AcidicBasicGlitch

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/25573398

Congratulations, Wisconsin!

Hey there, so I just saw that Wisconsin DMV has started warning residents about these phishing texts.

I'm just curious have you heard anything else about issues with stolen data or anything like that from the Wisconsin DMV?

Louisiana had an incident a few years ago where state government servers were hacked, and then a few years later pretty much every adult in LA had their data breached by a cyber attack at the Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV).

We never heard much else about it, but on the 20th of March the current governor reissued the state of emergency for the incident, gave the director of the governors office of Homeland security and emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) the authority to handle it, then moved GOHSEP under the National guard and named a Louisiana guardsman interim director of GOHSEP. There's been continuing weirdness around it since, but not much detail.

Just wondering if there's any connection between the two. Seems like odd timing to be getting the message from your DMV.

https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/about-wisdot/newsroom/news-rel/032825phishscam.aspx

https://louisianarecord.com/stories/670486434-murrill-warns-louisiana-residents-about-fake-toll-scam-texts

https://www.nola.com/news/politics/jeff-landry-restructure-gohsep-under-louisiana-national-guard-fiscal-responsibility/article_7e9e08f2-ee67-463c-a2b3-424f6165a087.html

https://www.fox8live.com/2025/03/21/gov-landry-declares-state-emergency-response-louisiana-omv-disruptions/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/louisiana-commissioner-office-motor-vehicles-231107729.html

https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2025/04/01/heres-the-latest-in-louisianas-office-of-motor-vehicles-outage-crisis/82754080007/

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20187958

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.

"None of this is in any way normal"

In recent weeks, Wang's email account, phone number, and profile page at the Luddy School were quietly erased by his employer. Over the same time, Indiana University also removed a profile for his wife, Nianli Ma, who was listed as a Lead Systems Analyst and Programmer at the university's Library Technologies division.

According to the Herald-Times in Bloomington, a small fleet of unmarked cars driven by government agents descended on the Bloomington home of Wang and Ma on Friday. They spent most of the day going in and out of the house and occasionally transferred boxes from their vehicles. TV station WTHR, meanwhile, reported that a second home owned by Wang and Ma and located in Carmel, Indiana, was also searched. The station said that both a resident and an attorney for the resident were on scene during at least part of the search.

Attempts to locate Wang and Ma have so far been unsuccessful. An Indiana University spokesman didn't answer emailed questions asking if the couple was still employed by the university and why their profile pages, email addresses and phone numbers had been removed. The spokesman provided the contact information for a spokeswoman at the FBI's field office in Indianapolis. In an email, the spokeswoman wrote: "The FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity at homes in Bloomington and Carmel Friday. We have no further comment at this time."

Searches of federal court dockets turned up no documents related to Wang, Ma, or any searches of their residences. The FBI spokeswoman didn't answer questions seeking which US district court issued the warrant and when, and whether either Wang or Ma is being detained by authorities. Justice Department representatives didn't return an email seeking the same information. An email sent to a personal email address belonging to Wang went unanswered at the time this post went live. Their resident status (e.g. US citizens or green card holders) is currently unknown.

Fellow researchers took to social media over the weekend to register their concern over the series of events.

"None of this is in any way normal," Matthew Green, a professor specializing in cryptography at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Mastodon. He continued: "Has anyone been in contact? I hear he’s been missing for two weeks and his students can’t reach him. How does this not get noticed for two weeks???"

In the same thread, Matt Blaze, a McDevitt Professor of Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University said: "It's hard to imagine what reason there could be for the university to scrub its website as if he never worked there. And while there's a process for removing tenured faculty, it takes more than an afternoon to do it."

Local news outlets reported the agents spent several hours moving boxes in an out of the residences. WTHR provided the following details about the raid on the Carmel home:

Neighbors say the agents announced "FBI, come out!" over a megaphone.

A woman came out of the house holding a phone. A video from a neighbor shows an agent taking that phone from her. She was then questioned in the driveway before agents began searching the home, collecting evidence and taking photos.

A car was pulled out of the garage slightly to allow investigators to access the attic.

The woman left the house before 13News arrived. She returned just after noon accompanied by a lawyer. The group of ten or so investigators left a few minutes later.

The FBI would not say what they were looking for or who is under investigation. A bureau spokesperson issued a statement: “I can confirm we conducted court-authorized activity at the address in Carmel today. We have no further comment at this time.”

