[christina_b]

I may be totally off base here but IIRC, before he ran MalwareTech and was a whitehat, he participated (and was an op) in fairly "shady" IRC channels, with his oldest nick I can recall being `Ntoskrnl`, dedicated to malware and malware development which even had a person (Edit3: As pointed out in this thread, that person was `BetaMonkey/TouchMe`) who was selling a variant of a botnet drone client builder. Edit2: From one of the comments below in this thread, the network on which he was present (and was an IRC operator of) was `irc.voidptr.cz` or a variation of that, I could not recall the name of the network at first but when someone mentioned it, I instantly recognized it.

If he's who I think he is, I doubt his early background is that clean, despite him being a whitehat now. It is very much possible he is being held because of something related to that and not because of anything related to WannaCry. This was all before he even started running the MalwareTech blog, it's very much possible the FBI decided to look into his background or were already familiar with it prior to him arriving in or leaving the US.

That being said, it's possible that I'm mistaking him for someone else in which case I do apologize. I edited the post a bit, to clarify, the first paragraph to the best of my knowledge is certainly true, second one is based on my own speculation so take it with a grain of salt.

[sbarre]

Instead of apologizing for potentially spreading FUD and falsehoods, maybe you should refrain from posting until you have actual facts in hand?

[webkike]

The grandparent is making a good point. It is entirely possible that the researcher is being prosecuted for something related to his past. It's not likely that he's being prosecuted for smuggling a small amount of drugs (for example), the FBI wouldn't be the one making the arrest. Even if all the activities he has done in the past are completely legal the FBI could still try to wring him for them.

[strictnein]

> maybe you should refrain from posting until you have actual facts in hand?

Yeah, like the rest of the people commenting here, right? They have all the facts.

[hota_mazi]

There's an equal number of FUD and speculation going the other way, e.g. that he was arrested for no reason or that he was "disappeared".

[bdcravens]

Kind of like the assumptions as to why he was arrested?

[plopz]

Like the article itself?

[ryanlol]

I can confirm that christina_b is correct and sbarre can rest easy knowing that nobody is being defamed.