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Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#21

Post by onetimemanytime »

07d046 wrote: post #8
nyolfen wrote: post #2

"This didn't make it into the piece, but here's how the Chinese treated people working with the CIA: According to one source, one asset working at a state tech institutes, and his pregnant wife, were executed live on closed circuit TV in front of the staff." https://twitter.com/zachsdorfman/status/1029861843521523712

From an earlier NYT piece: > According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spie...

USA has the death penalty for treason too. Now you can argue back and forth (US wants China to eventually be democratic so I'm helping China by spying for CIA...etc) but they essentially betrayed their country. Chinese efficiency: Torture them till they tell want they know and then teach others a lesson along the way too.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#22

Post by TangoTrotFox »

King-Aaron wrote: post #3
nyolfen wrote: post #2

"This didn't make it into the piece, but here's how the Chinese treated people working with the CIA: According to one source, one asset working at a state tech institutes, and his pregnant wife, were executed live on closed circuit TV in front of the staff." https://twitter.com/zachsdorfman/status/1029861843521523712

Obviously a revelation on Twitter about a secretive organisation's workings should always be taken with a grain of salt. However these sorts of reports aren't too uncommon, and it surprises me how there's a lot of pro-china commentators in communities such as HN who seem to glaze over these sorts of things and still aggressively promote the "Chinese way of doing things" is superior to whatever western value or opinio…

Out of curiosity, how do you think traitors providing potentially critical intelligence to one of the most dangerous agencies of a powerful and aggressive unfriendly foreign power should be treated, when there is literally zero doubt as to their guilt?

And to be clear, I'm not condoning this action but I'm also not so quick condemn it. I'm genuinely uncertain if I somehow were the Chinese government what my decision would be, but I think you are quite certain -- and it's sparked my curiosity.

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#23

Post by bcaa7f3a8bbc »

covermydonkey wrote: post #15
solatic wrote: post #11

>But the CIA’s interim system contained a technical error: It connected back architecturally to the CIA’s main covert communications platform. When the compromise was suspected, the FBI and NSA both ran “penetration tests” to determine the security of the interim system. They found that cyber experts with access to the interim system could also access the broader covert communications system the agency was using to i…

Agreed. > U.S. intelligence officers were also able to identify digital links between the covert communications system and the U.S. government itself, according to one former official—links the Chinese agencies almost certainly found as well. These digital links would have made it relatively easy for China to deduce that the covert communications system was being used by the CIA. In fact, some of these links pointed…

What a shock. Even the CIA can be that incompetent?!

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#24

Post by achow »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #19
yborg wrote: post #13

It took 8 years for the CIA to figure out what happened?? This certainly explains why China and Russia continue to conduct cyber operations basically at the same level of intensity they have been for years - US intelligence, despite its enormous, unaccountable budget is unable to stop them or even know where they are compromised. If there is an actual hot conflict between the US and either of these nations, I shudder…

>>If there is an actual hot conflict between the US and either of these nations, I shudder to think what will happen. a hot conflict entirely dependent on satellites and other means of communications. The war can end right after the first shot is fired.

The point that was being made is China/Russia perhaps is still not there with all their covert operation guns out and blazing. If situation does arise (hot conflict or otherwise) then one "shudders to think" what would be the implications.

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#25

Post by dnomad »

nyolfen wrote: post #2

"This didn't make it into the piece, but here's how the Chinese treated people working with the CIA: According to one source, one asset working at a state tech institutes, and his pregnant wife, were executed live on closed circuit TV in front of the staff." https://twitter.com/zachsdorfman/status/1029861843521523712

This is exactly like the wild claims about "Iraqi babies being killed in incubators" [1]. It's an absurd, baseless claim but somehow it gets regularly accepted as true.

At some point you would think that journalists would show even a little intelligence, a little competence, a little skepticism.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#26

Post by 68c12c16 »

King-Aaron wrote: post #17
68c12c16 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what we call the skill of "analysis" is to divide an abstract object into a set of its containing elements, and then differentiate those elements and treat each element for its own different case. China is one such abstract object...It's never about pro-china or anti-china -- after all it is a society of 1 billion individuals who are all differentiable from each other (and we have to differentiate a random ch…

I certainly don't disagree. I do think that your point is possibly lost on a lot of people that are drawing these sorts of comparisons though...

sorry...analogy quite often can cause confusions...I will try to make more intuitive and relevant ones in the future...

It's just that the current situation between China and the U.S. bears a lot of similarities as that between Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) and Athenian Empire during the Peloponnesian War. At the time, Sparta was an oligarchic society and Athens was a democratic one. Thucydides considered the cause of the war was because Sparta was worried about the rise of Athens could threaten its own way of life, and Athens wanted to spread democracy to other city states. There seemed to be no intrinsic conflict between the two states...the problem was that they did not trust each other, only because they were different. I personally feel this situation is quite like the current situation between US and China...There is no intrinsic conflict; they just don't trust each other (sometime even a bit phobic of each other), only because they are different...

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#29

Post by onetimemanytime »

achow wrote: post #24
onetimemanytime wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>If there is an actual hot conflict between the US and either of these nations, I shudder to think what will happen. a hot conflict entirely dependent on satellites and other means of communications. The war can end right after the first shot is fired.

The point that was being made is China/Russia perhaps is still not there with all their covert operation guns out and blazing. If situation does arise (hot conflict or otherwise) then one "shudders to think" what would be the implications.

That's I meant too,even in WWII communication was key, imagine today when all is computer controlled. China and Russia might be in the system already and waiting

Re: Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents

#30

Post by Jarwain »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #16
King-Aaron wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously a revelation on Twitter about a secretive organisation's workings should always be taken with a grain of salt. However these sorts of reports aren't too uncommon, and it surprises me how there's a lot of pro-china commentators in communities such as HN who seem to glaze over these sorts of things and still aggressively promote the "Chinese way of doing things" is superior to whatever western value or opinio…

I agree that I see a lot of Chinese apologism in the form of "this is the Chinese way" here. I wouldn't say that the comments are necessarily pro-China though, but rather just explaining that it is a different culture and things are done in a different way. I do think it's a bullshit cop out though. I think that it's ignorant at best and racist at worst when people make comments here along the lines of "Chinese peopl…

Would an immigrant Be an immigrant if they held love for the CCP and the Chinese Government?
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