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Do you have any evidence? Particularly, who is more likely to take American state secrets at company X and give them to China, American born citizens or Chinese

Do you have any evidence? Particularly, who is more likely to take American state secrets at company X and give them to China, American born citizens or Chinese born citizens working at company X? Those are the boundaries of this discussion. There are national reports about Chinese espionage efforts within the US, in fact according to wiki they are the single most active adversary in this regard (wiki Chinese espionage in the US).

tptacek 7y ago
There are as I understand it many hundreds of thousands of Chinese-born American citizens. Any claim that a significant number of them were agents for China would be an extraordinary one, and would be the argument that actually required evidence. Without that evidence, it's just a slur, and one with a very poor history in the US. We are, by the way, the targets of espionage from virtually every industrialized country in the world, and, of course, the conductors of the same against other countries. When my career in information security was getting started in the mid-1990s, what I heard most often was the "surprising fact" that France was one of our biggest espionage adversaries. There is nothing unique about China in this regard other than the country's scale.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  We just went through weeks (and still ongoing) arguments about China exerting it’s censorship influence on US companies - and getting them to comply. US universities are under increasing pressure to monitor Chinese students for fear of espionage. I don’t think you’re going to get the FBI to drop their reasons for asking this in a public S3 bucket. Asking questions about how a mainlander was able to gain this access is absolutely reasonable and prudent - it’s not a slur. What’s unique about China is the scale - that’s it. US institutions are pretty weak right now, and China can, quite literally, throw a lot of people at the problem. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/728659124/fbi-urges-universities-to-monitor-some-chinese-students-and-scholars-in-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/728659124/fbi-urges-universit...
  - tptacek 7y ago
    Asking questions about how Raytheon mishandled access to sensitive information is not a slur and is totally reasonable. Asking why Raytheon allowed anyone of Chinese origin to work in proximity to that data is not reasonable.
    - Jamwinner 7y ago
      It is not a slur. The implicication is the chinese government is corrupt and has outsized influence on its citizens through torture and detention of reletives. The fact that chinese nationals are subject to scrutiny is not their race, but their being subject to a possibly agressive foregin actor. If anything, this will allow otherwise innocent refugees a clear way out.
      - tptacek 7y ago
        How is this any different than what the government contended in Korematsu?
    - remarkEon 7y ago
      Suppose for a moment that you were some official, a military advisor let’s say, to the Chinese Communist Party. How would you recommend they infiltrate the US and gain access to information about defense capabilities? What strategies would you employ? What institutions in the US, cultural or otherwise, would you exploit? I ask this only because it makes complete sense to me that someone born in China who immigrated should get extra scrutiny for a job like this. Maybe that’s just my own personal bias (I doubt it, though in full disclosure I am a veteran and am more sensitive than others to things like this for obvious reasons), but I can’t help shake the feeling that one side here is playing for keeps while the other is still reading the game’s directions.
account73466 7y ago
>> who is more likely to take American state secrets at company X and give them to China This sounds very similar to sexist arguments like "who is more likely to better score at work" used to then discriminate. You cannot use just a single feature to classify people in this highly non-linear problem, you will get mostly false-positive predictions.

tptacek 7y ago

There are as I understand it many hundreds of thousands of Chinese-born American citizens. Any claim that a significant number of them were agents for China would be an extraordinary one, and would be the argument that actually required evidence. Without that evidence, it's just a slur, and one with a very poor history in the US. We are, by the way, the targets of espionage from virtually every industrialized country in the world, and, of course, the conductors of the same against other countries. When my career in information security was getting started in the mid-1990s, what I heard most often was the "surprising fact" that France was one of our biggest espionage adversaries. There is nothing unique about China in this regard other than the country's scale.

remarkEon 7y ago
We just went through weeks (and still ongoing) arguments about China exerting it’s censorship influence on US companies - and getting them to comply. US universities are under increasing pressure to monitor Chinese students for fear of espionage. I don’t think you’re going to get the FBI to drop their reasons for asking this in a public S3 bucket. Asking questions about how a mainlander was able to gain this access is absolutely reasonable and prudent - it’s not a slur. What’s unique about China is the scale - that’s it. US institutions are pretty weak right now, and China can, quite literally, throw a lot of people at the problem. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/728659124/fbi-urges-universities-to-monitor-some-chinese-students-and-scholars-in-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/728659124/fbi-urges-universit...
- tptacek 7y ago
  Asking questions about how Raytheon mishandled access to sensitive information is not a slur and is totally reasonable. Asking why Raytheon allowed anyone of Chinese origin to work in proximity to that data is not reasonable.
  - Jamwinner 7y ago
    It is not a slur. The implicication is the chinese government is corrupt and has outsized influence on its citizens through torture and detention of reletives. The fact that chinese nationals are subject to scrutiny is not their race, but their being subject to a possibly agressive foregin actor. If anything, this will allow otherwise innocent refugees a clear way out.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      How is this any different than what the government contended in Korematsu?
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    Suppose for a moment that you were some official, a military advisor let’s say, to the Chinese Communist Party. How would you recommend they infiltrate the US and gain access to information about defense capabilities? What strategies would you employ? What institutions in the US, cultural or otherwise, would you exploit? I ask this only because it makes complete sense to me that someone born in China who immigrated should get extra scrutiny for a job like this. Maybe that’s just my own personal bias (I doubt it, though in full disclosure I am a veteran and am more sensitive than others to things like this for obvious reasons), but I can’t help shake the feeling that one side here is playing for keeps while the other is still reading the game’s directions.

account73466 7y ago

>> who is more likely to take American state secrets at company X and give them to China This sounds very similar to sexist arguments like "who is more likely to better score at work" used to then discriminate. You cannot use just a single feature to classify people in this highly non-linear problem, you will get mostly false-positive predictions.