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China Government Privacy Politics

German Intelligence Warns of Increased Chinese Cyberspying (apnews.com) 75

The head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency has warned that China allegedly is using social networks to try to cultivate lawmakers and other officials as sources. From a report: Hans-Georg Maassen said his agency, known by its German acronym BfV, believes more than 10,000 Germans have been targeted by Chinese intelligence agents posing as consultants, headhunters or researchers, primarily on the social networking site LinkedIn. "This is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate in particular parliaments, ministries and government agencies," Maassen said.
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German Intelligence Warns of Increased Chinese Cyberspying

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  • They should not be allowed to trade with us.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Sure, sure. Same goes for the US, since they were caught spying on Germany, and anyone that deals with the US and Germany, since we have spy operations coming out of Hamburg. I'm with you 100%. This shit needs to stop.

      • It all seems like such a waste of effort, much like having a standing army - it's a game you only play because everyone else is playing it, and it's only risk-free to stop if everyone stops (which you can't confirm without playing).

        It's a game of control that mainly benefits the ruling classes - without it there'd be more economic productivity to put towards making all us peasants that much more content, but less ability to control concentration of wealth.

    • Espionage == communism, I get it?

      So ... First we take Manhatten, then we take Berlin... [theguardian.com].

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Here's the thing. This claim is win-win for the agency making it. Social media is a giant mechanism by which nations can spy not only on each other but also on their own people, very cost-effectively. So Chinese spying may or may not be a serious concern--it's in the interests of German intelligence to play it up as much as possible. It will get them support to increase their own budget and operations...

      AND it will encourage political support for much stronger enforcement of "real name policies" and the con

  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Monday December 11, 2017 @10:51AM (#55716211)

    Next tell me water is wet, I'm waiting on that breaking news with great anticipation!

    Intelligence services do intelligence and counter-intelligence work on behalf of domestic political and corporate interests. Specific instances of this are made public when convenient for propaganda purposes.

    Unless you really think none of the EU nations is spying on the Chinese...

    • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday December 11, 2017 @11:19AM (#55716435) Journal
      Absolutely, we are all spying all over. However, China has been stepping it up. Basically, they are focusing less and less on internal matters and more to external. Personally, I have the utmost respect for Merkel, but there are times that I wonder if she should not be a bit more eastern German. And yeah, trump is absolutely the wrong president for this moment. There are some major changes about to happen in.the world dealing with china, and Russia, but esp China. And this traitor allowed himself to be bought.
  • Nah. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday December 11, 2017 @10:51AM (#55716217) Journal
    It has been there all the time. They are just taking a different tack. It is long past time for the west, esp nato nations, to restore the security approach that we had during the last cold war. After all, both China and Russia see themselves in a cold war with the west.
    • >They are just taking a different tack.

      I prefer the Russian method of having extremely sexy women sleep with men and then waiting for them to say something stupid to impress the women.

      I mean, what, the Chinese are going to give me a job offer via LinkedIn, but the Russians send a hot woman to my bed? I know which agency I'm going to turn for.

      (Sadly, Putin's never targeted me in a Russian honeypot operation... or my wife has a really solid cover and has stuck around despite me never giving her anything

  • by Anonymous Coward

    we'll have to do another whole investigation in to the Trump family ties to Gina.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    When, not if, they reverse engineer the Cambridge Analytica approach, they will be able to use the network to engineer elections, policy, and spending for any number of nations on the planet.

    They are in it "for the long game" and nobody else is. Their battlefield they currently fight on is best described in this way:
    "What if there was a war, and only one side came"

    Every American politician must fight with no less than half of their time, money, and energy for re-election every two years. Their decisions a

  • US intelligence is spying on internet since the introduction of Web 1.0.
  • Funny Fact, post a slightly anti-russian comment on german forums and you will get swarmed by hundreds of pro-russian trolls.

    Post whatever about anybody else and noone cares.

    China is just doing the old game of "intelligence gathering". At least they are not meddling with local politics.

    • by ffkom ( 3519199 )
      The fact that this "pro-russian propaganda" is so blatantly primitive, and so easy to recognize as propaganda, makes me wonder whether the Russians are actually the ones who pay for this kind of activity.
    • Same thing is happening here by Russia and China. And with AI coming, it is going to get worse. This is why I believe we need digital keys to prove who we are.
  • Of course the Chinese are spying, as do many other nations.

    But at least, if you buy Chinese hardware from Chinese traders, you usually end up with only one backdoor in your hardware - the one mandated by the Chinese gouvernment.

    If you buy US hardware, there instead will a multitude of backdoors come with it, readily installed: One installed by the US brand owner, for all sorts of commercial reasons. One installed by the Chinese manufacturer, during manufacturing, on behalf of the Chinese agencies. And
  • The BND and NSA want to spy so they have weak junk open networks. Thinking no other such nation has skills.
    Domestic police want to spy on all the new random people just wondering around.
    Interesting people the police know nothing about and who have no valid documents.
    Collect it all only works if the domestic gov/mil/telco networks are secure and only searchable by a nations police and security services.
    Opening the "internet" to the world and then setting crypto keys as junk to spy on everyone domestical
    • I stopped reading your rant after the second sentence because you clearly don't have common sense. You have no fucking clue, either. There's plenty of stories of spies bumping into each other when tapping each other. Lots of cables from embassies detailing the country's surveillance, etc. They have a good understanding of the advanced capabilities of other nations.
      • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Re "embassies detailing the country's surveillance". That was the Cold War. The days of digging tunnels like in Vienna in 1948 and that Berlin tunnel are over.
        The spies enter as contractors, NGO's, gov and under cover of the private sector. Second generation spies with all the cover of been totally loyal citizens.
        The advanced capabilities are in well connected people talking to desperate political leaders. They don't need to so risk tapping and don't get caught as they are just talking not digging

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