The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
1–10 of 89 posts
Re: The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
#2I'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.
Re: The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
#3I'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 suspectin…
Completely agree but I'd bet that, if this was an article about US spies, there would be hundreds of comments deriding it by now.
Re: The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
#4I'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 suspectin…
The 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.
Re: The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
#5This is nothing new. The defense contractors working with the university have clear rules on how and what they can share with which people.
Re: The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
#6I'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 suspectin…
Completely agree but I'd bet that, if this was an article about US spies, there would be hundreds of comments deriding it by now.
If 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-ch...
Re: The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
#7I'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 suspectin…
Why 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.
Re: The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely agree but I'd bet that, if this was an article about US spies, there would be hundreds of comments deriding it by now.
If 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-ch...
In 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.
Re: The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
#9I'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 suspectin…
I 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.
Re: The US says Chinese spies are targeting Boston for its tech secrets
#10Kind 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.