Whenever I see threads and comments about privacy-related or sensitive topics, I often see concerns about China in particular stealing all that data.
Why is China, a country across a vast ocean, is seen as a bigger threat in that regard than US itself? Unlike Chinese, the local government does have power over its residents and can actually use this information against you (and it does have a record for doing exactly that). The only places where Chinese espionage would be a concern (military, high-tech industry) lay way beyond what an everyday American faces regularly.
So, is it a new red scare, or is there a substance behind it that I fail to see?
Both. China is where most consumer tech comes from, and the rest often includes parts from China as well. Taiwan has TSMC which makes all the big CPUs, but honestly all the small stuff like consumer electronics comes mostly out of China. If they did want to integrate some sort of spying they would have the opportunity, and in the past individual threats to the state of many countries have had supply chain attacks carried out, so it is not an unfounded fear.
That all said, China is run by the CCP, an ostensibly Communist party, so red scare, not to mention Chinese, so racism, and Party, because Americans are against fun, or at least in government they seem to be. China also has an abysmal record on human rights, though coming from anyone in the west criticism is somewhat hypocritical given prison labour, proping up dictatorships, coups, exploiting slave labour, and so on. Nobody is doing a perfect job, nobody is saintly, but there are fair and unfair criticisms against China as a nation state and those do inform some of the fear of their potential for spying.
Now TikTok, Reddit, Meta, etc… There are the really scary tools with far too little attention.
Yeah, the whole “China is doing propaganda using TikTok” line is kind of like saying Russia is using bots on YouTube. Like, yeah, maybe, sure, but focussing all your efforts on one single platform and ignoring the rest is silly. As the red team you would use as many different platforms as possible, make sure your disinformation output was broad and came from multiple, even opposing, ideological positions, and absolutely swamp the information space with junk. If nothing is reliable people don’t approach things carefully, they just check out. Once people check out it is a win.
Tencent owns 11% of Reddit. Reddit is primarily a US propaganda operation.
Tiktok is wholly owned by a Chinese company, but unlike the rest of the world, the US version is hosted and managed entirely within the US, this (along with hiring a bunch of spooks and killing controversial things in the algo like BLM) was done in response to the Trump administration trying to come up with excuses to ban it.
Yep, and the while thing is moot anyway because use of the systems does not require ownership, so while the owners can exert more pressure on the algorithm and change what shows up other actors can do the same a little less easily on each platform. Propaganda is alive and well, so maybe try to limit yourself somewhat to a smaller group of people you actually know in person and be critical of information coming in.
I manage the IT for a SMB in the non-profit mental health space, and am connected through another role to our state’s cybersecurity fusion center. My small, insignificant network has scanning attempts run on it a few thousand times a day. Several hundred times a day we will log attacks from various vectors. Looking at the stats every month, going back a decade, the source of all of these is: #1) Russia, #2) China. Every. Time. We present a fat ransomware target, but have no IP to steal, so why the interest? A couple of reasons, courtesy of the fusion center and the local FBI office: first, supply chain attacks: we are partnered with larger medical groups, insurance companies, the state government, and research universities, and using trusted connections to get into those upstream entities is sometimes easier than attacking the front door. I have a small security budget comparatively. Second: botnets/zombies: taking over systems from within the US and making your traffic domestic, or even local to your target helps obfuscate the source of the attack, and ultimately why everyone should care. Not just about China, but about security in general - unpatched home PCs have been used to host and distribute malware, spam and even CP. I certainly wouldn’t want that on my home network. Even if someone didn’t care about that, Americans can be trusted to fall back on: “they’re taking something of yours” - they’re using your bandwidth and you’re paying for it. I believe the Chinese citizens just want the same things American, German, Bulgarian, and East Elbonian citizens want - to live life and be happy (in our parlance; “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”). But the Chinese government however, has a 100-year plan to be the sole economic power in the world, and the way they’re trying to get there isn’t playing nicely in the sandbox.
Because the CCP is run by a powerful sociopaths famous for stealing information and abusing human rights.
We’ve had our spray nozzle copied by the Chinese. Industrial espionage is not just high tech.
Chinese espionage does not benefit you in any way. The preferred amount for citizens and governments would be zero.
Domestic spying surveillance (can be argued) prevent/catch crimes. So some level of surveillance the benefit of less crime is worth the intrusion to the average citizen.
For citizens, there are other factors at play. For example, Chinese companies stealing American technologies could lead to the former being able to produce something for cheap, which, if tariffs wouldn’t get involved, will allow an everyday person to have a better bargain.
Chinese companies stealing American technologies could lead to the former being able to produce something for cheap, which, … will allow an everyday person to have a better bargain.
While the company that originally created the product will collapse, putting people out of work and weakening the American economy.
That’s basically what the globalization movement from the 1980s and 90s was. Jobs may move overseas, but think of the cheap shit you can buy!The hollowing out of Western economies has led to the political moment we’re in now.
This is a shit take from someone (you) who seems to have zero understanding of economics.
Do I?
Of course I am aware that moving industry abroad has the potential to reduce the amount of local jobs and taxes, while also shifting the trade balance between the countries.
But, as things stand, the only thing keeping many American industries afloat is protectionist policies, which gradually degrade industry’s ability to be price-competitive even further. This is not sustainable, and there should be other approaches - otherwise, the American economy is a slow bomb.
And for all that circus, a regular American has to pay. A lot. In some industries, this literally leads to goods being sold for twice or more of their actual worth.
I mean, the subject of “Chinese Espionage in the United States” has a fairly lengthy page all of its own on Wikipedia with examples and concerns. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_United_States
Probably one of the most notable examples:
Between 2010 and 2012, intelligence breaches led to Chinese authorities dismantling CIA intelligence networks in the country, killing and arresting a large number of CIA assets within China.[43] A joint CIA/FBI counterintelligence operation, codenamed “Honey Bear”, was unable to definitively determine the source of the compromises, though theories include the existence of a mole, cyber-espionage, compromise of Hillary Clinton’s illicit classified email server as noted by the intelligence community inspector general,[44] or poor tradecraft.[43]Mark Kelton, then the deputy director of the National Clandestine Service for Counterintelligence, was initially skeptical that a mole was to blame.[43]
In January 2018, a former CIA officer named Jerry Chun Shing Lee[note 1] was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport, on suspicion of helping dismantle the CIA’s network of informants in China.[47][48]
And that’s just one we all know about. Not to mention a rich history of Chinese state-sponsored corporate espionage and a history of let’s say playing fast and loose with international norms, human rights, etc.
I don’t see why China catching CIA agents would concern Americans. Most Americans are not CIA agents inside China.
It’s more the fact they were running a mole in the CIA. If you want an example of more direct action, how does this one work for you (from just this week):
https://www.theregister.com/AMP/2024/09/25/chinas_salt_typhoon_cyber_spies/
In a related security advisory, government agencies accused the Flax Typhoon crew of amassing a SQL database containing details of 1.2 million records on compromised and hijacked devices that they had either previously used or were currently using for the botnet
Back in February, the US government confirmed that this same Chinese crew comprised"multiple" US critical infrastructure orgs’ IT networks in America in preparation for “disruptive or destructive cyberattacks” against those targets.
