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'Keep out!': China sent 6 warnings to a US Navy plane, but the US didn't back down
shyt is going to hit the fan at some point
shyt is going to hit the fan at some point
The Official Chinese 🇨🇳 Espionage & Cold War Thread
DrBanneker
Space is the Place
Are you serious??? You think the feds and counterintelligence aren't aware of these tactics given all the White men who got caught sleeping with Chinese spies in this country? Not like they weren't trying to recruit me.thedrive.com
China's Dismantling Of CIA Spy Ring Highlights Growing Dystopian-Like Surveillance State
Joseph Trevithick
12-15 minutes
The country's omnipresent cameras, facial-recognition systems, surveillance drones, and more would be at home in a dark future sci-fi flick.
Klaus Ohlenschläger/Picture-Alliance/DPA/AP Images
A new report has described how a catastrophic failure on the part of the Central Intelligence Agency, combined with the Chinese government’s steadily more sophisticated internet monitoring capabilities, led to the dramatic collapse of an American intelligence network in China and the executions of dozens of spies and their associates. The incident is just one example of how authorities in Beijing are overseeing the creation of an ever more effective police state, complete with technology and tactics straight out of a certain genre of near-future science fiction movie.
Earlier in August 2018, Foreign Policy revealed how Chinese state security officials were able to completely dismantle a CIA-run intelligence operation over the course of two years, beginning in 2010. The New York Times first broke the news of the debacle in 2017, but its sources either did not disclose or did not know exactly what had happened or the true scale of China’s response. In May 2018, U.S. officials charged former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee with conspiracy to commit espionage over the affair, nearly five months after indicting him for retaining classified information.
“When things started going bad, they went bad fast,” an unnamed U.S. official told Foreign Policy. “You could tell the Chinese weren’t guessing. The Ministry of State Security were always pulling in the right people.”
When it became apparent that there was a problem, the CIA turned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation to help uncover the source of the leak, according to the report. That investigation helped turn up Lee, who allegedly received tens of thousands of dollars to deliver information to the Chinese Ministry of State Security, which oversees both foreign and internal intelligence operations.
via SCMP
A handout photo of former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee after his arrest.
But the FBI also apparently determined that the duplicitous intelligence officer would simply not have been able to point the finger at so many American intelligence assets or their associates so quickly and accurately. For obvious security reasons, agencies such as the CIA typically keep the real identities of their sources highly compartmentalized specifically so that if one person gets compromised, the others are protected.
The FBI, with help from the National Security Agency, subsequently turned up a far more embarrassing truth. The CIA had likely burned these individuals itself when it unknowingly gave them a faulty piece of internet-based communications software.
The agency used this encrypted communications application to communicate with new sources in order to vet them. The system was separate from the CIA’s main links to established operatives in the field, again to shield those operations from infiltration.
Except the system was broken and contained one serious technical error. Experts at the FBI and NSA found they could use the less robust communications system the CIA used for its initial contacts to access the larger network.
AP
NSA headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland.
“The attitude [of CIA officials in China] was that we’ve got this, we’re untouchable,” another anonymous official told Foreign Policy, who added they felt “invincible.” Even in 2010, this belief seems hard to understand.
For more than a decade at that point, the Chinese government had been developing and improving a wide array of powerful controls over the country’s internet, which have become known commonly as the "Great Firewall." These systems are typically associated mostly with blocking websites and content on social media that the Chinese Communist Party deems objectionable. With the rise of Email and social media, they’ve also become part of a steadily more effective set of tools to track and silence dissent.
As such, the former CIA officer Lee would only have had to give the Ministry of State Security the names of a limited number of individuals to kickstart a major government investigation. Once the Chinese had arrested the first assets and acquired copies of the CIA’s communications software, or acquired that application by other means, they could’ve used information from that network, combined with the power of the Great Firewall, to isolate unusual web activity and locate other spies and potential associates. China’s counterintelligence officers might have had leads they were working through already to help quickly build a more accurate picture of the American intelligence operation.
Sources told Foreign Policy that Chinese authorities had subsequently executed at least 30 people, more than twice as many as the The New York Times’ initially reported, and had potentially killed or detained even more. China may have shared what it uncovered with its counterparts in Russia, leading to a chill in American human intelligence efforts there, as well.