Investigators were at the house for about four hours before leaving with several boxes of evidence. 13News rang the doorbell when the agents were gone. A lawyer representing the family who answered the door told us they're not sure yet what the investigation is about.

This post will be updated if new details become available. Anyone with first-hand knowledge of events involving Wang, Ma, or the investigation into either is encouraged to contact me, preferably over Signal at DanArs.82. The email address is: [email protected].

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20187958

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.

"None of this is in any way normal"

In recent weeks, Wang's email account, phone number, and profile page at the Luddy School were quietly erased by his employer. Over the same time, Indiana University also removed a profile for his wife, Nianli Ma, who was listed as a Lead Systems Analyst and Programmer at the university's Library Technologies division.

According to the Herald-Times in Bloomington, a small fleet of unmarked cars driven by government agents descended on the Bloomington home of Wang and Ma on Friday. They spent most of the day going in and out of the house and occasionally transferred boxes from their vehicles. TV station WTHR, meanwhile, reported that a second home owned by Wang and Ma and located in Carmel, Indiana, was also searched. The station said that both a resident and an attorney for the resident were on scene during at least part of the search.

Attempts to locate Wang and Ma have so far been unsuccessful. An Indiana University spokesman didn't answer emailed questions asking if the couple was still employed by the university and why their profile pages, email addresses and phone numbers had been removed. The spokesman provided the contact information for a spokeswoman at the FBI's field office in Indianapolis. In an email, the spokeswoman wrote: "The FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity at homes in Bloomington and Carmel Friday. We have no further comment at this time."

Searches of federal court dockets turned up no documents related to Wang, Ma, or any searches of their residences. The FBI spokeswoman didn't answer questions seeking which US district court issued the warrant and when, and whether either Wang or Ma is being detained by authorities. Justice Department representatives didn't return an email seeking the same information. An email sent to a personal email address belonging to Wang went unanswered at the time this post went live. Their resident status (e.g. US citizens or green card holders) is currently unknown.

Fellow researchers took to social media over the weekend to register their concern over the series of events.

"None of this is in any way normal," Matthew Green, a professor specializing in cryptography at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Mastodon. He continued: "Has anyone been in contact? I hear he’s been missing for two weeks and his students can’t reach him. How does this not get noticed for two weeks???"

In the same thread, Matt Blaze, a McDevitt Professor of Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University said: "It's hard to imagine what reason there could be for the university to scrub its website as if he never worked there. And while there's a process for removing tenured faculty, it takes more than an afternoon to do it."

Local news outlets reported the agents spent several hours moving boxes in an out of the residences. WTHR provided the following details about the raid on the Carmel home:

Neighbors say the agents announced "FBI, come out!" over a megaphone.

A woman came out of the house holding a phone. A video from a neighbor shows an agent taking that phone from her. She was then questioned in the driveway before agents began searching the home, collecting evidence and taking photos.

A car was pulled out of the garage slightly to allow investigators to access the attic.

The woman left the house before 13News arrived. She returned just after noon accompanied by a lawyer. The group of ten or so investigators left a few minutes later.

The FBI would not say what they were looking for or who is under investigation. A bureau spokesperson issued a statement: “I can confirm we conducted court-authorized activity at the address in Carmel today. We have no further comment at this time.”

Investigators were at the house for about four hours before leaving with several boxes of evidence. 13News rang the doorbell when the agents were gone. A lawyer representing the family who answered the door told us they're not sure yet what the investigation is about.

This post will be updated if new details become available. Anyone with first-hand knowledge of events involving Wang, Ma, or the investigation into either is encouraged to contact me, preferably over Signal at DanArs.82. The email address is: [email protected].

Again, we have "savings" coming from DOGE at the state level from cuts.

When Landry proposed his original 2026 budget, state level cuts were supposedly making things more efficient. These cuts will somehow be offset by federal rewards in more funding for the states efficiency effort. However, the federal government seems to be slashing more funding anyway.

So are we really being "rewarded" or just fucked over at the state and federal level?

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59911929

If Medicaid is unsustainable that means healthcare cuts.

When you're looking for where you should be making healthcare cuts what makes the most logical sense to you?

At least having a discussion about how these administrative salaries and positions are actually justified?

