In China, Censorship is Called Security

Senator Sam Brownback (Kansas) is warning that China is planning to mount a massive espionage operation on guests staying at major hotels during the upcoming Olympic Games next month.

This shouldn't surprise anyone. Although they consistently deny it, China has a history of spying on both business and government visitors. They also consistently get accused by governments around the world of hacking into sensitive systems.

Recently, there was a lot of speculation that Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez's laptop was hacked during a visit to China and the information was used to hack into government computers. Saavy business types have been quoted as saying that they do not carry laptops or smartphones with them while travelling in China. Of course -- if you needed some more substantial proof China is behind a lot of espionage -- you could read about all the people getting caught by the FBI stealing sensitive information for the People's Republic.

Senator Brownback made a statement on Tuesday that he was warned that the Chinese Public Security Bureau has made it mandatory for hotels chains to install spyware and special hardware by the end of July. Failure to install the required items (or disabling them afterwards) will lead to "punishment," according to a document in the Senator's possession.

Of course, all this is being done in the name of security, according to People's Republic officials. Oddly enough -- possibly to address privacy concerns -- they plan to employ pop up windows warning people the Internet is not private in China. I'm sure this is assuring to privacy advocates, worldwide (pun intended).

The Senator's staff handed out English language translations of two separate documents he said were received by hotels, outlining the government's instructions on how to implement Internet spying software and hardware by the end of July to members of the press on Tuesday.

In many people's opinion -- the intention of this security system is monitor people -- who might want to expose China's dismal human rights record during the games. In fact, Senator Brownback was initially warned about these so-called security measures by human rights advocates.

Further evidence of this is that on Tuesday access to sites like Amnesty International or any with a Tibet address were being blocked at the main Olympic press center in Bejing, according to the article in the Los Angeles Times on this story.

Senator Brownback announced during the conference that he and Senator Bunning of Kentucky were introducing a resolution calling on China to suspends it's plan to censor free speech and spy on people. It should be noted that years ago -- when bidding for the games -- China promised to not to do this.

While many speculate the intent of this so-called "security system" is to supress free speech (censor people), I'd highly recommend anyone with sensitive information be extremely careful if they are in China during the Olympic games. The real espionage and hacking will not be as apparent as this has been. A good place to learn about Chinese hacking and espionage is the Dark Visitor site, which should give anyone a good idea what information risks they might face during a visit to China.

DOD Analyst Convicted for Selling Information to China

Despite a lot of official denials, it seems pretty clear the Chinese have no qualms about stealing as much intellectual property as they can get their hands on.

On Friday, the Department of Justice announced that one Gregg William Bergersen of Alexandria, Virginia was sentenced to 57 months in prison (plus three years of supervised release) for disclosing secret information to a naturalized American citizen of Chinese descent (Tai Shen Kuo), who was then providing it to the People's Republic of China.

In his day job, Gregg Bergersen was a Department of Defense Analyst.

Kuo provided Bergersen with gifts, cash payments, dinners and gambling money in exchange for the information. The information involving military sales to Taiwan was then passed to Kuo's handler, an official of the People's Republic of China.

The official DOJ press release states that Bergersen didn't know the information was going to China. It would be interesting to discover, who he thought it was going to?

Kuo, who was found guilty on May 13th, is currently awaiting sentencing on August 8th and faces life in prison.

On May 28th, Yu Xin Kang, also of New Orleans pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting an unregistered agent of the People's Republic of China. According to court documents, Kang sometimes assisted Kuo in providing the stolen information to the unnamed foreign official. Kang faces ten years in prison.

Last year, another naturalized American citizen of Chinese descent, Chi Mak, was convicted of selling sensitive defense technology to China. This case was a family affair and Mak's sister in law and brother were caught by the FBI trying to board a plane to China with three encrypted CD's containing the stolen information.

The FBI site covered the Bergersen/Kuo case and another one involving a Boeing engineer, Dongfan “Greg” Chung, in a recent press release. Allegedly Chung was tied into the Mak case and sold information on the Space Shuttle and military aircraft to the People's Republic of China.

Although, the government isn't commenting much there is speculation that they are investigating information being stolen from Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez's laptop during a recent visit to China. It is alleged that this information was used to hack into government computers.

Hacking incidents traced to the Chinese, although always denied by the PRC, have been reported all over North America, Europe and even Asia. A good place to learn about Chinese hacking activity is a site (maintained by a former DOD official) called The Dark Visitor (Information on Chinese Hacking) .

The Chinese are also suspected (in a lot of instances) of stealing corporate information. According to sources within the technology industry, it isn't recommended to carry laptops or other personal data storage devices when travelling in China.

On a personal note, I believe a lot of this is enabled by our free trade agreement with the People's Republic of China. While this agreement is lucrative for a few corporate entities -- the wholesale theft of intellectual property, counterfeiting, unsafe and defective products, as well as, all the human rights violations in China call for taking a hard and educated look at what is going on.

The problem is will special interests -- who represent the corporate entities making a lot of money from this -- prevent our leadership in Washington from taking effective action against what is becoming an alarming issue?

If you suspect anyone of selling government secrets, you can report them to the FBI by submitting an anonymous tip online.