San Francisco has become the center of a spy war?

[dimondpark]

As if we have nothing else to worry about.

Good grief, what's next for the Bay Area? I can see the headline now "SF homeless mysteriously turn into zombies"

San Francisco aka spyland USA

dimondpark@imgur

Anyhow, it turns out that unusually large Russian consulate in SF that was ordered closed by the Trump administration last year probably was the biggest known hub of intelligence gathering activity by Moscow in the US.

Originally Posted by Foreign Policy

THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN CONSULATE IN SAN FRANCISCO
Overflights, mapping fiber-optic networks, “strange activities.” Moscow’s West Coast spies were busy.
BY ZACH DORFMAN
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MATT ROTA

DEC. 14, 2017

...But why the focus on San Francisco? Why not close one of Russia’s other three consulates, in New York, Seattle, or Houston? And why now?

The answer, I discovered, appears to revolve around an intensive, sustained, and mystifying pattern of espionage emanating from the San Francisco consulate. According to multiple former intelligence officials, while these “strange activities” were not limited to San Francisco or its environs, they originated far more frequently from the San Francisco consulate than any other Russian diplomatic facility in the United States, including the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. As one former intelligence source put it, suspected Russian spies were “doing peculiar things in places they shouldn’t be.” Russian officials in Washington failed to respond to multiple attempts via email and phone for comment...

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/14...-spies-moscow/

And here I thought they liked the views and food

I've seen this electronic billboard all over the Bay Area, from the Bay Bridge toll plaza, to 101 on the Peninsula.


2 recent articles, I wonder if theyre having as hard a time finding a place to live as everyone else is?

Originally Posted by Business Insider

San Francisco is a 'nirvana' for China's main intelligence agency — and the center of an intensifying spy war

John Haltiwanger Jul 27, 2018, 5:10 PM ET

1. San Francisco and Silicon Valley are top priorities for Beijing's efforts to steal US trade and technological secrets.

2. California is the only state where China's main intelligence agency has a dedicated unit focused on "political intelligence and influence operations."

3. Tech firms - even those with high-level government contracts - are apparently unprepared to respond to espionage and have few incentives to report such activities.

San Francisco and Silicon Valley are top targets for China's main intelligence agency and Beijing's efforts to steal billion of dollars in US trade and technological secrets are only set to increase, according to a new report from Politico.

The intelligence offensive being launched by foreign governments and led by China could also signal how they intend to operate in other US states and countries in the years to come, the Politico report states.

The national conversation regarding espionage might be dominated by discussions of Russian election interference, which is certainly a serious threat, but China's activities out West are reportedly becoming more and more sophisticated.

Russia and even US allies, such as South Korea and Israel, are also allegedly quite active in the region.

But it's China's Ministry of State Security (MSS), the country's primary intelligence agency, that has placed particular emphasis on California...

https://amp.businessinsider.com/san-...-agency-2018-7

Originally Posted by Politico

How Silicon Valley Became a Den of Spies
The West Coast is a growing target of foreign espionage. And it’s not ready to fight back.
By ZACH DORFMAN 07/27/2018 05:10 AM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO—In the fall of 1989, during the Cold War’s wan and washed-out final months, the Berlin Wall was crumbling—and so was San Francisco. The powerful Loma Prieta earthquake, the most destructive to hit the region in more than 80 years, felled entire apartment buildings. Freeway overpasses shuddered and collapsed, swallowing cars like a sandpit. Sixty-three killed and thousands injured. And local Soviet spies, just like many other denizens of the Bay Area, applied for their share of the nearly $3.5 billion in relief funds allocated by President George H.W. Bush...

...We tend to think of espionage in the United States as an East Coast phenomenon: shadowy foreign spies working out of embassies in Washington, or at missions to the United Nations in New York; dead drops in suburban Virginia woodlands, and surreptitious meetings on park benches in Manhattan’s gray dusk.

But foreign spies have been showing up uninvited to San Francisco and Silicon Valley for a very long time. According to former U.S. intelligence officials, that’s true today more than ever. In fact, they warn—especially because of increasing Russian and Chinese aggressiveness, and the local concentration of world-leading science and technology firms—there’s a full-on epidemic of espionage on the West Coast right now. And even more worrisome, many of its targets are unprepared to deal with the growing threat...

https://www.politico.com/magazine/am...-russia-219071

[Reverberation]

It makes sense. It's a hub of technology, a huge port of entry for Chinese immigrants, and the most welcoming place in the country if you are a Maoist, communist, socialist, or anti-capitalist. They fit right in.

[Pedestrian]

• Video Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onR7...&frags=pl%2Cwn

[chris08876]

That's a hell of a skyline shot dimondpark in the 1st post.