The incident has reportedly pushed American intelligence agents in China to be wary of internet-based communications to the point of potentially abandoning it altogether in favor of old-school tradecraft, such as discreet, in-person meetings. The problem with this plan is that that the Chinese government is actively working to make such physical interactions dangerously difficult, too, with one particular region, the ostensibly "semi-autonomous" Xinjiang, acting as a sort incubator for a slew of draconian surveillance technologies.
Xinjiang, where Uighurs, a non-Chinese Turkic ethnic group that is predominantly Muslim, make up the bulk of the population, has been an ideal setting to test out new equipment and concepts of operation far from both Han Chinese and outside observers.
China has used the reality of Uighur Islamic extremists and separatists to paint the entire population, along with other Muslim ethnic groups in the region, as potentially suspect and there are reports that around a million of them are in concentration camps at present. There are also horrifying reports of forced marriages between Uighur women and Han men with the apparent aim of “breeding out” the group.
To help exercise this level of social control, China has put into place one of the most elaborate surveillance architectures in the world, complete with omnipresent cameras connected to monitoring stations running advanced facial recognition software, checkpoints with paramilitary police, and a system of systems all tied to a government-issued identification card that includes a “score” of how much a threat an individual poses to the state. Authorities have also begun implementing mass biometric data collection, including blood and DNA samples, to go along with other official information on file. All this can limit a person’s ability to buy goods and services or get a job.
The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP
An archway with no less than seven cameras in front of the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgarin in Xinjiang.
After a spate of knife attacks in Xinjiang by alleged separatists, Chinese officials instituted a policy where cutlery vendors must physically laser-etch a QR code linked the buyer’s ID into the blade.
In July 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that some 11,500 Uighurs that the Chinese government had approved to go on the Hajj, the sacred Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, had to carry special cards with a GPS tracker inside on a lanyard around their necks. Ostensibly for their own safety in the event of some sort of crisis, this system would obviously be able to monitor their every movement and it seems likely that anyone who decided to leave it behind would, if nothing else, take a serious hit on their social scorecard.
The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP
A security guards man a checkpoint with a metal detector and an ID scanning system in a shopping mall in Xinjiang's Kashgarin.
Among the most recent new additions to security apparatus in Xinjiang itself are small drones shaped like birds with realistically flapping wings, according to a June 2018 report from the South China Morning Post. These “Doves” can fly for thirty minutes and carry a small, color video camera and an ability to transmit the feed down to an individual on the ground. It reportedly has a GPS antenna and could be able to fly a pre-programmed route or operate under line-of-sight control.
The Chinese are “applying a very, very broad attempted solution to what they see as an ideological danger,” James Millward, who teaches Chinese history at The Georgetown University, told The Atlantic earlier in August 2018. “In Xinjiang, the definition of extremism has expanded so far as to incorporate virtually anything you do as a Muslim.”
Northwestern Polytechnical University
China's "Dove" drone, a product of the country's Northwestern Polytechnical University.
It might be difficult for China’s government to apply the same sort of visibly extreme measures to ethnic Han or other groups elsewhere in the country and the Uighurs are suffering disproportionately, but the Chinese are certainly trying to expand the reach of many of these policies. They have already begun implementing the social scoring system on a more widespread basis.
Cops are now wearing Google Glass-style headsets with similar recognition capabilities to spot repeat offenders for crimes as minor as jaywalking. In the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, public restrooms use facial recognition software to give out only a specific amount of toilet paper per person. Even the police dogs have cameras.
As security personnel and automated systems scrape so much data in cyberspace and in the physical world, China has also begun to invest heavily in artificial intelligence systems that could help sort through it faster. Tech companies, eager to gain access to the Chinese market, have increasingly been working with authorities in Beijing directly and indirectly on software and hardware to expand the government’s ability to censor information and monitor its citizenry.
Domestic companies still remain dominant, though, working hand-in-hand with the authorities to provide new messaging software for personal computers and cell phones that double as a way for the government to keep tabs on individuals. It's a reality that has likely only made it more difficult for the CIA and other foreign intelligence services to employ their own distinct encrypted communications tools in China, which would easily stand out from normal phone and internet use.
Imaginechina via AP
Chinese police officers and dogs, all with cameras, in Tiananmen Square.
