Sensitive infared cameras discovered bound for China at LAX

Dangerous and counterfeit products, hacking government systems and espionage all have one thing in common, they are likely to originate from China.

The latest example of this is being reported by the AP:

Two men attempting to board a plane to China with nearly a dozen sensitive infrared cameras in their luggage were arrested on Saturday, a federal official said.

Federal agents stopped the pair on the jetway as they were preparing to board the flight to Beijing.

The men had been in the United States for about a week, said Rick Weir, assistant special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security.

Yong Guo Zhi, a Chinese national, and Tah Wei Chao, a naturalized U.S. citizen, were arrested for investigation of trying to take thermal imaging cameras with potential military use to China without the proper export licenses, Weir said.

In February of this year, the FBI highlighted two high profile cases involving Chinese espionage.

Again, whether it involves defective goods, hacking or stealing military secrets -- the Chinese seem to be having a field day victimizing the citizens of the United States and the World.

Is the cheap labor they provide for a lot companies worth all the risks we are taking by allowing them "free trade status?"

Additional examples of Chinese espionage, hacking and defective products written about on this blog can be seen, here.

Full AP story on this latest development in the ongoing saga, here.

Why Walmart might be looking for a few good spies

Ran into a interesting story alleging that large corporations -- in this instance Wal-Mart -- are hiring former government intelligence types to work in their corporate security departments.

The story that I found in RINF.com, which states that they monitor the "surveillance society," focused on Wal-Mart delving into the personal details of two of their former executives.

Apparently, the personal details of an affair became public, when one of the executives was being investigated for a conflict of interest with a advertising agency. The article also states that the executive being investigated got the other executive her job.

In all fairness -- despite the article's focus on privacy concerns -- conflicts of interest and intellectual property crimes are becoming a growing problem for corporations. The fact that one person got another person a job based on a personal relationship might be a little questionable, also?

Here is what the article, written by Douglas Frantz, had to say about former goverments running this investigation:

Largely overlooked in the furor was the role that Wal-Mart’s internal security department had played in digging up the salacious details. This department, a global operation, was headed by a former senior security officer for the Central Intelligence Agency and staffed by former agents from the C.I.A., the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other government agencies. (See our Spy Slang guide) A person familiar with the episode said in an interview that an ex-C.I.A. computer specialist was involved in piecing together the email evidence—which included copies of Womack’s private Gmail messages, provided by his estranged wife—and that another former government agent had supervised the overall investigation.

Ex-government agents appear to be Wal-Mart’s investigators of choice. The retailer has emailed job listings to members of the Association for Intelligence Officers as well as posted ads on its site seeking to hire “global threat analysts” with backgrounds in intelligence. The job description for the analysts, who would have reported to a former Army intelligence officer, entailed collecting information from “professional contacts” to gauge threats from “suspect individuals and groups.” In practice, their responsibilities would have extended to gathering information about Wal-Mart employees, suppliers, and customers; Wal-Mart monitors shoppers for suspicious or potentially criminal activity. A Wal-Mart spokesman said the company does not comment on security matters.

Ex-government agents appear to be Wal-Mart’s investigators of choice. The retailer has emailed job listings to members of the Association for Intelligence Officers as well as posted ads on its site seeking to hire “global threat analysts” with backgrounds in intelligence. The job description for the analysts, who would have reported to a former Army intelligence officer, entailed collecting information from “professional contacts” to gauge threats from “suspect individuals and groups.” In practice, their responsibilities would have extended to gathering information about Wal-Mart employees, suppliers, and customers; Wal-Mart monitors shoppers for suspicious or potentially criminal activity. A Wal-Mart spokesman said the company does not comment on security matters.

While the article seems to target activity at Walmart, it alleges that their is a substantial market for this type of service:

The best estimate is that several hundred former intelligence agents now work in corporate espionage, including some who left the C.I.A. during the agency turmoil that followed 9/11. They quickly joined private-investigation firms whose U.S. corporate clients were planning to expand into Russia, China, and other countries with opaque business practices and few public records, and who needed the skinny on international partners or rivals.

With outsourcing becoming the norm for large corporations, I would imagine that experts in the espionage field might be a prudent investment for some of these corporations.

One reason might be counterfeiting, which the International Anticounterfeiting Association estimates to be a $600 billion dollar a year problem.

Intellectual property theft is being touted the crime of this century. While just about everything you can imagine is being counterfeited, technology seems to be targeted, most frequently.

In fact, IPhones, which were last years big tech item, were being cloned and sold on eBay by the time the product was rolled out in the United Kingdom.

There are constant reports of Chinese involvement in espionage from the corporate level to hackers breaking into government systems. Couple this with large corporations having their a lot of products manufactured in China and it's no wonder the services of a few good former spies might be prudent.

We probably shouldn't be surprised that corporations are turning to espionage experts to protect their assets. In fact in the age of the global economy and outsourcing, we are going probably going to see a growing demand for this type of expertise in the private sector.

RINF.com article, here.

IAAC White Paper on intellectual property theft, here.

The FBI did an interesting (my opinion) press release showing a little corporate espionage with a Chinese connection in 2006, which can be seen by clicking here.

U.S. China Commission Report reveals serious issues that need to be dealt with!

