signal group chat discussing a covert bombing operation in Yemen. Now, Politico reports that Waltz’s team has routinely used Signal chats—on a far broader scale than previously known—to coordinate official work on sensitive issues including Ukraine, China, Gaza, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.
Sources who spoke to Politico on the condition of anonymity say they were directly involved in or had knowledge of at least 20 such group chats. While none of the four individuals could confirm whether classified information was shared, all said the discussions regularly included sensitive national security details. In the wake of these revelations, Waltz and other US government officials have also come under scrutiny for leaving their Venmo accounts public and reportedly using personal Gmail addresses for government business.
On Thursday, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general announced a review of defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted Signal app to share plans for operations against the Houthis in Yemen.
