I kind of presumed that 'sex warfare' (aka seduction) was a standard aspect of espionage (even though no one openly acknowledges it), so this seems like nothing new
And the popular image of jewel thieves is that they universally drop down from the ceiling, instead of entering from a cherrypicker truck through a smashed window.
80% of gub'mnt stuff is in FedRAMP so you hit the IT nerds and have them talk to you all day about how they herd some sort of VM/container solution, and then drop a USB into their laptop while sleeping.
the actual Feds gets training about this but the contractors are made of swiss cheese and have tons of holes.
get on tinder near any military base and the number of attractive women of indeterminate russian/central asian/east asian extraction are far higher than you'd think for places like Yuma or Everett or Oklahoma
I'm sure spies also operate on platforms like OnlyFans and can extract secrets even without physical interaction.
The number of lonely male tech workers who engage in parasocial relationships online is not insignificant. Twenty years ago, I never would have believed that people would pay money just for some written or verbal acknowledgment from someone on the internet. Attractive female whom men "support" for an illusory relationship can milk thousands from some people.
Getting security clearances after background check shows payments of this type is probably difficult.
What's worse or maybe even more sad, is that these accounts hire people, sometimes men and women, to pretend and interact with "fans". The one paying the money is not even talking to the actual person, and I think this is happening to both men and women, there's a lot of lonely people on both sides out there
>Getting security clearances after background check shows payments of this type is probably difficult.
I don't think so. Ordinary background checks do not get into details of your spending, unless your spending indicates a clear dysfunction or financially compromised state. If they had to block any man who ever gave too much money to a woman he shouldn't have, it would probably rule out half of the men out there. In the best case you could find out from the guy's family or friends that he is a sucker and makes terrible decisions, but I doubt these guys consistently tell anybody what they are doing.
What is it on the Internet with calling women 'females'? I'd understand if you had written 'males' and 'females' OR 'men' and 'women'. This indicates an attempt at objectification to me.
Many people speaking in English are not native speakers, even when they communicate fluently - such as yours truly.
I use "Males" or "Men", and "Females" or "Women" interchangeably. This is the first time I see anyone indicating there is a connotation for objectification there.
> This is the first time I see anyone indicating there is a connotation for objectification there.
Happens to all of us, we are all inside our small information bubbles. The curious engage in broader conversation, such as us on HN.
Let me drop some links to illustrate that this is not just my personal (mis-) understanding:
- "Female, woman: Revised guidance noting that some people object to the use of female as a descriptor for women because it can be seen as emphasizing biology and reproductive capacity over gender identity. It can also sometimes carry misogynistic tones that may vary in severity by race, class and other factors." AP Stylebook recommends female as adjective, women as noun (https://help.apstylebook.com/support/solutions/articles/6600...)
- "Overall, participants rated the words females/males as more biological and technical, and women/men as higher on all other dimensions (e.g., appropriate, polite, warm)" (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36348255/)
I don't ascribe to everything written here, but I think it makes clear that wider discourse on the topic exists. Especially when using female(s) as a noun.
> Female, woman: Revised guidance noting that some people object to the use of female as a descriptor for women because it can be seen as emphasizing biology and reproductive capacity over gender identity.
This reads as using "male" and "female" is more precise? Communication many times is about being precise no?
Gender identity is typically irrelevant and in many ways too personal.
> What is it on the Internet with calling women 'females'? I'd understand if you had written 'males' and 'females' OR 'men' and 'women'. This indicates an attempt at objectification to me.
It's probably the new concept of treating "gender" as distinct from sex, and the attempt to claim terms like "man" and "woman" and make them ambiguous with regards to sex. So some people who want to be specific increasingly use sex terms like "male" and "female" instead.
Male and female are preferred terms because they are objective and emotionally neutral while avoiding the sexism of misusing the word "man" to mean male human.
I'm not here to spark a debate or anything. just wanted to share a quick note on etymology since you mentioned "sexism", and I'll bow out after this. You do you!
Historically, "man" comes from Old English "mann," which originally meant "human being" or "person" in a gender-neutral way, without specifying male or female. Back then, the word for a male human was actually "wer" (like in "werewolf"), and for female, it was "wif" (as in "wife"). Over time, "man" shifted to primarily mean "male," but terms like "mankind" hung onto that older, inclusive sense.
