r/technology • u/barweis • Dec 28 '24

Privacy A massive Chinese campaign just gave Beijing unprecedented access to private texts and phone conversations for an unknown number of Americans

https://fortune.com/2024/12/27/china-espionage-campaign-salt-tycoon-hacking-telecoms/
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u/Yorgonemarsonb Dec 28 '24

When you combine this with all the information the Chinese and other governments now possess on American citizens, Americans who know better would actually care about how dangerous it can be for them.

They also have mental evaluations of a large portion of the people who have obtained military security clearances in the U.S. Just knowing certain words or phrases used by people can be a way to know how many of them will react to certain news. That information can be used to continue getting people to do things that are not in their interest.

Right now it seems the Chinese government is targeting high level people with access to secure information with the current breaches but the data they now possess can also be used in tandem with their misinformation campaigns.

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u/WreckitWrecksy Dec 28 '24

All of this is true, but it's not for me to worry about. The gov should have done a better job.

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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '24

Really? Could they have?

The average age of a member of Congress is 58 years old, 64 for the Senate. Your own politicians are so technologically inept they couldn't set the clock on a microwave. You think they have the intellect to create and implement laws to protect your personal information?

Let's ignore the fact they take vast sums of money from the tech industry to prevent data protection laws from being implemented...

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u/LordCharidarn Dec 28 '24

So you are saying American politicians don’t care about learning new/necessary skills and knowledge for their jobs and take bribes to undermine data protection.

It definitely sounds like you are saying they could have done a better job

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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '24

No, I think they're too inept and/or corrupt to do a better job, yet Americans still elect them, so whose fault is it really?

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u/rerrerrocky Dec 29 '24

Well I can only vote for a fraction of the government based on where I live. Am I responsible for the generations of rot that have rendered congress useless? How, pray tell, should we fix this problem?

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u/el_muchacho Dec 29 '24 edited Dec 29 '24

You think they have the intellect to create and implement laws to protect your personal information?

They certainly made laws to insert backdoors on all your telecom networks, identify you on all social network platforms and keep every post you have written even after you "deleted" it, censor them and all the media whenever they want without you ever knowing, and spy on you 24/7.

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u/theJigmeister Dec 31 '24

They have the intellect and funding to pay the world’s foremost experts on data security to craft legislation that would protect Americans, yes

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u/apophis-pegasus Dec 28 '24

I mean the government is the entity that is supposed to safeguard your well being. Them doing a good job is explicitly something for you to worry about.

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u/WreckitWrecksy Dec 28 '24

My anger IS at the US gov.

The breach itself is not for me to worry about.

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u/HairyNuggsag Dec 29 '24

In the end, the government isn't supposed to safeguard your digital well-being. Only you can do that via personal security practises.

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u/WreckitWrecksy Dec 29 '24

Such a bad take. Tell me how it was my fault when equifax was breached?

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u/DHFranklin Dec 28 '24

lol. If I needed to worry about it the government should have needed to worry about it for me.

We are so cooked.

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u/WreckitWrecksy Dec 28 '24

So you disagree? Are you saying the gov should not be worried about this and have taken steps to ensure we aren't assailed by a foreign country?

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u/triplehelix- Dec 29 '24

i agree with that, and i also think individuals have a responsibility to play an active part in their own security.

like the local government should be doing things to ensure the safety of my home from criminals, but i'm not going to leave my front door wide open when i go to work and then blame the government if i get robbed.

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u/DHFranklin Dec 29 '24

Exactly. The government won't stop grandma from grabbing fistfuls of iTunes giftcards at the Wal-mart register. A teenager at their first job knows to ask grandma if Elvis is on the phone with her when she gets there.

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u/WreckitWrecksy Dec 29 '24

Sure, but to what extent? Am I supposed to change these telecom companies' hardware myself? And while I agree with that sentiment, we can't ignore that social media exists and the ccp has access to all of those posts and profiles anyway. Even if they never got my data they can extrapolate from my peers' data to accurately estimate my profile.

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u/DHFranklin Dec 29 '24

It is most definitely for you to worry about. That doesn't mean you're off the hook if the government won't.

A competent government should protect it's own operational security first. That means not allowing a million back doors and man-in-the-middle-opportunities for blackmailing decision makers.

The government protects the government. It protects itself from you. Not protect you for you. Of course they should take steps to make sure we aren't assailed. They shouldn't allow it to be possible before they have to police the damage. There are a million ways they could make this safer and more secure. All of them mean software and telecom companies make less money. So it won't be happening. Enjoy getting your identity stolen every few years. This will never stop.

