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FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

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Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#181

Post by walshemj »

Analemma_ wrote: post #121
walshemj wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it probley wound be better if the usa split the FBI in two 1 A federal police force (with reduced surveillance powers) which would take over the BATF and the currency and uniformed part of the secret service. 2 A separate contra espionage organisation similar to MI5

Oh god, don't give them any ideas. We already have an alphabet soup of intelligence agencies (the IC consists of 16 at the moment), don't make it worse.

I was suggesting that you reduce the number by merging all the policeing type orgs into one FBI, BATF, TSA,DEA etc and merge all of the domestic contra espionage into a new MI5 analog

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#182

Post by fwdpropaganda »

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #179
mc32 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw the racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all sorts of political interference and other meddling... Alas, they cannot make such accusations. At most they can use "xenophobia".

They actually have a word for this, it's "Russophobia" [1] And from reading left-leaning discussion forums (HN included) you'd think they have a point. Try mentioning anything about Russia and see how long it takes until someone suggests it's probably Putin's friends doing it (Telegram is a great recurring example here on HN [2]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russophobia#United_States [2] E.g. https://news.ycomb…

Notice the downvotes?

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#183

Post by logfromblammo »

ilaksh wrote: post #167
logfromblammo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got about six weeks of Mandarin in middle school. Not enough teachers are available to offer it in most high schools. If you wanted to really learn a second language before university, it was either French or Spanish. Like a chump, I chose French, because the teacher was reputed to give out less homework than the Spanish teacher. I've never even been to Quebec or Haiti. Quelle dommage; ce n'est pas trop utile pour…

True if it's not used it will be a waste. But the thing that worries me is the resource contention between the countries. So maybe we should have a preemptive "war on division" to try to integrate the cultures before our differences come to a violent head.

Actual 2010 census said 3.8M Chinese-Americans in the US, or 1.2% of the population. 2016 interim projection was 4.9M, or 1.5%. Granted, they are largely concentrated in California, Washington, New York, and Illinois. But it's still a significant population, and they can be found nearly everywhere [that is worth emigrating to]. A large fraction of students at US universities are Chinese nationals.

There are 100k Americans living in China (2/5 of them in Hong Kong), and a trace quantity of naturalized American-Chinese, because the only practical way for a white immigrant to gain Chinese citizenship is to marry a native. Applicants without obvious Asian ancestry aren't likely to ever get accepted, even if they do manage to get legally naturalized.

So which culture should be expending greater efforts?

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#184

Post by nkurz »

allthenews wrote: post #180
nkurz wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You dont think that Chinese espionage does not potentially extend to our colleges? Well, no, I'm not sure what "espionage" would mean here? Does it mean stealing information? Doubtful. Unionizing graduate students? Hard to believe. Thwarting the education of others? Haven't seen it. While the Chinese may be placing people into positions at American universities with the idea that they might one day be useful, I'm not…

If you had a long term plan to destabilize a nation, and wanted to understand how best to do it, don't you think it would be useful to send seemingly innocent students to gather intelligence in political hotbeds like universities? After all, these students are future leaders. Understanding how to manipulate them or weaken them and their futures, or how to sow divisiveness amongst them or other Americans... Wouldn't s…

Yes to all of these, but this is just cherry picking the negatives. On the flip side, if you want to make positive changes, you also need the same knowledge. And if one believes that the Chinese students are brainwashed by their government, what better opportunity to teach them "the truth" than by hosting them in America for a few years?

Using the software analogy, it's like the observation that the only computer that's "safe" from internet hackers is one that not connected to the the internet (and ideally turned off). While (mostly) true, it's not a particularly useful observation unless one is willing to forgo all the positive aspects of connectivity.

one doesn't necessarily need to anticipate a specific threat to recognize attack surface.

I'd agree that it's worth identifying the vulnerability, but I think that to be useful the emphasis would need to be on the differential of the potential threat versus expected benefit. I guess I believe enough in the general positives of education that in the absence of specifics I'm willing to bet that educating Chinese students is a net gain for the world.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#185

Post by ilaksh »

logfromblammo wrote: post #183
ilaksh wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True if it's not used it will be a waste. But the thing that worries me is the resource contention between the countries. So maybe we should have a preemptive "war on division" to try to integrate the cultures before our differences come to a violent head.