So, using "man" in the "mankind" context isn't really a misuse or inherently sexist: it's tapping into the word's original roots. That said, I get why folks prefer "male" and "female" for clarity today. Peace!
I personally like 'man' as it had a poetic ring to me. I also think it makes sense to pay attention to the differing perception of language, as I want to be able to communicate effectively with all kinds of people.
Not quite the same thing but in the UK there have been a number of scandals around undercover police officers infiltrating activist groups, entering into relationships and fathering children with genuine members, then disappearing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_undercover_policing_relatio...
Good example for the extreme lengths people go to. Yet there is a huge difference in effort of fathering a child vs. pregnancy and delivering a child. Regardless of the parent in either case disappearing afterwards.
True, there's a big difference both in personal effort and the impact it has on the other party. I recently watched a Netflix spy drama "Black Doves" in which a prominent politician's wife turns out to be a spy contracting agency plant, who's had two kids with him. That really would be fantastical. I'm not aware of any real cases of it happening where the agent is female (and nor is Claude code FWIW) - the linked article provides some evidence in the form of hearsay.
That is probably statistically true, though it'll depend on the mother's income, stability, and subsequent partnering. The impact on the mother however is definitive.
That is because you live a life of a normal citizen. A life where daily sociatal rules apply. You likely have not seen war, or been involved in organised crime on either side of the law.
Russia is known for doing exactly that (not a story). Looks like China is borrowing from the same playbook. China has also planted “sleeper” spies, who join companies at a junior level, then rise through the ranks, until they can access real stuff. Wouldn’t surprise me, if the US and Israel have done the same.
America has a bling problem; especially younger folks. It’s our Achilles heel. There are Americans who will sell out our nation for a pittance, just so they can strut around, looking cool.
> Wouldn’t surprise me, if the US and Israel have done the same.
The US doesn't have the institutions or culture in place to recruit and shepherd people into that kind of espionage. Or any espionage, really. We're notoriously horrible at HUMINT. With the possible exception of a brief period during the Cold War, we've always been hopelessly obsessed with developing and wielding technological solutions, not without some success, to be fair. Why spend $10 million on building a long-term HUMINT espionage program when we can pay Palantir $10 billion to run contractors to steal secrets remotely.
Israel... I dunno. Given the deep cultural and social ties and relatively easy mobility, and the fact most of the US and Israeli defense and information sectors are privatized and diffuse, Israel can probably just rely on poaching people, much like a corporation. By contrast, China's problem until recently has been brain drain. Chinese want to move to the US, China can just leverage that demand and flow of people.
I'm not sure Americans are any more susceptible to bribery than elsewhere. We're a tremendously wealthy country, with median incomes nearly twice those of even some wealthy Western European countries. The problem with recruiting established professionals is that access to highly valuable information is strongly correlated to career success, and career success means you have much more to lose, and thus less incentive to accept bribes, especially given how harsh our sentencing is compared to most of the rest of the world. (I wouldn't be surprised if corporate espionage results in longer prison time here than China, notwithstanding that for the really severe defense-related cases China will quickly put you to death, as shown by the recent CIA asset fiasco.) Most bribery cases seem to be low-level wage employees without much to offer except in exceptional situations, or government or military workers being paid much less than market rate compared to their counterpart in private industry. Elsewhere, the high-profile, high-level cases, most of the time it's not even clear the accusation is well founded.
While the current state of corporate espionage seems much more opaque, looking back at the history of French corporate espionage might be worthwhile. I don't know much about the specifics, but during the 1980s and 1990s France had a notoriously brazen corporate espionage program, much of which has been well documented and researched, so useful for understanding how it works generally.
Not so sure about that. I remember reading an interview, back in the '90s, with a lobbyist that was convicted and jailed for bribery. He said that US congress[wo]men were surprisingly cheap. He could get a billion-dollar contract awarded, for a couple of thousand bucks.
I think Johnny Walker Red[0] sold sub secrets (the worst kind), for just a couple of million bucks.
the US depends too heavily on technical intelligence and doesn't develop the same human intelligence approaches.
the heavy emphasis on US capitalism also means they tend to lean on bribes, cash or otherwise. both in giving them out, and also falling victim to the same problem.
Do you think people will marry and have kids for a green card? If so, why is this less likely? I think this happens, along with plain old intimidation of family members back home.
