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The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
- neilv 8y agoI'm a bit uncomfortable with ideas like this being promoted in the popular press so much recently. Spy-vs-spy is something that, for better or worse, nations do. It seems a complicated and delicate matter, and outside the experience of most of us. In the Boston area, we have a wealth of colleagues, neighbors, and friends who arrived here from around the world. We welcome and appreciate them. Ordinary people suspecting others, because of something they heard in the news (or amplified in some right-wing outlet), seems unfair and toxic. We've even seen recently that it can be deadly, when a violent mentally ill person is inspired. I think the international spy business can best be left to the professionals (diplomats, intel agencies, law enforcement, corporate security), to handle discreetly, and the rest of us can just get along.
- sureaboutthis 8y agoCompletely agree but I'd bet that, if this was an article about US spies, there would be hundreds of comments deriding it by now.
- i_am_proteus 8y agoIf the US government engaged in industrial espionage against a foreign company, whatever US company benefitted could be sued in a US court. What troubles me (and many others) about the PRC's behavior is the PRC's disregard for IP: US/European/other countries have no recourse. https://law.stanford.edu/2018/04/10/intellectual-property-china-china-stealing-american-ip/ https://law.stanford.edu/2018/04/10/intellectual-property-ch...
- devoply 8y agoIn theory yes in reality no. In cases of both China and the USA. Please cite any exceptions of where anything as such went to court. The reason being that it's very difficult to prove that your secrets were stolen. Sure you can sue companies for copying your products, and you can also prevent US and Europe from importing goods from China which have been copied even if you can't get a Chinese court to decide wrongdoing in your favor.
- rasengan 8y agoThe article mentions that most are here for legitimate reasons. It seems like the headline could have had a better choice of words to be less of a blanket statement.
- toss1 8y agoWhy should you be uncomfortable? Even by your own definition, it is something that is often done but seldom discussed, and there is a change (Boston tech are targeted), so it is news. And, this IS different than ordinary "spy-vs-spy". That normally applies to keeping track of national adversaries' military strength & asset positioning, political maneuvering, treaty talks, etc. This, in contrast, is straight up industrial espionage for profit and/or military advantage, done by a nation state (vs just a competing company. While it may have occurred some in the past, PRC is taking it to a never-before-seen massive scale. It is part of the pervasive culture of IP theft in Chinese society and govt that runs form the smallest business right to the top of the govt. It is a serious threat to all western democracies, indeed all other nations, and should be taken seriously. What should make you uncomfortable is this fire, not the messenger who reports the fire.
- neilv 8y agoI'm uncomfortable about the fire, too. And I'd like to trust the firefighters to handle the fire, in this case. Not alarm non-firefighters, to go rushing in the way of firefighters, kicking in doors of houses that are not on fire, etc.
- mieseratte 8y ago> kicking in doors of houses that are not on fire, etc. I don't follow your metaphor.
- z2 8y agoTo hazard a guess, it should be up to to security/risk experts and the like to monitor and determine where the threats come from, set policies, and deny access accordingly. It shouldn't be up to citizen watchdogs to yank computers from people because they have a terminal up appear to be hacking things.
- mieseratte 8y ago> It shouldn't be up to citizen watchdogs to yank computers from people because they have a terminal up appear to be hacking things. Which is entirely reasonable, but I don't see anyone advocating this nor does the article so I'm a bit confused. Is someone advocating some kind of Chinese pogrom here?
- sailfast 8y agoI agree that general "All Chinese are spying on you!" is not a helpful message, but nation-state espionage, generally, is not a bad thing to be aware of overall. The article also doesn't seem to fear-monger so much as call out recent espionage attempts while also citing the difficulty of detection because most folks are here for the right reasons. As for "leave it to the professionals", you left out a key component from your list - the people doing the work - doing the research, building the devices. Engineers, professors. The people doing the work are the first line for any social engineering or simple vector attacks. Anyone that works with this information reads and signs things but if they haven't really been tested or understand the consequences, maybe they forget. Having a reminder that it's OK to be impolite when somebody you don't know asks you overly specific questions you're not supposed to share is not always a bad thing.
- neilv 8y agoWhen I said "leave it to the professionals", I meant to cover the workers indirectly when I said "corporate security". Corporate security personnel shouldn't be getting operational info from popular press.