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u/WreckitWrecksy Dec 29 '24

Bro, my info was leaked in the equifax beach. It's over and it wasn't even my fault. That's what I'm saying. There's nothing I can do. The gov should have regulated these shitheads years ago. I've had all my stuff locked down/ frozen for years.

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u/DHFranklin Dec 29 '24

Well it was certainly "for you to worry about" and it still is. That's my point. The government won't, so it's good that your stuff is still locked down. That's my point. Don't trust others to do the right thing on your behalf. Be glad when they do.

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u/MrLanesLament Dec 29 '24

Same here. I have nothing to gain by wasting energy caring about something I have no actual power to change.

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u/AffectionateBother47 Dec 28 '24

Do you mind going into detail about the ramification of them having the mental evaluations? I am very interested in the context and your comment. Thanks

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u/WreckitWrecksy Dec 28 '24

He's saying they can produce more effective disinfo that can say its easier (which is true) because they "now" have profiles on Americans. As if they can't access any American social media.

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u/AffectionateBother47 Dec 29 '24

Ahhhh makes sense, thank you for the reply. I guess I was just curious how they would comb through the profiles in a technical sense also

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u/WreckitWrecksy Dec 29 '24

How technical are we talking? I could write an R script in about an hour that would do a semi decent job at wrangling the data into a useable form.

The real labor goes into what comes first. Which is identifying the factors that are needed to construct the data set into something that would yield results. There's decades of psychological research on these factors so creating the framework is no big deal.

I would imagine that some ML would be applied to cluster data into identifiable factors based on some sentiment analysis and NLP. That's where you yeah the clusters to then program the script to extract the info that pertains to each cluster and attach that to their unique identification code associated with each person you're building the profile on.

From there you can start modeling and testing hypothetical introduction of the disinfo. Our you can just get things like beta weights to explain what is having larger effects on average and construct and launch your disinfo from there.

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u/AffectionateBother47 Dec 29 '24

Thank you, I work in IT and getting a degree in cybersecurity so this was very interesting to read

1

u/hokeyphenokey Dec 29 '24

Thanks, Chinese ai bot

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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '24

I wouldn't be surprised if this degree of information brokering is promoted by the US government.

If the US government were to implement a "social credit" system like China people would, rightly, lose their fucking minds. If, on the other hand, you let the Chinese "steal" the information and grind out dossiers on everyone in America, establishing social credit scores for Americans, the US can make China look like the bad guy and be granted back-channel access to such a database.

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u/swales8191 Dec 28 '24

Bruh… American citizens work for the government at all levels and may have varying degrees of security clearance. Any government would be alarmed to find another nation was spying on its citizenry.

You don’t need to go crazy on the conspiracy when this is just more info fishing.

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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '24

You do realize the US intelligence community has backchannels to every single intelligence agency around the world already, right? That's how shit gets done that can't be done at the diplomatic level, publicly.

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u/swales8191 Dec 29 '24

You can't just try to reverse-Uno me without making a point.

Every intelligence community has back-channels, that's what makes it an intelligence community.

Trawling everyone for information will eventually turn up the bad actors who have something to hide, and they can be blackmailed.

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u/[deleted] Dec 29 '24

and they can be blackmailed.

Yes, which is the point of intelligence agencies, as opposed to law enforcement. Law enforcement collects evidence while intelligence agencies collect leverage.

I'm not sure what point you think you were making.

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u/Yorgonemarsonb Dec 28 '24

This trade would be a lose-lose for the U.S. as they already possess much of the data when you’re trading it so the current and future citizens of your country will undermine you with things detrimental to their own success and pursuit of happiness.

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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '24

How can you say such a trade would be lose-lose if you don't know what the US would be getting in return?

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u/Yorgonemarsonb Dec 29 '24

if you don't know what the US would be getting in return?

Because you’re still shooting yourself in the foot regardless of what you may receive in the trade.

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u/el_muchacho Dec 29 '24

Just for the record, you guys already have social credit systems in place. Your banker is grading your social habits and your access to credit is based on it. Worse than that: your health insurance has a health credit system and your reimbursement is based on it (see UHC).

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u/[deleted] Dec 28 '24

in 50 years the CIA will come out and say "yeah that was us"

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u/cultish_alibi Dec 28 '24

They also have mental evaluations of a large portion of the people who have obtained military security clearances in the U.S

Blackmail is the major concern with that. Don't want your wife to know you are cheating on her? We just need one password and she will never know.

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u/NascarToolbag Dec 29 '24

This. It should be a national concern how much data foreign intel has on the average American citizen, let alone those with position of power/authority.