This could have all have a serious impact on foreign intelligence collection, as well as political activism and government criticism, in China and that’s surely the point. The suggestion that the CIA is increasingly abandoning internet-based communication for operations in China indicates that at least some portions of the U.S. Intelligence Community don’t see a way to guard against threats such as the Great Firewall, at least in the near future.
That is no small victory for the Chinese and could threaten to give them an advantage given their own intelligence collecting successes in the United States and elsewhere. So far it seems to be working and it’s not clear what the United States, or anyone else, might be able to do about it, either.
“Will a system always stay encrypted, given the advances in technology?” an unnamed U.S. intelligence source asked rhetorically in speaking with Foreign Policy about what the CIA might be able to do in the future to safely communicate with its assets. “You’re supposed to protect people forever.”
Chinese officials, who are now turning to automated face-scanning machines to meter out toilet paper, are clearly hoping to make it as difficult as possible for external and internal actors to have any sort of unsanctioned impact.
Correction: The original version of the story incorrectly stated in a picture caption that the NSA headquarters was located in Northern Virginia. The NSA headquarters is at Fort Meade in Maryland. The CIA headquarters is in Northern Virginia.
Contact the author: jtrevithickpr@gmail.com
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Red Shield
Global Domination
Well damn. usa intelligence is probably fukked in China for a long awhile if not for good 
China has used the reality of Uighur Islamic extremists and separatists to paint the entire population, along with other Muslim ethnic groups in the region, as potentially suspect and there are reports that around a million of them are in concentration camps at present. There are also horrifying reports of forced marriages between Uighur women and Han men with the apparent aim of “breeding out” the group.[/quote]
They spy on us, we spy on them, same shyt few decades with another country.
Exclusive: U.S. accuses China of 'super aggressive' spy campaign on LinkedIn
Warren Strobel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States’ top spy catcher said Chinese espionage agencies are using fake LinkedIn accounts to try to recruit Americans with access to government and commercial secrets, and the company should shut them down.
William Evanina, the U.S. counter-intelligence chief, told Reuters in an interview that intelligence and law enforcement officials have told LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft Corp., about China’s “super aggressive” efforts on the site.
He said the Chinese campaign includes contacting thousands of LinkedIn members at a time, but he declined to say how many fake accounts U.S. intelligence had discovered, how many Americans may have been contacted and how much success China has had in the recruitment drive.
German and British authorities have previously warned their citizens that Beijing is using LinkedIn to try to recruit them as spies. But this is the first time a U.S. official has publicly discussed the challenge in the United States and indicated it is a bigger problem than previously known.
Evanina said LinkedIn should look at copying the response of Twitter, Google and Facebook, which have all purged fake accounts allegedly linked to Iranian and Russian intelligence agencies.
“I recently saw that Twitter is cancelling, I don’t know, millions of fake accounts, and our request would be maybe LinkedIn could go ahead and be part of that,” said Evanina, who heads the U.S. National Counter-Intelligence and Security Center.
It is highly unusual for a senior U.S. intelligence official to single out an American-owned company by name and publicly recommend it take action. LinkedIn says it has 575 million users in more than 200 counties and territories, including more than 150 million U.S. members.
Evanina did not, however, say whether he was frustrated by LinkedIn’s response or whether he believes it has done enough.
LinkedIn’s head of trust and safety, Paul Rockwell, confirmed the company had been talking to U.S. law enforcement agencies about Chinese espionage efforts. Earlier this month, LinkedIn said it had taken down “less than 40” fake accounts whose users were attempting to contact LinkedIn members associated with unidentified political organizations. Rockwell did not say whether those were Chinese accounts.
“We are doing everything we can to identify and stop this activity,” Rockwell told Reuters. “We’ve never waited for requests to act and actively identify bad actors and remove bad accounts using information we uncover and intelligence from a variety of sources including government agencies.”
Rockwell declined to provide numbers of fake accounts associated with Chinese intelligence agencies. He said the company takes “very prompt action to restrict accounts and mitigate and stop any essential damage that can happen” but gave no details.
LinkedIn “is a victim here,” Evanina said. “I think the cautionary tale ... is, ‘You are going to be like Facebook. Do you want to be where Facebook was this past spring with congressional testimony, right?’” he said, referring to lawmakers’ questioning of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Russia’s use of Facebook to meddle in the 2016 U.S. elections.