- sailfast 8y agoAgreed, but corporate security is also not out at the bar on a Friday. One would hope that facilities security folks would at a minimum be briefing people, but that stuff costs money, and probably doesn't happen as much as it should.
- C1sc0cat 8y agoWould not anyone working in that sort of area not have been vetted and given guidance on what to look for.
- sailfast 8y agoI've found that people in many areas of work are given guidance and training then either: a) forget over time b) ignore the policy because they think they know better c) ignore the policy because it is inconvenient (this is my favorite!) d) ignore the policy because it is personally advantageous to them (either for reputation, money, etc) Reminders never hurt (assuming they are reminders and not over the top bigoted screeds) So many people think they understand what the impacts are if they bend some of these rules, or ignore them a bit for convenience. I would argue that most of the time, unless the stakes are consistently high, they do not.
- okmokmz 8y ago>diplomats, intel agencies, law enforcement, corporate security Personally, I have absolutely no trust in any of these, and I completely disagree that we should "leave it to the professionals" and let them "handle discretely" whatever is going on. This is how you end up with things like FISA courts, Gitmo, and PRISM.
- brixon 8y agoThis is nothing new. The defense contractors working with the university have clear rules on how and what they can share with which people.
- alanwong 8y agoWhat's new is perhaps the China Initiative, something that the US Department of Justice announced late last year to focus on curbing Chinese economic espionage. Now the leader of this initiative has named Boston as a "target-rich environment." Here's an official factsheet (PDF): https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/file/1107256/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/file/1107256/download
- ben7799 8y agoKind of puts getting recruiting emails from Huawei about their imminent Boston office opening in a new light. Just seeing their executives get charged with international crimes is enough to avoid replying.
- sitkack 8y agoI wouldn't want to work for a corp that doesn't have the right political muscle to avoid the charges. Halliburton, Exxon, Boeing, HSBC, etc, won't be charged.
- magduf 8y agoYep. Huawei didn't do anything except probably insert spyware on their devices, and they're being charged with crimes. Boeing killed hundreds of people through criminal negligence, but I'm sure we won't see any executives there charged with crimes in the US.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoI'm surprised they couldn't arrange for some government officials to shake hands kicking off some sort of above the board tech collaboration with the usual fanfare and political mumbo jumbo speak. MA and PRC would get along well. Both are totalitarian one party states with capitalist economies that the state meddles in when it has sufficient interest. Other than wildly different levels of regard for human life it seems like a match made in heaven. The powers that be in MA would have fallen over themselves rushing to have their educational institutions collaborate with the kind of totalitarian state they can only dream of. Seems like this whole "spy operation" could have been avoided by having some politicians have a face to face and tossing a little money at the situation.
- ycombonator 8y agoI live in an area with a lot of newly arrived Chinese grad students. Not generalizing but many of the WiFi ssids I see are : chinanumbaone , df26(one day I realized this is carrier killer missile)
- assblaster 8y agoI think the first ssid was someone's attempt at being edgy.
- wavefunction 8y agoThe second is far more "edgy" Believe people (individuals, groups) when they tell you who they are.
- ahelwer 8y agoMeanwhile there are two separate Nazi references in the SSIDs of my friend's building. This is, frankly, an idiotic line of discussion. I mean, smearing Chinese students (oh I forgot, you said "not generalizing" as though that means anything at all [yes, you were generalizing otherwise what is the relevance?]) because you saw some SSIDs, really!
- wavefunction 8y agoI think those NAZI SSIDs are indicative of your friend's neighbors as well.
- ahelwer 8y agoYou are bad at reasoning. The SSIDs are indicative of those specific people but not their larger group, in whose membership you can't even verify; there's no way OP knows the SSIDs even belong to Chinese grad students! And even if they did, it tells us little about Chinese people in general.
- mdeeks 8y ago
- ravenstine 8y agoChina has some areas where they innovate, but they primarily excel at copying.
- jhpriestley 8y agoAll innovation starts with copying what came before. This is why liberal IP laws are so important to innovation. HN readers seem to understand this basic point quite well unless China is involved.
- jplayer01 8y agoExcept China as a state isn't our ally or friend. Their interests lie primarily in furthering their own political and military power, and secondarily benefiting their own population. They're more than eager to steal technology, then use that new-found knowledge and ability combined with massive government subsidies to drown out foreign competitors locally and abroad.