[dimondpark]

Thanks^

Originally Posted by Washington Post

Ex-Apple engineer arrested on his way to China, charged with stealing company’s autonomous car secrets

By Allyson Chiu
July 11, 2018 at 9:15 AM

For about two years, Xiaolang Zhang was privy to information to which many in the tech world can only dream of having access: the inner workings of Apple’s secretive autonomous car research.

During the weekend, the former Apple engineer was arrested by U.S. authorities at San Jose International Airport while preparing to board a flight to China and charged with stealing proprietary information related to Apple’s self-driving car project. At the time of his arrest, he said he was working for a Chinese start-up that is also developing autonomous vehicles, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Jose on Monday by the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office.

Zhang, who started working at Apple in December 2015, was accused of downloading files that included engineering schematics and technical reports before leaving to work for Xiaopeng Motors, a Guangzhou-based company also known as XMotors, documents said...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-car-secrets/

[dimondpark]

These incidents seem really brazen...

Originally Posted by East Bay Times

Huawei in Santa Clara infiltrated summit at Facebook, sent trade secrets to China: lawsuit
Ethan Baron
UPDATED: July 12, 2018 at 2:44 pm

A Bay Area subsidiary of a Chinese firm seen as a national security threat by U.S. officials infiltrated a meeting during a telecommunications summit at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters and sent information to its offices in China, a new lawsuit claims.

Jesse Hong says in the lawsuit that he was a software architect for Chinese smartphone giant Huawei’s subsidiary Futurewei Technologies in Santa Clara from 2014 until he was fired in March of this year. He alleges that in 2016, Huawei directed two Futurewei employees to deceive their way into an annual “TIP Summit” for telecommunications companies — most of them startups competing against Huawei — that was held at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park...

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/07...a-lawsuit/amp/

[Pedestrian]

Well, we know about Feinstein's driver being an agent for China.

Feinstein had a Chinese spy connection she didn’t know about — her driver

[Pedestrian]

NSA spies on internet traffic from non-secret secret SoMa building
By Adam Brinklow Jun 27, 2018, 9:39am PDT

Every San Francisco neighborhood needs some basic amenities: the corner store, the dog park, the local library branch, and of course the top secret Internet spying facility.

On Monday, the Intercept published an extensive expose on what it alleges is a network of telecommunications facilities secretly eavesdropping on and retaining America’s internet traffic for the National Security Agency [NSA], including one in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, located at 611 Folsom, the austere, windowless building at the corner of Second Street.

The Intercept credits AT&T employees and internal NSA documents for exposing the location of data hubs in New York City, Chicago, and LA, among others.

But in the case of San Francisco’s own spy shack, the SoMa AT&T facility and its sinister sounding Room 641A were already so well known as to qualify as part of the local color . . . .

https://sf.curbed.com/2018/6/27/1750...cisco-building

[JoeMusashi]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Well, we know about Feinstein's driver being an agent for China.

Feinstein had a Chinese spy connection she didn’t know about — her driver

Not to get all political but she probably knew who this guy was. Her husband is deeply tied to China.

[Reverberation]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Well, we know about Feinstein's driver being an agent for China.

Feinstein had a Chinese spy connection she didn’t know about — her driver

He was a hell of a lot more than her driver. That is some coordinated downplaying if I have ever seen it. I’m waiting for Stephen Colbert to make some jokes about Senator Feinstein being Xi Jinping’s c**k holster. I will not hold my breath waiting for this to happen.

[Sun Belt]

^I've been waiting for the media to start covering all of those other nations that were caught infiltrating our political system servers.

China has been LOL-ing for the past 2 years.

[Reverberation]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

^I've been waiting for the media to start covering all of those other nations that were caught infiltrating our political system servers.

China has been LOL-ing for the past 2 years.

The law is selectively applied. If you are a ranking Democratic Senator serving on the Select Intelligence Committee for six years and your “Office Director” of 20 years is a spy, you are politely informed by the FBI and the issue is downplayed. No charges are filed and the spy still works in the Bay Area at a place called the Education for Social Justice Foundation.

If you are running for office as a Republican, the FBI solicits questionable evidence and plants spies in your campaign and then spends years undermining you.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Reverberation

The law is selectively applied. If you are a ranking Democratic Senator serving on the Select Intelligence Committee for six years and your “Office Director” of 20 years is a spy, you are politely informed by the FBI and the issue is downplayed. No charges are filed and the spy still works in the Bay Area at a place called the Education for Social Justice Foundation.

If you are running for office as a Republican, the FBI solicits questionable evidence and plants spies in your campaign and then spends years undermining you.

At least SSP is useful as an occasional window into the bizzaroland that is Hannity-RT-Infowars. Nice to see the Crazy every now and then.

Carry on with the whataboutism, conspiracy theories and complete absence of anything approaching reality...

[mhays]

Potential infiltration by a foreign agent is NOTHING like intentional collusion with an unfriendly foreign government with the intent of transferring power.