Reports of the Chinese hacking into government systems are nothing new. Along with the constant reports of substandard products being put on our shelves, there is little doubt that the Chinese pose a threat to our safety in a LOT of different ways.

The U.S. China Commission has just released a disturbing report, which indicates some alarming evidence that the Chinese might be a threat to our National security.

The first concern is what appears to be a growing capability to target satellites. I got the following directly from the report, which was provided to Congress:

The hearing was timely, coming only three months after a successful direct-ascent anti satellite test by China that destroyed one of its own aging weather satellites in low-earth orbit. This test was only the third of its kind by any nation in history and served as a useful reference point during the hearing to illustrate not only China’s advances in military capabilities, but also the extent to which China’s decision making process is still very much opaque. This incident raises questions about Chinese intentions in space. The Commission will address these questions as it continues to monitor developments.

In the same realm, it appears that China is actively developing capabilities to conduct "irregular warfare." It should be noted that in addition to this report there have been regular reports of hackers from China specifically targeting government systems.

This is what the current report concluded:

Several experts testified that if China were to find itself in an armed conflict with the United States and its allies such as that resulting from a Taiwan dispute, China is likely to employ an array of irregular warfare strategies against its adversaries. According to Michael Vickers, Senior Vice President for Strategic Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Chinese attack on Taiwan could entail special operations and cyber attacks on U.S. regional bases in Japan and South Korea, and might even include cyber attacks on the U.S. homeland that target the U.S. financial, economic, energy, and communications infrastructure.

Also covered in the report are previously documented cyber-intrusions into U.S. Government systems:

As evidenced by the trajectory of its military modernization, Chinese defense planners are seeking to accomplish the goal of undermining the U.S. military’s technological edgethrough a variety of disruptive means. Among these is cyber warfare. USSTRATCOM Commander General Cartwright testified before the Commission that China is actively engaging in cyber reconnaissance by probing the computer networks of U.S. government agencies as well as private companies. The data collected from these computer reconnaissance campaigns can be used for myriad purposes, including identifying weak points in the networks, understanding how leaders in the United States think, discovering the communication patterns of American government agencies and private companies, and attaining valuable information stored throughout the networks. General Cartwright testified that this information is akin to that which in times past had to be gathered by human intelligence over a much longer period of time. He went on to say that in today’s information environment, the exfiltration that once took years can be accomplished in a matter of minutes in one download session.

The report also concludes that the Chinese have been building up their more traditional military capabilities since 1992.

Going into the reasons why China has been able to accomplish this, the report states:

China’s policies of market liberalization have resulted in rapid export-led economic growth prompting increased foreign investment; development of China’s manufacturing capabilities; and integration into the global supply chain. China’s abundant and inexpensive labor supply has made that country an obvious place for multinational companies to expand their production. However, as Dr. Peter Navarro, Professor of Business at the University of California, Irvine, observed in his testimony, five of eight factors identified as major drivers of China’s comparative advantage—i.e., its ability to undercut the prices of global competitors—are considered unfair trading practices. These include its undervalued currency, counterfeiting and piracy, export industry subsidies, and lax health, safety, and environmental regulations. These practices violate China’s WTO commitments, especially regarding workers’ rights, market access, currency manipulation, subsidies, and the protection of intellectual property rights. These violations and unfair practices also contribute to a growing U.S. trade deficit with China, one that U.S. Census Bureau statistics confirm increased 177 percent in the past six years from $83.8 billion in 2000 to $232.5 billion in 2006.

Granting China a "Permanent Normal Trading Relationship" six years ago was sold to the American public as a means of making China a better place (more democratic) place for it's people.

Instead, we have seen a lot of questionable government activity, which includes a variety of criminal enterprises when we consider all the hacking, counterfeiting and piracy that can be directly traced back to that country.

The lack of safe manufacturing practices and counterfeiting also poses a threat to our safety. It should be noted that according to International Anticounterfeiting Coalition, counterfeiting is a $600 billion a year problem, worldwide.

There are no figures on how much of this comes from China, although most experts on this subject speculate a lot of it does. Additionally, there is a lot of evidence that a lot of counterfeit merchandise is present in our supply chain. This evidence would include products of a consumable nature such as drugs, also.

The FDA estimates that 10 percent of the drugs in our supply system are counterfeit.

A lot of this probably tied into another phenomenon traced to the Chinese known as corporate (industrial) espionage. Of course, there is probably less of a need for the Chinese to plant spies in our industrial complexes anymore. With the amount of outsourcing going on, they probably never have to set foot out of China to steal a lot of secrets from us.

According to the Washington Post, American companies are even outsourcing the manufacture of military parts:

The Pentagon is increasingly buying planes, weapons and military vehicles from private contractors that outsource the manufacturing to plants in China and elsewhere in Asia, the report said. But when questioned by the commission, defense officials admitted that they do not have the ability to track where the components of military equipment are made.

To me, given all the recent implications of Chinese intentions, this makes the least sense!

All of these factors have led to a loss of jobs within our country as corporations take advantage of cheap labor, which is often the greatest expense in any business.

This translates into record profits for the Chinese and a select few people in the West.

Given the safety, National security and economic implications, continuing down this road doesn't seem to be in the best interests of the average person.

The full report from the U.S. China Commission can be viewed, here.