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Botched CIA Communications System Helped Blow Cover of Chinese Agents
 Via this thread at Ycombinator's Hacker News. Another exciting episode of Masters of Tradecraft.[ForeignPolicy] The number of informants executed in the debacle is higher than initially thought. It was considered one of the CIA’s worst failures in decades: Over a two-year period starting in late 2010, Chinese authorities systematically dismantled the agency’s network of agents across the country, executing dozens of suspected U.S. spies. But since then, a question has loomed over the entire debacle. How were the Chinese able to roll up the network? Now, nearly eight years later, it appears that the agency botched the communication system it used to interact with its sources, according to five current and former intelligence officials. The CIA had imported the system from its Middle East operations, where the online environment was considerably less hazardous, and apparently underestimated China’s ability to penetrate it. "The attitude was that we’ve got this, we’re untouchable," said one of the officials who, like the others, declined to be named discussing sensitive information. The former official described the attitude of those in the agency who worked on China at the time as "invincible." Other factors played a role as well, including China’s alleged recruitment of former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee around the same time. Federal prosecutors indicted Lee earlier this year in connection with the affair. But the penetration of the communication system seems to account for the speed and accuracy with which Chinese authorities moved against the CIA’s China-based assets. "You could tell the Chinese weren’t guessing. The Ministry of State Security [which handles both foreign intelligence and domestic security] were always pulling in the right people," one of the officials said. "When things started going bad, they went bad fast." The former officials also said the real number of CIA assets and those in their orbit executed by China during the two-year period was around 30, though some sources spoke of higher figures. The New York Times, which first reported the story last year, put the number at "more than a dozen." All the CIA assets detained by Chinese intelligence around this time were eventually killed, the former officials said. But don't worry, they'll protect us from having a president who's been peed on by Russian prostitutes, that's for sure. Never mind that everyone else who sides with the US against the commies winds up as a horrible example. Platte River Network (PRN) 'home brew’ servers and Nellie Ohr ham radio training could have prevented much of this unpleasantness, had they not been on other assignments. Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2018-08-17 |
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