[JManc]

As if China isn't crawling with CIA operatives.

[dimondpark]

Ugh the Rosewood Hotel?!? A five-star spy-whorehouse...whoda thunk it?

Originally Posted by San Jose Mercury News

Are Russian-spy hookers targeting tech leaders and VCs at infamous Silicon Valley ‘cougar nights’?
Ethan Baron
PUBLISHED: July 27, 2018 at 12:32 pm

Suspected Russian “honeypot” prostitutes targeting tech execs and VCs in an infamous Silicon Valley lounge provide a salacious illustration of the region’s spy problem — but much of the espionage here looks like business as usual, according to a new report.

The West Coast is seeing a “full-on epidemic of espionage” centered largely on Silicon Valley’s technology industry, the report said.

A former U.S. intelligence official told online magazine Politico that local Russian and East European prostitutes may be getting money from Russia to target high-powered techies and VCs at the posh Rosewood hotel’s lounge on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, a drinking establishment known for so-called “cougar nights” on Thursdays.

“Sex workers targeting executives at high-end bars and nightclubs such as the Rosewood Sand Hill … and other spots have been identified as potentially reporting back to Russian intel officers,” the former official said, according to Politico...

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/07/...cougar-nights/

[iheartthed]

Is Politico picking up its scoops from the plot line of the HBO series Silicon Valley?

[Chisouthside]

I imagine it would be pretty easy for China or Russia to place spies everywhere in silicon valley as often times Chinese nationals are better poised to land some of the jobs in self driving car research here.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by JManc

As if China isn't crawling with CIA operatives.

Most of us want to hope it is, but I have doubts. Too much of this new form of warfare seems assymmetric. I did a doubletake when I read this:

The threat to the U.S. electric grids (from cyberattacks) is so serious that in June a group of presidential advisers said the country needs to prepare for a “catastrophic power outage” possibly caused by a cyberattack. The National Infrastructure Advisory Council, mostly current or former chief executives of companies engaged in critical industries, said resources need to be stockpiled in community enclaves to prevent mass migrations of desperate people.

Privately owned utility companies acknowledge they need more help from the federal government, including the military. The utilities say they don’t have the resources on their own to protect the country’s three big electric grids—one in the east, one in the west and one in Texas—against foreign governments.

“There must be accountability for bad actors,” said Tom Fanning, chief executive of Atlanta-based Southern Co., one the nation’s biggest utility companies. “I can’t hit back. I can’t fight back. I want to know the Department of Defense is going to be there and hold people accountable.”

Measures under consideration would be designed to hurt opponents but not civilians—which would mean not hitting opponents’ utilities, according to current and former government officials. Likely tools would be more frequent use of indictments against named hackers, and seeking Red Notices from Interpol, or requests that other nations locate and arrest suspects, which would make it hard for the culprits to travel outside their home countries. Asset seizures and sanctions are two additional tools likely to be used more . . . .

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-off...s&page=1&pos=1

Imagine if we had tried to respond in WWII in a way that responded to the London Blitz without hurting civilians. The whole point of the above article is about how horrible would be the harm to civilians in the US by a foreign power using hacking to bring down our electrical grid, but our plans to counter it foreswear harm to civilians on the other side. I think that's ridiculous . . . and totally ineffective.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by JManc

As if China isn't crawling with CIA operatives.

More on Silicon Valley and the eassymetry in spying and cyberwar:

Don’t Be Naive, Google
By The Editorial Page
Aug. 2, 2018 7:15 p.m. ET

Intent on abiding by its founding motto, “Don’t Be Evil,” Google announced in June that it would not participate in a U.S. military program seeking to apply artificial intelligence to drone technology. This week it has been reported that Google is attempting to reintroduce its flagship search engine into China, albeit with censoring and surveillance filters demanded by the Chinese government. This does not compute.

China is famously using advanced technology to erect an Orwellian surveillance state.

But like other companies, Google has concluded it cannot sacrifice access to China’s market, which is now dominated by the Chinese search-engine company Baidu. That means conforming itself to China’s rules on social control of the internet. Google hasn’t decided whether to proceed with this search-engine initiative, but clearly no license will be granted unless the company agrees to give Chinese censors access to the site’s vast internal information.

That Google would seek re-entry to a country whose efforts at totalitarian control are increasing while the company ostentatiously separates itself from a U.S. defense program is more than a contradiction. It is naive. What kind of world does Google think we live in?

. . . no one paying attention to China’s ambitions doubts that it is developing artificial intelligence for domestic political control and sophisticated military applications. Its Communist Party leaders are doing so to gain a decisive advantage over China’s military competitors, primarily the United States and its citizens . . . .

. . . If American tech companies deny their own country access to advanced knowledge, the U.S. will fall behind . . . .

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-be...s&page=1&pos=2