China’s foreign ministry disputed Evanina’s allegations.
“We do not know what evidence the relevant U.S. officials you cite have to reach this conclusion. What they say is complete nonsense and has ulterior motives,” the ministry said in a statement.
But Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Beijing’s exploitation of LinkedIn “demonstrates the length to which Chinese intelligence will go, and the 21st Century counter-intelligence challenges facing us in a world where everybody’s got an online footprint.”
EX-CIA OFFICER ENSNARED
Evanina said he was speaking out in part because of the case of Kevin Mallory, a retired CIA officer convicted in June of conspiring to commit espionage for China.
A fluent Mandarin speaker, Mallory was struggling financially when he was contacted via a LinkedIn message in February 2017 by a Chinese national posing as a headhunter, according to court records and trial evidence.
The individual, using the name Richard Yang, arranged a telephone call between Mallory and a man claiming to work at a Shanghai think tank.
During two subsequent trips to Shanghai, Mallory agreed to sell U.S. defense secrets - sent over a special cellular device he was given - even though he assessed his Chinese contacts to be intelligence officers, according to the U.S. government’s case against him. He is due to be sentenced in September and could face life in prison.
While Russia, Iran, North Korea and other nations also use LinkedIn and other platforms to identify recruitment targets, the U.S. intelligence officials said China is the most prolific and poses the biggest threat.
U.S. officials said China’s Ministry of State Security has “co-optees” - individuals who are not employed by intelligence agencies but work with them - set up fake accounts to approach potential recruits.
They said the targets include experts in fields such as supercomputing, nuclear energy, nanotechnology, semi-conductors, stealth technology, health care, hybrid grains, seeds and green energy.
Chinese intelligence uses bribery or phony business propositions in its recruitment efforts. Academics and scientists, for example, are offered payment for scholarly or professional papers and, in some cases, are later asked or pressured to pass on U.S. government or commercial secrets.
Some of those who set up fake accounts have been linked to IP addresses associated with Chinese intelligence agencies, while others have been set up by bogus companies, including some that purport to be in the executive recruiting business, said a senior U.S. intelligence official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the matter.
The official said “some correlation” has been found between Americans targeted through LinkedIn and data hacked from the Office of Personnel Management, a U.S. government agency, in attacks in 2014 and 2015.
Small toy figures are seen between displayed U.S. flag and Linkedin logo in this illustration picture, August 30, 2018. To match Exclusive LINKEDIN-CHINA/ESPIONAGE REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
The hackers stole sensitive private information, such as addresses, financial and medical records, employment history and fingerprints, of more than 22 million Americans who had undergone background checks for security clearances.
The United States identified China as the leading suspect in the massive hacking, an assertion China’s foreign ministry at the time dismissed as `absurd logic.`
UNPARALLELED SPYING EFFORT
About 70 percent of China’s overall espionage is aimed at the U.S. private sector, rather than the government, said Joshua Skule, the head of the FBI’s intelligence branch, whose responsibilities include ensuring the flow of intelligence to the bureau’s counter-espionage operations.
“They are conducting economic espionage at a rate that is unparalleled in our history,” he said.
Evanina said five current and former U.S. officials - including Mallory - have been charged with or convicted of spying for China in the past two and a half years.
He indicated that additional cases of suspected espionage for China by U.S. citizens are being investigated, but declined to provide details.
U.S. intelligence services are alerting current and former officials to the threat and telling them what security measures they can take to protect themselves.
Some current and former officials post significant details about their government work history online - even sometimes naming classified intelligence units that the government does not publicly acknowledge.
LinkedIn “is a very good site,” Evanina said. “But it makes for a great venue for foreign adversaries to target not only individuals in the government, formers, former CIA folks, but academics, scientists, engineers, anything they want. It’s the ultimate playground for collection.”
Reporting by Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay; Additional reporting by John Walcott; Editing by Kieran Murray and Ross Colvin
DrBanneker
Space is the Place
The policy in Xinjiang is downright fascistic. Sad thing is I doubt the West will go hard on it since they know the anti-Muslim forces in their own populations/governments probably harbor little sympathy. There are probably dudes who deep down wish they could deal with their minorities (i.e. South Chicago) like this.
its being discussed at the UN...but...