- magduf 8y ago>Their interests lie primarily in furthering their own political and military power, and secondarily benefiting their own population. How exactly is that different from the US? I don't see US politicians in power trying to do things to benefit their own population, such as by providing universal healthcare.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- seppin 8y agoYou're not wrong, it's a common criticism of democracy. Except China is not a democracy, they act only to protect their own grip on power (and keep their stolen party wealth).
- seppin 8y agoDon't forget brutally repressing their citizens, which accounts to a large % of world population.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Hillsborough 8y agoAs part of the discussion, the following article may be interesting too: https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/
- Leary 8y agoThe problem with these efforts is that the FBI often does not consult with technical experts before indicting Chinese nationals and have resulted in a number of false cases that have damaged the reputation of regular Chinese Americans. The rate at which Asians are falsely accused are twice those of other races[1] [1]https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/study-suggests-asians-most-likely-be-charged-espionage-n771836 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/study-suggests-as... https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/us/politics/us-drops-charges-that-professor-shared-technology-with-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/us/politics/us-drops-char... https://qz.com/1116990/the-aclu-says-the-fbi-is-accusing-chinese-american-scientists-of-espionage-because-of-their-race/ https://qz.com/1116990/the-aclu-says-the-fbi-is-accusing-chi... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/aug99/spying26.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/aug99/sp... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2144652/spying-charges-against-chinese-american https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/arti...
- arcticfox 8y agoSurely the FBI should be held to account when they make mistakes or behave unfairly, but it seems absurd that they shouldn't consider connections to China when looking for Chinese espionage.
- Eric_WVGG 8y agoIf you’re wondering why you’re being downvoted, read up on Soviet espionage during the cold war. Money talks.
- arcticfox 8y agoI wasn't downvoted, and surely Chinese tactics will evolve over time to match those of the Soviets, but the majority of the Chinese espionage cases that I've seen so far have involved ethnic Chinese. For example, Walter Liew stealing the titanium dioxide formula (with help from paid off non-Chinese), or the engineering student in Chicago sending off recruiting profiles...all Chinese or Taiwanese.
- slackfan 8y agoInkstone News, owned by the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba Group writes an article about what a US official says. Hmmm...
- alanwong 8y agoAnd?
- xvector 8y agoThey can’t be trusted? Chinese news is a farce.
- alanwong 8y agoOP and an editor of Inkstone here. Surely I don't think what we do is farcical. Happy to answer any questions you have of our work.
- xvector 8y agoHow much leeway do you have to discuss and publicize incidents like the Tienamen Square massacre and other atrocities that the Chinese government has generally made an effort to scrub from the internet?
- alanwong 8y agoWe're a Hong Kong-based media organization, meaning no government, Chinese or not, dictates to us what we can or cannot report on. Our website is blocked in China. We do not censor our content and have reported on Tiananmen. For example: did you know that China just sentenced several men who put the image of the Tank Man on baijiu (a kind of hard liquor) bottles as a form of protest? https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/activists-who-put-tank-man-baijiu-bottles-given-suspended-sentences/article/3004476 https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/activists-who-put-tank...
- slackfan 8y ago
- cryptokernel 8y agoOoohh. What secrets are there in Boston, I wonder? https://coincircle.com/l/50VVxbObg3 https://coincircle.com/l/50VVxbObg3
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoAll my fears of knife wielding robot snake dogs chasing me down hallways are becoming realized.
- cryoshon 8y agoof course they're targeting the Boston area; our city is the country's nexus of research and development in a plethora of fields, our culture is welcoming to foreigners at a time when most areas of the US are positively hateful, and we're large enough that expats can find at least a few others from their home country if they so choose. it's the perfect place to learn and network whether you're a spy or a jobseeker. my main question is what can we realistically do about the problem of chinese spying while preserving the integrity of our institutions here. we have chinese expats sprinkled heavily into all of our research groups, tech groups, you name it -- and it is my assumption that the overwhelming majority of these people are innocent of any crime, so it wouldn't be acceptable to subject them to additional scrutiny. these people are valuable members of our teams and we're lucky to have them in the quantity that we do. i'm not sure what the right move is here -- it's just my nightmare that the federal government / FBI implements some hamfisted policy that damages Boston's primary economic activities.
- 420codebro 8y ago> [...] our culture is welcoming to foreigners at a time when most areas of the US are positively hateful [...] Got a source on this one, bud?