Actual 2010 census said 3.8M Chinese-Americans in the US, or 1.2% of the population. 2016 interim projection was 4.9M, or 1.5%. Granted, they are largely concentrated in California, Washington, New York, and Illinois. But it's still a significant population, and they can be found nearly everywhere [that is worth emigrating to]. A large fraction of students at US universities are Chinese nationals. There are 100k Amer…

True. My theory on that is that it is due to racism inherent in the culture. But hopefully it may not be quite as bad in the current generation. Anyway to improve that aspect of their culture to me it is a similar problem of trying to integrate the cultures -- we can't just force them to accept our ideas without an exchange or understanding theirs. Unless you believe in the traditional approach of war which to me is clearly a very stupid and self-destructive path.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#186

Post by geofft »

allthenews wrote: post #176
geofft wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The FBI is not warning about students, but about government agents posing ad students, I.E. "operatives". What is the distinction here? I do not generally expect international students on a student visa, with no intention of becoming citizens, to forget about the interests of their home country and prioritize the interests of the country they're visiting. They're here because the school is good, that's it.

You dont think that Chinese espionage does not potentially extend to our colleges? You dont think the U.S. is doing at least as much elsewhere? All this talk of collusion with Russia recently doesn't bother you either if it is true that a foreign power could have targeted our culture successfully to the point that they threw an election in their favor? Such sentiment would be naive. Particularly in an authoritarian n…

The talk of collusion with Russia centers on actual politicians actually bribed by Russia. If we can't distinguish between Russian oligarchs bribing politicians and Russian students attending colleges, and our culture is so fragile that the presence of foreigners engaged in political discussions can destabilize it, maybe we shouldn't allow any foreign students to enroll at all.

(Personally, the fact that foreign students can and do enroll in US universities is part of our culture.)

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#187

Post by geofft »

allthenews wrote: post #180
nkurz wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You dont think that Chinese espionage does not potentially extend to our colleges? Well, no, I'm not sure what "espionage" would mean here? Does it mean stealing information? Doubtful. Unionizing graduate students? Hard to believe. Thwarting the education of others? Haven't seen it. While the Chinese may be placing people into positions at American universities with the idea that they might one day be useful, I'm not…

If you had a long term plan to destabilize a nation, and wanted to understand how best to do it, don't you think it would be useful to send seemingly innocent students to gather intelligence in political hotbeds like universities? After all, these students are future leaders. Understanding how to manipulate them or weaken them and their futures, or how to sow divisiveness amongst them or other Americans... Wouldn't s…

And as with software, sometimes part of the intended purpose of the software inherently exposes you to threats, and saying "Shut down the threat" means shutting down the software. The easiest way to prevent people from defacing Wikipedia is to make it not a wiki. The easiest way to keep your computer secure is to unplug it from the network.

Having foreign students attend our colleges is something that we have long recognized is good for our country and for the world. Obviously it's an attack surface too, in the same way that Wikipedia's "edit" button is an attack surface. But if we want to actually maintain the policies and goals that led us to deciding that we want foreign students to attend our colleges, we need to be clear about why these particular foreign students are different.

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#188

Post by rhizome »

noobermin wrote: post #112
rhizome wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that "operative" has a specific meaning in the Intelligence Community. While the intent of this report appears to imply that operatives are under official control, they are mostly people who might be relied on to support or instigate a policy preference. Contrast with "agent," "handler," etc.

That includes then a lot of Chinese academics who are sympathetic to their country's ideology. A national being sympathetic to their country, imagine that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16379027

Re: FBI Says Chinese Operatives Active at Scores of U.S. Universities

#189

Post by logfromblammo »

ilaksh wrote: post #185
logfromblammo wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual 2010 census said 3.8M Chinese-Americans in the US, or 1.2% of the population. 2016 interim projection was 4.9M, or 1.5%. Granted, they are largely concentrated in California, Washington, New York, and Illinois. But it's still a significant population, and they can be found nearly everywhere [that is worth emigrating to]. A large fraction of students at US universities are Chinese nationals. There are 100k Amer…

True. My theory on that is that it is due to racism inherent in the culture. But hopefully it may not be quite as bad in the current generation. Anyway to improve that aspect of their culture to me it is a similar problem of trying to integrate the cultures -- we can't just force them to accept our ideas without an exchange or understanding theirs. Unless you believe in the traditional approach of war which to me is…

My response, informed by the ~very realistic~ simulation called Civilization, would be to send in missionaries and spies, to promote my culture, and send in the diplomats to bribe them with the very technologies that made their wonders and city improvements obsolete.
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