Or

•Slash and burn policy eliminating doctors that were already accepting Medicaid

•Reducing care offered to patients so that the patients will then indeed become less healthy, rely on emergency services and require more costly care in the long run

•Claiming Medicaid is unsustainable bc "no doctors want to accept Medicaid patients."

If you abruptly eliminate all the doctors that do accept Medicaid and then claim you need to increase the Medicaid budget to incentivise doctors in order to get them to accept Medicaid patients, then yes, by default it becomes easy to make the argument that no doctors in your hospital "want to accept Medicaid."

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59911929

If Medicaid is unsustainable that means healthcare cuts.

When you're looking for where you should be making healthcare cuts what makes the most logical sense to you?

At least having a discussion about how these administrative salaries and positions are actually justified?

Or

•Slash and burn policy eliminating doctors that were already accepting Medicaid

•Reducing care offered to patients so that the patients will then indeed become less healthy, rely on emergency services and require more costly care in the long run

•Claiming Medicaid is unsustainable bc "no doctors want to accept Medicaid patients."

If you abruptly eliminate all the doctors that do accept Medicaid and then claim you need to increase the Medicaid budget to incentivise doctors in order to get them to accept Medicaid patients, then yes, by default it becomes easy to make the argument that no doctors in your hospital "want to accept Medicaid."

If Medicaid is unsustainable that means healthcare cuts.

When you're looking for where you should be making healthcare cuts what makes the most logical sense to you?

At least having a discussion about how these administrative salaries and positions are actually justified?

Or

•Slash and burn policy eliminating doctors that were already accepting Medicaid

•Reducing care offered to patients so that the patients will then indeed become less healthy, rely on emergency services and require more costly care in the long run

•Claiming Medicaid is unsustainable bc "no doctors want to accept Medicaid patients."

If you abruptly eliminate all the doctors that do accept Medicaid and then claim you need to increase the Medicaid budget to incentivise doctors in order to get them to accept Medicaid patients, then yes, by default it becomes easy to make the argument that no doctors in your hospital "want to accept Medicaid."

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59903645

I will put references for all of this info in a comment to save space:

So back in Feb Landry announced he found $11M in savings from Louisiana Department of Health (LDH).

It turns out that a few weeks before that, Louisiana DOGE held secret meetings with Tara LeBlanc, an employee who works for Guidehouse, a consulting firm in the DC area. Before she worked for Guidehouse, she was director of Medicaid at LDH. Since these meetings were held in secret, there is no public record and we don't know what they actually discussed (which is a violation of transparency law).

1 week after Landry said he found $11M in savings, he announces LA DOGE was partnering with the LA Legislative auditor to find savings.

A little under two weeks after that, the LA Legislative auditor releases a report saying that LDH is being audited for misspending funds for Medicaid program MCIP, which was designed to enhance health outcomes for patients on Medicaid. The program was created in 2018 and implemented in 2019.

The audit is blaming the hospitals that were running the programs. However, think back to that secret meeting for a second: A Guidehouse description of Tera Leblanc welcomes the former Medicaid Executive Director for the LA Department of Health, and says she previously "designed and implemented plans to elevate Louisiana’s pioneering public health emergency unwinding strategy and enhance outcomes for Medicaid beneficiaries."

Tera LeBlanc was deputy and then executive director of Medicaid from (2019-2023). This means that LeBlanc was involved in designing and implementing plans to improve outcomes for Medicaid beneficiaries during 4 of the 5 years (2019-2024) that the Louisiana Legislative Auditor claims MCIP funds were misspent on administrative costs such as submitting reports and meetings.

Why do I bring up your LCMC doctors?

Around the time this audit was announced, I learned that several doctors who accept Medicaid were suddenly no longer with LCMC. Nobody seems to understand exactly what is going on. Nurses trying direct people on where to find care are being informed by patients that doctors they are recommending patients contact are no longer with LCMC. There is no reporting on this, which is why I am asking people to help me figure out exactly how widespread this issue is.

According to Landry's team, they found $11M in savings at LDH by eliminating contracts and almost 60 of the health department’s 7,700 employment positions in an effort to reduce spending. I would really like to see exactly what contracts and positions those were.

However, Landry's team also says the overall LDH budget for next year is also increasing due to Medicaid costs being out of their control. This is all apparently coming from federal money, but the day after an article came out clarifying that LDH budget was increasing by $1.5B, another article came out that said the Federal DOGE was suddenly slashing $55M in grant money already given to LDH. Some grants had already expired, but others hadn't.