I wouldn't say it's a ruse. More like a government promoted lifestyle that through financial encouragement leads to poaching a valuable employee from another country.
Reminds me of a scene from Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (great book)
...
"Preparing my report," Lawrence says. "Doesn't do me any good to make observations if I don't send them out."
"Quite right," Margaret says thoughtfully.
This is an excellent time to stoke the chapel's pathetic iron stove. He puts in a few scoops of precious coal, his worksheet, and the page from the one-time pad that he has just used to do the encryption. "Should warm up now," he says.
"Oh, lovely," Margaret says, "I'm all shivery."
Lawrence recognizes this as his cue to initiate a rescue operation. About fifteen seconds later, he is up there in the hammock with Margaret. To the great surprise of neither one of them, the quarters are awkward and tight. There is some flopping around which ends with Lawrence on his back and Margaret on top of him, her thigh between his.
She is shocked to discover that he has an erection. Ashamed, apparently, that she did not anticipate his need. "You poor dear!" she exclaims. "Of course! How could I have been so dense! You must have been so lonely here." She kisses his cheek, which is nice since he is too stunned to move. "A brave warrior deserves all the support we civilians can possibly give him," she says, reaching down with one hand to open his fly.
Then she pulls the grey wool over her head and burrows to a new position. Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse is stunned by what happens next. He gazes up at the ceiling of the chapel through half-closed eyes and thanks God for having sent him what is obviously a German spy and an angel of mercy rolled into one adorable package.
When it's finished, he opens his eyes again and takes a deep breath of cold Atlantic air. He is seeing everything around him with newfound clarity. Clearly, Margaret is going to do wonders for his productivity on the cryptological front--if he can only keep her coming back.
People seem to forget just how rural the Chinese countryside is. Just showing up as a western-looking guy in the right club in Singapore is enough to get marriage offers. I don’t think there’s any evil plan, just some truly desperate women trying to escape their future.
Singapore is an increasingly attractive place for mainland Chinese people to park their money, or attempt to make their fortunes, given the ambivalent-to-hostile attitudes to the PRC in the rest of the world.
Since COVID, Singapore's retail scene has been almost entirely overtaken by Chinese chains. Coffee chains like Luckin Coffee, Chagee, and more are sprouting up everywhere, including in the heartlands. Ma la hotpot/stir fry outlets follow, and then there are the Chinese bubble tea chains like Mixue.
The underbelly is also entirely of mainland Chinese stock. Sex workers, masseuses, and KTV hostesses in Singapore are majority mainland Chinese, who collect tens of thousands a day from men who patronise these establishments.
I suppose it isn't super easy for these women to find Westerners in rural China. Thus, they leave China in look of a future, going to places in Asia where meeting wealthy men is more likely (such as in Singapore).
I presume you are aware of this, but for those who may not be, Singapore is both not China and the polar opposite of rural Chinese countryside. It does, however, have numerous sketchy nightclubs staffed with prostitutes from rural China (and Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam etc) who would dearly love to have a personal ATM.
Also, the reason Singapore doesn't have Bangkok's sexpot image is that these clubs are waaaaaay more expensive, squarely targeted at Chinese speakers (although there is an equivalent Indian scene) and whiteys are a rare sight.
Actually this stereotype is about Chinese women. Thai women aren't that materialistic, and where it is true, it only applies to poor Thai women, who are attracted to the man because he's probably 1,000X richer than her, which would be attractive to a poor woman from anywhere. If a prince from Lichenstein came to rural USA, he'd have no trouble dating.
This thread is bizarre and confusing. There's only been like 5 posts and already people are conflating rural Chinese, Singaporeans, and Thais.
"Thai women aren't that materialistic" is incongruous with the West's image of Thailand as the home of pervasive prostitution, trafficked or otherwise.
It takes only a single documentary to disprove your claim that this is just a stereotype. There are so many about cringe westerners that buy thai wives.
I like that there's three examples. Two named, who are both men and then one woman who is mentioned by an anonymous source and if she's real, doesn't sound that unlike (at least in moral terms) to the crypto evangelist archetype.
On a serious note. The Chinese will go to great lengths to steal tech that they want. I have heard some interesting stories regarding fake cell towers and phone tapping next to factories and not for some crazy important tech either. Just something the Chinese did not yet know how to do and wanted to compete without spending years of R&D.
