Anyone else curious about the ages of the defendants? 59, 73 and 62 years old respectively. Is it harder for the PRC to recruit younger "spies" or are older ones just more reliable?
Younger spies are more careful?
5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
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Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
#52Sometimes I think this sounds conspiratorial, and surely isn't happening. Who has the time or money to pay 5 people to just go around harassing and stalking people for political gain only? Then I remember the story of the lady in East Germany who, after it fell, managed to get the Stasi records that finally proved that yes, they had been stalking her, harassing her, and spying on her. They would do things like wait u…
>political gain only
Political dissidents flee to US (west in general), west (US in particular) will magnify and weaponize dissident for international discourse power when convenient. Countries being targeted spend resource to deter this behaviour. Interesting case of different systems abusing each other's asymmetries - large diasporas in west = lots of asylum for dissidents but also many recruitable foreign assets.
And sometimes diaspora drama is innate, deep cultural beef between nationalist and dissident Chinese that IMO will only get more acrimonious with time. Older gen of dissidents who fled PRC when times were bad are dying but their kids and younger generation of dissidents from HK/XJ/TW will clash hard with younger gen of PRC nationalist economic migrants and 1st gen kids of mainlanders who inherited beef against dissidents. It will be shitshow, with lots being exploited by domestic propaganda and foreign espionage.
Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
that is true, but that was more than fifty years ago..
I had this same thought but then I caught myself. Human nature doesn’t change that much. This basically happened at the corporate level at eBay in the last 12 months right? So factually if you are just saying it was a long time ago, then yes, that’s correct. However, I think it can and does still happen and humans from 50 years ago aren’t much different. In fact, some are even literally the same humans but just older…
It is such a weird story:
BOSTON – Six former employees of eBay, Inc. have been charged with leading a cyberstalking campaign targeting the editor and publisher of a newsletter that eBay executives viewed as critical of the company. The alleged harassment included sending the couple anonymous, threatening messages, disturbing deliveries – including a box of live cockroaches, a funeral wreath and a bloody pig mask – and conducting covert surveillance of the victims.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/six-former-ebay-employees...
Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
#54Sometimes I think this sounds conspiratorial, and surely isn't happening. Who has the time or money to pay 5 people to just go around harassing and stalking people for political gain only? Then I remember the story of the lady in East Germany who, after it fell, managed to get the Stasi records that finally proved that yes, they had been stalking her, harassing her, and spying on her. They would do things like wait u…
[deleted]
Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
that is true, but that was more than fifty years ago..
I'm sure they've cleaned up their act by now! Surely they aren't during stuff like that, and "thwarting" "terrorist plots" where the "conspirators" are FBI assets themselves
what are you referring to? the Boston bombing?
Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
#56Sometimes I think this sounds conspiratorial, and surely isn't happening. Who has the time or money to pay 5 people to just go around harassing and stalking people for political gain only? Then I remember the story of the lady in East Germany who, after it fell, managed to get the Stasi records that finally proved that yes, they had been stalking her, harassing her, and spying on her. They would do things like wait u…
That reminds me of COINTELPRO, and how the FBI tried to get MLK to commit suicide by sending him a harassing black mailing letter. It's amazing how states particularly when they have apparatuses that can go rouge or are even actually encouraged by the government like the Stasi were go to ridiculous lengths to harass people they find politically inconvenient.
FBI COINTELPRO [0] and CIA Operation CHAOS [1] did way more than just sending some harassing mail to MLK [2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_CHAOS
[2] https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/7...
Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
#57Quoted post unavailable.
Chinese grad students have already copied all university research lab hard drive contents and sent them back to China. One of them admitted to my friend to doing it and being sent to the school by the Chinese military. Chinese grad students are a massive espionage risk, second only to Israeli nationals.
I'm not really sure how meaningful or effective that is as a strategy .. I mean it's just data. Now exfiltrating designs of devices might be a different thing but science is more about the training and becoming an expert. Learning how to do research is the most important part. Most experiments are difficult to replicate anyway.
Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
That reminds me of COINTELPRO, and how the FBI tried to get MLK to commit suicide by sending him a harassing black mailing letter. It's amazing how states particularly when they have apparatuses that can go rouge or are even actually encouraged by the government like the Stasi were go to ridiculous lengths to harass people they find politically inconvenient.
that is true, but that was more than fifty years ago..
This was posted yesterday in one of the comments on HN if you want a better idea of what the FBI does these days: https://casetext.com/analysis/how-to-spot-the-informant-at-y...
Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
#59Quoted post unavailable.
Chinese grad students have already copied all university research lab hard drive contents and sent them back to China. One of them admitted to my friend to doing it and being sent to the school by the Chinese military. Chinese grad students are a massive espionage risk, second only to Israeli nationals.
And yet the US seemingly does nothing about it. Makes you think whether the US government is turning a blind eye or they believe there the benefits outweigh the costs.
Re: 5 Charged with Stalking, Harassing, Spying on US Residents for PRC Secret Police
#60Anyone else curious about the ages of the defendants? 59, 73 and 62 years old respectively. Is it harder for the PRC to recruit younger "spies" or are older ones just more reliable?
Yes, I noticed that too. Seems like they're tapping older people with connections and resources. I imagine there's going to be more younger gen assets to tap in future, a lot more nationalist PRC diaspora in west now vs older gen who fled PRC/China when it was a shitshow.