The most recent estimate of budget elimination when considering expired vs not expired grants is ~$10M. Now LDH is having to figure out how to make up for that $10M in other ways. Which seems like it kind of offsets any "$11M savings" Landry found, but honestly I am very confused by most of this.

I do know that the LA Surgeon General Ralph Abraham, who has long opposed Medicaid expansion, claims that one reason the Medicaid budget is growing is because they have to offer doctors more money as an incentive to get them to accept Medicaid.

You've probably heard the often repeated phrase "no doctors want to accept Medicaid patients." So why were several doctors that accept Medicaid patients abruptly no longer practicing at LCMC?

Seems kind of counter intuitive to claim you need more money to pay doctors to incentivise them, only to have one of your largest contractors suddenly no longer employ doctors who have been accepting Medicaid patients for years, right?

If you get rid of all the doctors that will accept Medicaid, then it becomes pretty easy to prove the point that no doctors want to accept patients on Medicaid. Weird.

I will put references for all of this info in a comment to save space:

So back in Feb Landry announced he found $11M in savings from Louisiana Department of Health (LDH).

It turns out that a few weeks before that, Louisiana DOGE held secret meetings with Tara LeBlanc, an employee who works for Guidehouse, a consulting firm in the DC area. Before she worked for Guidehouse, she was director of Medicaid at LDH. Since these meetings were held in secret, there is no public record and we don't know what they actually discussed (which is a violation of transparency law).

1 week after Landry said he found $11M in savings, he announces LA DOGE was partnering with the LA Legislative auditor to find savings.

A little under two weeks after that, the LA Legislative auditor releases a report saying that LDH is being audited for misspending funds for Medicaid program MCIP, which was designed to enhance health outcomes for patients on Medicaid. The program was created in 2018 and implemented in 2019.

The audit is blaming the hospitals that were running the programs. However, think back to that secret meeting for a second: A Guidehouse description of Tera Leblanc welcomes the former Medicaid Executive Director for the LA Department of Health, and says she previously "designed and implemented plans to elevate Louisiana’s pioneering public health emergency unwinding strategy and enhance outcomes for Medicaid beneficiaries."

Tera LeBlanc was deputy and then executive director of Medicaid from (2019-2023). This means that LeBlanc was involved in designing and implementing plans to improve outcomes for Medicaid beneficiaries during 4 of the 5 years (2019-2024) that the Louisiana Legislative Auditor claims MCIP funds were misspent on administrative costs such as submitting reports and meetings.

Why do I bring up your LCMC doctors?

Around the time this audit was announced, I learned that several doctors who accept Medicaid were suddenly no longer with LCMC. Nobody seems to understand exactly what is going on. Nurses trying direct people on where to find care are being informed by patients that doctors they are recommending patients contact are no longer with LCMC. There is no reporting on this, which is why I am asking people to help me figure out exactly how widespread this issue is.

According to Landry's team, they found $11M in savings at LDH by eliminating contracts and almost 60 of the health department’s 7,700 employment positions in an effort to reduce spending. I would really like to see exactly what contracts and positions those were.

However, Landry's team also says the overall LDH budget for next year is also increasing due to Medicaid costs being out of their control. This is all apparently coming from federal money, but the day after an article came out clarifying that LDH budget was increasing by $1.5B, another article came out that said the Federal DOGE was suddenly slashing $55M in grant money already given to LDH. Some grants had already expired, but others hadn't.

The most recent estimate of budget elimination when considering expired vs not expired grants is ~$10M. Now LDH is having to figure out how to make up for that $10M in other ways. Which seems like it kind of offsets any "$11M savings" Landry found, but honestly I am very confused by most of this.

I do know that the LA Surgeon General Ralph Abraham, who has long opposed Medicaid expansion, claims that one reason the Medicaid budget is growing is because they have to offer doctors more money as an incentive to get them to accept Medicaid.

You've probably heard the often repeated phrase "no doctors want to accept Medicaid patients." So why were several doctors that accept Medicaid patients abruptly no longer practicing at LCMC?

Seems kind of counter intuitive to claim you need more money to pay doctors to incentivise them, only to have one of your largest contractors suddenly no longer employ doctors who have been accepting Medicaid patients for years, right?

If you get rid of all the doctors that will accept Medicaid, then it becomes pretty easy to prove the point that no doctors want to accept patients on Medicaid. Weird.