Apart from the "warfare" aspect, it is an interesting question whether the combination of "The man is attractive because of money" and "The woman is attractive because of her looks" can work.
When I look at instances in my social circle, it seems like it doesn't really work. The relationships typically seem to suffer from a lack of mutual interests. The woman's beauty quickly dwindles as time passes. And the woman feels like she is missing out on a "real life" because all she does is be at the side of the man, instead of building her own career. The attraction of the man seems to dwindle quickly too. I know a few such couples, where the man told me that their sex life is dead, even though he wished it were different.
What that tells me is that to work on your attractiveness, working on your career is not the way to go.
Many people have no interest at all in building a career. (Of the four adults who live in my home, only I want to participate in the economy.) Lots of people, including, I bet, the majority of sober-minded women. Want security and emotional support.
The match-up of pretty female and ambitious and successful male can and has worked through all of history. Yes beauty fades, which is why there better be other layers of connection, but that doesn’t have to be shared interests. I share very little interests in common with my wife of 34 years. We don’t connect in that way. We connect on the level of mutual respect, mutual need, and mutual service.
Our society has become so disconnected from concepts like “respect” and “service.” We are amusing ourselves to death, as the saying goes. But these things work. They are timeless.
Cheers! I learned only during a Covid quarantine that I need to spend a certain period of time in her presence, a few times per day— not even doing or necessarily saying anything— to feel really okay.
In my circle, I've seen it work, not in the same way though. Attractive women often go after the wealthiest men they can get. Likewise the minute a man goes out of a job, the strain in the marriage becomes immediate in a dual income household; less likely in households where the man was the sole breadwinner. The greater the difference in incomes and/or wealth, the more likely the marriage is going to last. And no, these aren't observations from some theocratic shithole in the Middle East or some ultra conservative Asian circles. These are from all the most liberal cities in the world.
And there is data to suggest children of high earners tend to be more attractive, for just this reason.
A woman who is a 9 out of 10, but not inclined or able to make her own high-earning career, can jump to the head of the income line by marrying a wealthy man. No one is surprised by this, but there are certainly some genetic consequences.
Of course, children of high-income families have better access to dental care, pimple medicine, and so forth, in the US.
The only hard evidence (besides the story about the Russian woman marrying the guy in Aerospace) this article offers is some guy getting a few LinkedIn requests, and two Chinese women trying to get into a conference. There is nothing specific about Chinese/Russian spies seducing normal silicon valley tech workers or marrying them for trade secrets.
Err, you might want to at least watch Succession if you can't keep up with the IRL drama.
In September 2023, News Corp reported that Rupert Murdoch would retire from the board of News Corporation. He would also retire from the board of Fox Corporation and his son Lachlan Murdoch would replace him on both boards. The retirement would take effect in November 2023.
You're probably right. I trusted Google's summary: "Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns the British newspaper The Times and its sister paper, The Sunday Times. Both are published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK." which might be incorrect.
That's all correct. The only slightly questionable bit might be control of News Corp, but, realistically, it's not unreasonable to consider it to still be Rupert Murdoch's.
Unusually for a Murdoch thing, not a tabloid; while I'd be _somewhat_ suspicious of its output, especially its commentary, it's not in the same class as things like The Sun or Fox; closer to WSJ (also Murdoch) in terms of editorial independence/attachment to reality.
except Silicon Valley is not where its at.. i can see it for military contractors and scientists at national labs but not Silicon Valley unless the target is working on quantum computers or true frontier AI (not OpenAI bs lol)
I already said this before: You're a dirty ass computer nerd, and a beautiful woman approaches you? Definitely a trap. Maybe a spy, maybe a scammer, maybe someone insane.
Same with friendships, all sorts of things. Someone that's super into the same things as you and appears to help you and encourage you like a friend you never had? That's not a friend, guarantee you.
Maybe my circle is unusual, but almost none of the programmers I know live down to the popular stereotypes. Most of them are popular, and a third are jacked.
Most programmers are not worth spying on or even scamming. That's fine.
"dirty ass programmer" contrasted with "beautiful woman" is a stereotypical example, but not a rule. It represents an asymmetry in typical social interactions. If you're getting much more than you deserve, it's a trap. Got it?
The State Dept advice for personnel going on foreign assignments used to be quite direct, but pragmatic: "if you're a 4/10 in the USA, you're still a 4/10 abroad".
